Congratulations, Elton and David!

[poliphilo]

I like Elton John. Always have done. Even at his glammest, silliest, most diamante-studded-bespectacled. I think he's a brave little tyke. I think he rings true.

And now he's become historically significant by becoming the first famous person to enter into a same-sex marriage under the new rules.

Well done him!

Comments

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

"lack of personal vanity"?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I know it sounds silly, but I was really impressed by the intimate documentary that David Furnish made a few years back which showed Elton throwing tantrums and being paranoid and hanging out with his granny and all the other stuff that a vainer star would have insisted never saw the light of day.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i see what you're saying... i suppose it depends how you define vanity. people can be vain about some things and not vain about others. i remember reading that when elton toured with billy joel, the whole tour was one extended catfight over who would get the best suite in each hotel, as though getting the next-best suite was some horrendous, intolerable insult. one can be vain and just not give a damn about public image.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

in fact, might it not be MORE vain to not care about public image? to have such an exaggerated sense of self as to think your status and success couldn't be affected by a documentary exposing your oddities and flaws? (or perhaps to have grown so accustomed to the vanities of stardom that you don't even recognize the oddness and flaws in your behavior?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not going to defend his scrapping with Billy Joel.

There's no doubt the guy's damaged and conflicted. I'd say his celebrity bad behavious is rooted in a huge inferiority complex and a fear of being found out. "Here am I, ugly, balding, little Reg Dwight from Pinner and people only love me because of my music." But I think, in recent years, he's become much more comfortable in his own skin. I take the Furnish film as a sign of that.

I've always thought that there was an element of ironic self-parody in the extravagance and the dressing up. When he appeared at his 50th birthday bash dressed as Marie Antoinette in a six foot wig with a ship in it, he must have been aware of how silly he looked.

I don't think it's possible for someone as famous and rich as Elton is to keep fully in touch with reality, but I think he manages better than most. I compare him wth Tom Cruise or Madonna or even Paul McCartney and think, "this guy's still got the tips of his toes on the ground."