It Was The Best Butter

[poliphilo]

I'm not particularly fond of my younger self- and if people kept coming up to me expecting me to be just like him I'd get cross.

It must be horrid to be middle-aged and still famous for something you did when you were a gobby kid. You'd feel trapped, like you couldn't move on. It would be like carrying a corpse around.

And maybe that's the reason- aside from the money, aside from wanting to prolong his fame- why Johnny Rotten did that stupid butter ad.  He wanted to ditch the cadaver.

He wanted to upset his fans.

And yes, it's always sad when a hero sells out.

Simple remedy: don't have any heroes in the first place.

Comments

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

You know, I can acknowledge logically that you're right. And it would be different if he wasn't still-- I don't know-- still pretending to be something. But even if I acknowledge it logically, it offends me.

I'm sure that he needed the money, and I'm sure that there are all kinds of reasons for him as a person. And him as a person probably doesn't give a shit what other people think.

But it's really okay for fans to mourn the icon, or at least I think it is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here.

I hate advertising with a passion.

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

Your point about his younger self is well taken. But I don't really buy the whole most-punk-thing-that-he-can-still-do is advertise butter.

Sigh.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I really buy it either.

I'm making excuses for him. That's all. I think it's sad he's been trapped by his own image.

[oakmouse]

He tried to be John Lydon and grow past the punk, but people wanted him to stay Johnny Rotten. Or at least that's what I saw happening to him.

Pity he has to descend to a butter advert, though.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember his music as Lydon getting good reviews- about ten years ago.

[oakmouse]

It did, and with reason, but it didn't sell for beans. Or so I heard. And without the hard cold ka-ching of the cash register, you gotta do something to keep the money coming in.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*scratches head* Come to that, the only heroes I had in my life were fictional... and my parents. Hmm.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Aye, me too on the fictional characters as heroes! I wonder what that means...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My heroes are all safely dead.

[oakmouse]

Or perhaps be aware that heroes are human beings too? As my dad used to say, we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

It's just that nowadays people think heroes who put their pants on one leg at a time have feet of clay and are failing as heroes. Really, we don't want heroes to be human beings. We've lost the awareness our ancestors had that heroes are capable of being asses too. Look at Cuchulainn, for pete's sake, or Heracles. They weren't precisely untarnished silver 24/7/365. And yet we want our heroes to be always shiny and on their pedestals. Of course they're going to fall, being held to standards like that.

It would be nice if heroes could stay heroic all the time, but they can't, and I think deep down underneath we know it. After all, what do critics say about fictional heroes who are heroic all the time? That they're unrealistic.

It's a tough subject.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think any hero can be safely confirmed in their heroic status until after they're dead. It's a bit like sanctity, really- the claim has to be tested, the evidence sifted, the durability of the reputation ascertained. Most heroes are controversial in their own time- even Hercules and Cuchulain probably were.

[oakmouse]

I don't doubt they were, to the extent that news passed far enough for the controversy to be more than a local fuss.

You're probably right. Only we do have the bad habit of looking for live heroes!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I played the ad. I thought it was charming. If they reconstitute Monty Python and need an extra, he has my vote. I think there may be a cameo for him in Harry Potter VII, too.

Maybe he just did it because he thought it was a hoot, and the money was also nice.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's very Pythonesque. Rotten is reinventing himself as a beloved British institution.