ANOTHER VOICE

If they don't recognise you in Whitechapel, you're not famous

PETRONELLA WYATT

Herewith a cautionary tale. The Amer- ican actor, Mr Mickey Rourke, was in Lon- don a few days ago. During his stay, Mr Rourke decided to visit the Britannia Hotel on the Isle of Dogs (his reasons for doing so are beside the point — they were wholly innocent).

I once visited the Britannia Hotel. At the time, I was working for the Sunday Tele- graph, whose offices are almost opposite. It was a late Saturday afternoon and there was nowhere else to go for lunch. I would not have gone there had the choice been varied. The hotel had atmostphere — of the wrong kind.

Still, Mr Rourke, who, judging by his photographs, has a face that would frighten off anyone, seemed to feel at home there. 'I like the East End, I really fit in,' he told a newspaper. That was until he went to Whitechapel. In a more plaintive vein, Mr Rourke added, 'I got lost in Whitechapel and no one recognised me.'

Mr Rourke is supposed to be 'world famous'. We know this because the news- papers describe him as such. He has made a pretentious and raunchy film in which he featured with Miss Kim Basinger and some ice-cream; he talks, from time to time, with blinding ignorance, about politics; he makes a noise in restaurants — all sure indications of being 'world famous'. Even I, moreover, have heard of him.

What does being 'world famous' mean? It suggests, surely, that one is famous in every part of the world. Yet Mr Rourke is not famous in Whitechapel. He failed to be recognised there. This is puzzling. Why would they not recognise Mr. Rourke in Whitechapel, when they would doubtless recognise him in West End restaurants? Is there something wrong with Mr Rourke, or is there something wrong with Whitechapel?

It is tempting to say that there is some- thing wrong with Mr Rourke, who feels that he has to complain to the newspapers every time he is ignored by the citizens of East London. But the answer, in fact, is neither. The answer is that there is some- thing wrong with the very nature of modern fame.

Like MPs, most celebrities now appeal only to a particular, defined constituency. There are a few exceptions to this: the Princess of Wales, Michael Jackson, Pavarotti perhaps, on account of his size (Whitechapel would have had to call in the fire brigade). But it is generally the case that being 'world famous' now means being famous to only a part of the world.

Mr Rourke is an unwitting symbol of a late 20th-century phenomenon: the frag- mentation of fame. This, one must assume, has been largely caused by the fragmenta- tion of culture. Once, Western culture had a relatively cohesive frame. Celebrities crossed social strata and generations. There was no need to be prolier-than-thou. Not a man or a boy in Whitechapel would have failed to identify Henry Irving, Pavlova, or Lillie Langtry; nor, a few decades later, Gable, Cagney or Judy Garland.

Part of the universal celebrity of such people can be attributed to urbanisation. The American sociologist, Mr Louis Worth, has distinguished between the idea of 'community', where individuals knew one another, and the idea of 'society', where secondary relationships increasingly supplanted primary ones. The early decades of the century transformed western countries from communities into societies. Celebrities provided one of the lost ingredi- ents of the community: a common reference.

These people, then, were famous to a majority. They had what might be called `majority fame'. This is because culture, in those days, catered by common consent to a majority — that majority being largely defined, rightly or wrongly, as consisting of white families with similar aspirations. Now celebrities like Mr Rourke possess what could be described as 'minority fame'. This is because culture now directs itself almost exlusively at minority groups.

Ever since the grisly James Dean, the first 'teenage icon', culture has been bun- dled into compartments. The Rolling And they say the streets of London are paved with lottery tickets.' Stones, for example, were put into the one marked 'rebellious youth', though they have now moved into the one called 'ageing middle-class swingers'. Black performers such as Denzil Washington are aimed at newly powerful 'ethnic groups'. Even some television programmes have been specifi- cally designed for the `C2s', under the extraordinary missaprehension that it would prevent working-class 'alienation'.

Thus, there is a dispropportionate num- ber of middle-class people who have not heard, say, of Mr Lenny Henry, the cock- ney comedian, where once they would have heard of Max Miller; just as the `C2s' are unlikely to recognise Islington's favourite ballerina, Miss Darcey Bussell, where once they would have known Pavlova. What of Mr Rourke? He is recognised chiefly by middle-class people who like raunchy films masquerading as art (this is the group, I must concede, into which I fall).

If anyone is looking for evidence of a divided society, they should seek it here, not in the House of Lords or the Monar- chy, or Royal Ascot, or in the cardboard boxes under London Bridge. They should seek it in Mr Mickey Rourke, whom we should thank, despite his pique, for drawing the matter to public attention. And we have no one to blame for it but ourselves — our educationalists, our social workers, our politicians; in fine, our continous genuflec- tions to the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society.

One must also, to be fair, consider the modern media's insatiable appetite for fame. Like diamonds, the prestige of fame depends upon its controlled and limited output. But we are flooded daily with alleged celebrities; their intrinsic value, therefore, has fallen. It is no longer a mat- ter, as Andy Warhol said, of everybody being famous for 15 minutes; it is a matter of complete and utter nobodies having three and a half minutes on the Richard and Judy show. I have some advice for Mr Rourke. Give it up. Fame has lost its glitter and its glam- our, its golden tinge. What is the point of celebrity, after all, when it goes unacknowl- edged? Ambrose Bierce, the American satirist (now only recognised by the social group known as 'middle-class smart-alece), once said something about being famous. He defined it as 'conspicuously miserable'. Life, surely, is miserable enough without having to be inconspicuous in Whitechapel.