By now we’re used to seeing C-level celebrities and below submit themselves to all manner of humiliation simply to get a few minutes of TV time. They compete to lose weight, they let cameras into their homes or put themselves into homes filled with cameras, they attempt to dance, or race cars, or ride bulls or ice skate. They get made fun of by snarky judges and late-night hosts and anonymous people online and even lower-level celebrities who would jump at the chance to appear on one of these shows if only it were offered to them. Is it any wonder that these people turn to drugs, or to Donald Trump?
Back-to-back evidence of the degradation inherent in being a celebrity in 2008 is available every Thursday, with NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice at 9 p.m. followed by VH1’s Celebrity Rehab at 10. Each show features a group of “famous” people you mostly either haven’t heard of or have only heard of thanks to their appearances on previous reality shows; a self-righteous blowhard of a host imparting suspect expertise to the participants; and a Baldwin brother. Obviously, one is meant as mostly harmless fluff, while the other presents itself as a serious examination of a disease that disproportionately afflicts the famous (or so the opening of Celebrity Rehab would have you believe). Yet both shows offer the same chance for forgotten or merely obscure fame-seekers to jump-start the careers that they theoretically were pursuing before being derailed into reality TV (well, all of them except Omarosa, that is).
Some of the participants in Celebrity Rehab really, really do need help: Actor Jeff Conaway (Grease, Taxi, Babylon 5) looks on the verge of death virtually every second he’s onscreen, and notes that he’s attempted suicide 21 times. He’s received treatment before from Rehab host/counselor Dr. Drew, when he was on VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club and his drug problem took precedence over that show’s generally more lighthearted theme of weight loss. And American Idol also-ran Jessica Sierra (who’s been arrested again since the show ended) and former Crazy Town singer Seth Binzer both have obvious and serious addictions that demand treatment. If the way to get them clean was to put them on TV, well, then the show has actually done something good.
Other participants seem less dedicated and less in need, and like maybe they would have just taken a spot on The Celebrity Apprentice instead if they’d had the chance. They’re at least as addicted to attention as they are to any controlled substance. Least famous Baldwin brother Daniel claims to be sober already, and instead offers arrogant, self-serving pronouncements to his fellow rehabbers. Were he only one rung up on the Baldwin-fame ladder, he might have been on Apprentice like his brother Stephen, best known for being a born-again Christian, and just as smug and condescending as Daniel.
Just as the rehabbers aren’t necessarily trying their hardest to defeat their addictions, the apprentices aren’t making much of an effort to succeed in business, turning Trump’s trashy but intermittently educational show into an exercise in who has the biggest Rolodex and/or name recognition. Playing for charity rather than a job in the Trump organization, they have nothing at stake except their own images, which makes Apprentice no different from any other celeb-focused reality show. Rather than learning about marketing or business plans or dealing with clients, the participants approach every challenge as an opportunity to exploit their own fame or proximity to the fame of others. Which, of course, is exactly what appearing on shows like this is about in the first place.