What I Think of When I Think of George Clooney

Celebs are just like us…only a little more recognizable and a lot richer. But they are humans too.  And if they are regular folks like us they too, would crave to do what we, in our capacity as humans, do?

If you were to believe a majority of the cover stories from Esquire to down to Man’s World then some of these guys try ridiculously hard to come across as regular people. I remember my younger days when the daily magazinewala would do the needful to enrich our lives. Once a month it would be the time for Femina or Savvy and while the former appeared to be about the glossier things in life, the changeover happened in the early 1990’s, the Savvy Woman of the Month was an inspirational tale for anyone who bothered to leaf through. The only reason I didn’t want to know everything about Zeenat Aman when it was her turn to be the Savvy Woman of the month was that somewhere she came across as, well, regular. Pained, troubled and sometimes unloved just like any 8^th grader would feel on most school days, it troubled me to see someone like Ms. Aman appear unlike the celestial body that I had learnt to accept her as.

The idea of Savvy woman of the month or the Man’s World cover story, try and read the first Ranbir Kapoor cover where he comes across as a over-sexed teenager, is to show that there’s a real human being behind the glitter. Agreed. Everyone knows how films are made and how Peter Jackson infused real emotions into King Kong Version 2005, so do we still think these people have come from some other planet? It’s not like Manto portrait of Ashok Kumar from the 1940’s where people thought of stars as some sort of super-humans, so should we really care about that kind of writing anymore?

The randomness that propelled me to think out this post was that when Brad Pitt and George Clooney meet, do they click photos of each other? They might be the best of friends and I’m sure they hang out often and do things that friends would do on a lazy day. Of course, the mundane me picking up a buddy would be slightly different when Pitt and Jolie and their bachas are picked up George Uncle in his yacht (I‘m imagining he has one) and ferried off to his island (I’m imagining he rents one, at least). But they still don’t get to do normal things, now do they? I mean is Pitt tweeting ‘Chomping with Clooney while wifey smiles at Maddox sipping his juice’?

Celebs especially the Pitt and Clooney variety are more committed to saving the nation, the world and humanity or whatever they feel like rescuing that week, so I don’t think they are as regular as us. We don’t crave adopting children from every exotic corner of the world that we frequent, by the way adopting is a good thing; we don’t champion the cause of liberating Sudan while guzzling beers on a Friday evening; we hardly bother about the massiveness of the African debt…you get it. So unless someone proves it I’m not going to believe that Pitt sends Clooney an email with the subject line that goes something like ‘pics from yesterday’ and Clooney downloads them and slideshows them the next time Pitt-Jolie and the kiddos come over!

Sometimes, in sticky situations, we inspire ourselves to think like our heroes would. What would Scorsese do with here? This is what my mind keeps hearing every time I’m fighting to come up with the best to do in a set-up. Now imagine a socially stickable situation; no matter how stuck you might be you’ll never catch telling yourself how would Brad Pitt get out of this one. Do you ever hear your inner voice yelling, think like Picasso man, just think like Picasso when the nagging personality from the neighboring cubicle catches you unawares in an office get together, now do you? Yeah so if celebs are heroes and just like us why is that we never imagine them in regular domesticated situations?