A game show exposes millennium class problems.
Even Andy Warhol would be embarrassed at the blatancy of the new Hulu-TV game show Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? The late-Sixties prediction attributed to Warhol — “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” — might be apocryphal, but it perfectly condenses Warhol’s prevailing concept of “pop” as art and a state of mind. It has been so stretched and strained by reality TV that “15 minutes” can mean an episode, a season, a news cycle, or a ludicrous half-hour game show.
Perfectly cast as the host of Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?, Travis Kelce, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, grabs the brass ring of opportunity. Blue-eyed, beefy jock Kelce is not the host in order to show what he’s good at, but simply for whom he dates — Taylor Swift, the most celebrated pop singer and serial man hunter in the world. This game-show spot rewards Kelce for his concubinage.
The show’s producers have figured out lowest-common-denominator appeal, counting on tabloid notoriety and underrating the public’s intelligence. This includes Kelce’s identity as “Mr. Pfizer,” the moniker by which New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers derided Kelce’s TV ads as a Covid-vaccine hustler.
Is Kelce handsome, friendly, or smart? These are not criteria of exceptionalism. TV producers know what politicians hide: What makes a celebrity likable — or electable — is indefinable. It can come from luck, temerity, or simply an advertising budget, the latter definitively proved in the 1954 Judy Holliday film It Should Happen to You.
This game-show format obscures the bothersome fact that we are constantly led by media-chosen moral and intellectual inferiors. (Check out any host of a Sunday-morning TV political talk show.) Kelce asserts the game’s emphasis on “things we learned in elementary school,” an implicit indictment of our inferior education system that produces generations of illiterate, uninformed adults. (If they’re lucky, they wind up in show business — as celebrity guests or contestants.)
Consider the show’s grade-school-level categories: first-grade music and social studies; second-grade geography and mathematics; third-grade science and measurements; fourth-grade world history and vocabulary; fifth-grade animal science and art. The idea is not to humiliate the D-listers but to convince viewers that celebrities are just like us — inured to Taylor Swift’s promiscuity and Barack Obama’s scolding the anti-Kamala “brothas.” As authoritarians commanded during the Covid lockdowns: “We are all in this together.”
Celebrityhood is now a sign of our unannounced class conflict. It redefines “equality” — anyone can become a celebrity without exhibiting notable skill or talent. Given this phenomenon, media-approved famous people mostly lack any inherent distinction. Kelce needn’t demonstrate expertise, and neither does the panel of celebrity-class obscurities: Nicole Byer, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ron Funches, Lala Kent, and Sophia Stallone, who each recall schoolroom nobodies. (The show is derived from the British game series Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old? which became the American series Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?)
But this pathetic crew is not really what we want. The show doesn’t satisfy our need to challenge so-called experts — whether obnoxious politicians, preening actors, or dishonest journalists — hoping to expose their lies, vanity, or arrogance. Because so many celebrities presume to lecture us on behavior and politics, the game’s display of ignorance on both the professional and civilian side is stunning.
This era of media intimidation has pushed us past honest admiration or respect for those who earn it. Among the show’s producer and writer credits is Mark Burnett, best known for The Apprentice. He just might be seeking revenge on those pundits who think Donald Trump’s presidency had nothing to do with his previous career in real estate and property development, or his social identity and public works, but was simply the result of the TV show The Apprentice.
Television’s tendency to play down to the masses — manipulating our individual needs for attention, for agreement, or simply to win — is an insuperable problem at this particular, shameless moment in pop culture. (It’s the era of dis- and misinformation, deepfakes and cheap-fakes.) TV’s showbiz protocol mirrors the audacity of politicians treating the electorate as idiots. That’s why Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? is both a challenge and an insult. Like our politics, it’s a game show devoid of fairness and fun.
