America' Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Re-invention Pt. 2

August 7, 10:15 PMPop Culture ExaminerDominic Patten

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COURTNEY LOVE AND DAUGHTER FRANCIS BEAN COBAIN GLAM IT UP!

So last post, I mentioned my fascination with the American virtue of re-invention and how we live in a nation where it truly doesn't matter where you came from but, as they used to say in hip hop years ago, where you're going.

A sprinkle of Paris Hilton, Brett Favre and Mike Tyson to make a point that Andy Warhol, a Pittsburgh boy who was master of Manhattan re-invention, made a very lucrative career out of.   

As slight or as great as their influence goes, Paris, Brett, Mike, or Andy are far from the most famous or infamous re-inventors.

Al Gore has gone from the wooden policy wonk who, in a time of peace and prosperity, lost an election that was virtually being handed to him to a Nobel Prize winning social visionary who has the ear of the world on how to handle the climate control crisis. In the same vein, after years of funding anti-global warming think tanks, ExxonMobil has jumped on the sufficiency and sustainability bandwagon with those fancy B&W TV ads airing seemingly even 10 minutes.

Bill O'Reilly went from being to the back up anchor on the infotainment show Inside Edition in the late Eighties to today serving as the ratings champion on Fox News. That Bill is now a fighting fair and balanced journalist of record as he looks out for "the folks." 

Courtney Love bound from sad stripper to sadder actress in Straight to Hell to the leader singer of Hole, motherhood and then the widow of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. She then understandably went way off the deep end, only to come back as the best word for word lyricist in rock, a glamorous feminist icon, and an Oscar nomination for her role in The People vs. Larry Flint where she made the huge stretch of playing the porn king's drug addicted ex-stripper wife. Then there was a disastrous solo album, a spiral in to more drugs and financial woes, rehab and then too many court cases. Then suddenly Courtney, who never fails to have something up her sleeve, was clean, raising her incredibly well adjusted daughter again, losing weight and ready to jump back in the spotlight she dominated so well. Now she seems to have lost it again.

Jon Stewart went from being a minor league stand up comedian, bit part actor, and the host of MTV's cringe inducingYou Wrote It, You Watch It in 1992 and the syndicated fill in for Arsenio Hall to the becoming host of the award winning mock news series The Daily Show, where he interviews the powerbrokers and leading lights of our time, in 1999. Stewart, who at least has the grace to acknowledge that he really laid it all out in 2002’s Death to Smoochy, has also hosted the Oscars twice, roasted Presidents and stormed up the best sellers lists with America (The Book) 

George W. Bush, as director Oliver Stone, who’s tried to reinvent himself as box office success more than a few times, is going to make clear in the fall with his bio-flick W, is a well traveled re-invention in progress.

SEE THE W TRAILER HERE

He went from being an alcoholic rich kid frat boy who couldn't hold a job and couldn’t please his father to save his life to a clean and sober minded war President, with admittedly rock bottom poll numbers, who wants to bring democracy to the darkest corners of the world.

Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee has gone from being a hard partying ADD addled jailed wife beater to a best selling confessional author and environmental enthusiast, and he's back living with ex-wife Pam Anderson. 

Jim Carey, Adam Sandler and Mike Myers have all re-invented themselves at one time or another as dramatic actors. 

Jessie Ventura went from bread and circus' wrestler to bread and circus' Governor of Minnesota to pony-tailed cable TV pundit. Ozzy Osbourne went from being the bat and dove eating coke and booze fuelled Prince of heavy metal Darkness to the loveable befuddled reality TV Dad and White House Correspondents Association dinner guest. 

Vanessa Williams slide from beauty queen to skin mag to disgraced beauty queen up to singer, actress and beloved American survivor. Martha Stewart went from the "all good" perfect homemaker to the dirty dealing of insider trading to prison and then right back, minus a bad stint hosting her own version of the Apprentice, to the perfect TV homemaker. 

James Frey spiralled down the causeway of addictions to best selling memoirist to exposure as a total phony to moderately well selling novelist. Michael Moore went from being the editor of the prestigious Mother Jones to the Oscar winning documentarian voice of the people, while remarkably living a Park Avenue lifestyle at the same time. 

Boy band frontman Justin Timberlake, who should be no more than a 21st century version of David Cassidy, not only supposedly brought sexy back a few years ago but has become a beloved multi-platinum multi-media crossover superstar. Madonna just keeps reinventing herself depending on what style or sound she can steal.

Angelina Jolie went from blood drinking, brother kissing Hollywood royalty to a couture draped Earth Mother and U.N. Ambassador. She even made boyfriend Brad Pitt, who has transformed himself from just being a sweet Tinseltown stoner dude with abs of steel to an indie kingpin and would-be architect, seem actually interesting.

As Britney Spears tries to get her sweet and sexy step back after a very bad couple of overly medicated years, her ex-husband and former back-up dancer Kevin Feverlaine has gone from being a freeloading bad influence to the clean cut responsible Dad of the Year. A nudge nudge wink wink testimony, like Paris' campaign ad on Funnyordie.com, to the notion that if you act like you get the joke you cease to be a joke - all the more so if you're famous. 

In a country where behind almost every great fortune there is some crime or    scandal and where we still fly the flag of meritocracy, little sticks. 

All it takes, as a partially resurrected Tom Cruise can tell you, is a good PR agent, a new wardrobe, a couple of new kids and a new cause. Get that and all is forgotten. Perhaps it is because America is such a church going nation, or perhaps it is because Americans are an optimistic people who seek to right our own wrongs. After all America is the nation that bombed Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan almost back in to the Stone Age in World War II, and then spent millions helping those nations rebuild and become successful modern day democracies and close allies. 

On the downside, you've got people who've gone from worst to bad and in some cases, down right nasty. Bill Clinton, who has never met a re-invention he couldn't contort himself into, continues to show these punks how it’s done. 

The 42nd President of the U.S.A. was once called America's "first Black President" by no less than Toni Morrison. The best selling Noble Prize and Pulitzer winning author was referring to the empathy she felt Clinton had to those attacked and oppressed based on the circumstances of the boy from Hope's early life and it's similarity to that of many African-American men. The phrase entered the national lexicon faster than that blue dress, that cigar and Monica Lewinsky did the Oval Office. 

That was in 1998. Today, Bill Clinton, who showed his truculent and raging side in Hilary Clinton's Presidential campaign, has to declare that he is "not a racist" and having been abandoned by his black base. And he's not happy about it.

Look at poor little rich girl Mary-Kate Olsen, that is if she isn't turned sideways and you can actually see the skinny thing.  The ultimate child star, along with her twin sister Ashley, must be jumping for joy that the feds suddenly closed down the Heath Ledger probe on August 6th and she now doesn't have to tell them voluntarily or under subpoena why the Dark Knight star's masseuse called Mary-Kate first when she discovered Ledger's body, why she didn't contact medical services as soon as she heard about his possible OD and why she sent her bodyguards over. Still, while out of court, the darkness that seems to spiral around the once sunny Olsen twins has gotten all the thicker.

As for the soon to be Republican standard-bearer, John McCain...well, what can you say? The once media beloved upbeat maverick moderate Senator who ran against George W. Bush in the GOP primaries in 2000 has become a mean spirited, status quo maintaining grumpy old man. A genuine war hero, McCain seems more miffed that his opponent Barack Obama is more popular with the media than he is. It's embarrassingly like one of those guys who is still wanting to live out his high school glory days than have pride in what they've accomplished and get on with growing up.

Do you think he's gonna start wearing tight black tees and get plugs soon?

Sometimes re-invention truly is about feeling no shame.