» Author Wenzel satirizes celebrity culture By Regis Behe | DESIGN SHRINE | Your Source for Interior, Web and Style Design

My husband is Kurt Wenzel, the novelist. Here is his latest interview regarding his new novel, Exposure (Little, Brown & Co.).

TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 19, 2007

About 15 years ago, before the unholy trinity of Britney, Lindsay and Paris became inescapable, before the Internet had hourly updates about celebrity scandals and faux pas, Kurt Wenzel and a roommate were kicking around an idea for a screenplay. What if a celebrity became so famous, so much larger-than-life, they were at risk of dying from overexposure? Wenzel never did sell the screenplay, but thought enough of the premise to turn it into his third novel, "Exposure." Little did he realize that so much of his original idea would anticipate so much of what is going on in what is loosely termed "culture."

"It is extraordinary now to watch these three silly girls running around Hollywood with 40-year-old men telling them how wonderful they are, taking their picture," Wenzel says. "They don't really do anything. Who could have imagined this was going to happen? As we become more and more of a mass society, the idea of fame becomes more appealing, because people feel more and more anonymous. I think that's part of what propels this culture."

"Exposure" is set in 2017, with actor Colt Reston as the most famous person on the planet. He's a combination of Tom Cruise, Tiger Woods and David Beckham, molded into a god-like figure by his powerful publicity team. His fame has ostensibly made him a prisoner in his home, and he's reliant on his longtime friend and former minor league baseball teammate, Marshall Reed, for advice, companionship and script re-writes.

Reed suffers his own demons, namely an inability to replicate the brilliance of his screenplay -- "considered one of the greatest ever written" -- for the film "Chula Vista," his lone creative success. Not to mention he relies on booze and a designer drug, Bliss, to get him through each day. Wenzel believes the worship of and fascination with the famous is now more prevalent than ever.

"I think there's a level of invasiveness now that there wasn't before, following people in cars, sleeping outside their doorsteps," Wenzel says. "I think there was a level of civility before that has been broken now. People are always going to be fascinated with fame; it's human nature. I think it's worse than it's ever been. Plus, just the sheer ubiquity of entertainment channels and paparazzi, there's much more than there's ever been before."

Even if a person tries to tune out celebrity misadventures, such news has penetrated outlets who used to shun such fluff. The newscasts on broadcast stations regularly cover the exploits of Ms. Spears, Lohan and Hilton, and the cable news channels feast on their lives like the mountain lions in "Exposure" that have become addicted to fast food scraps.

"It's a monster that the more people get, the more they want," Wenzel says, "and we're more than willing to give it to them."

One of the subplots in the novel concerns ReStars, the insidious use of deceased actors in commercials and advertisements. This also is nothing new -- Fred Astaire has danced with a vacuum cleaner, John Wayne shilled for a beer and Humphrey Bogart, Groucho Marx and James Cagney hawked a soft drink in commercials long after they passed away. But Wenzel takes it one step further in "Exposure," with a director casting an entire galaxy of dead stars in a movie.

"I think it's unfair to bring somebody back from the dead to promote a product they have no say in, whether they appreciate the product or not," Wenzel says. "I guarantee you're going to see this: As they develop this technology, I think one day you're going to see Matt Damon and Cary Grant in a movie together. I think it's inevitable, and it's really disconcerting."

Setting "Exposure" in Los Angeles seems like an obvious choice. But Wenzel, who lives on Long Island in East Hampton, N.Y., also was making a subtle statement about what he believes has been a westward shift in terms of American sensibilities.

"New York is much less interesting than it's ever been," Wenzel says. "I think in a lot of ways, Los Angeles has sort of replaced New York as the focal American city. I think it's become a more and more quintessentially American city, because of the sprawl, because of the dominance of the celebrity culture. There's one city that tends to dominate a nation, and right now I think L.A. is that city."

Los Angeles (and New York) in 2007 are starting to look like Wenzel's version in "Exposure," circa 2017. One of the inventions he envisioned in that long ago screenplay -- and that's used extensively in the novel -- are moving image billboards, or MIBs. A cross between high-definition televisions and drive-in movie screens, they dominate the landscape, with Reston's image endlessly reproduced.

"It's sort of disconcerting, because I thought of this idea for moving image billboards in the mid-90s," Wenzel says. "And now, if you go into Manhattan -- and I'm sure this is true where you are, as well -- they're there. There are these huge digital billboards as you go into the Lincoln Tunnel, and now there are some in the subways. ... I saw a few in L.A, too. I have a feeling in 10 years from now, people are going to look back at this novel and think, 'My God, it's not as much hyperbole as we thought.' "

Regis Behe can be reached at [email protected] or (412)320-7990.