Can you name the 7 Deadly Sins (a.k.a Vices)? Even though guilty of all of them, I could only name one for sure, gluttony, until I looked them up. In addition to gluttony, here are the other six: Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, and Lust. See, I HAVE been guilty of them all! LOL. However, the one I want to focus on in this post, and the only one I knew off the top of my head, is gluttony.
I don't know why I remembered gluttony and not the others. Perhaps it's because I'm Sicilian and we focus so much of our energy on FOOD. We spend so much effort on preparing, serving, and eating it that it has become part of our collective consciousness. We even dream about it. So, I suppose that it's kind of natural for me to fall into the gluttony trap. However, even with that said, I believe another reason that I remember it above the others is because I DISLIKE gluttony so much. I am indeed a healthy eater and have been blessed to have the means to eat well. But at the same time, I never forget those who have not been so blessed. Therefore, like greed (a topic already discussed on this blog), I find gluttony understandable but distasteful. Like greed, gluttony is the most selfish of human emotion. It implies that you want not only your share of the pie, but of everyone else's pie, as well!
So, with this in mind, I can't stand the proliferation and popularity of so-called Eating Contests, the most famous of which is the Nathan's sponsored hot dog eating event at Coney Island. What started as a curious side show to promote people coming to the boardwalk, thanks to national television coverage by ESPN, has become a huge media event with hundreds of participants and a huge, "live" TV audience. WHY? I am truly disgusted to see the participants (known as competitive eaters) cramming and ramming hot dogs down their throats, chugging water to get them down more easily, while the gooey mess is spurting from their mouths, noses, and who knows what other orifices!! This is entertaining - watching people turn themselves into gluttonous pigs in a feeding frenzy? Really? Yet millions watch, mesmerized, as the partially digested food litters the "battlefield". Winners, like Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, take on legendary status. After devouring 7.5 pound of turkey in 10 minutes last week, Dan Rollman, President of the website recordsetter.com had this to say about Kobayashi: It was a true honor to be so close to such a legend. A legend? For stuffing his face, gut and colon to the point of explosion? A legend? Oh, I'm sure that his feats put him in a league with Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, and Roger Bannister!!
Look, I try not to make mountains out of molehills (but, then again, perhaps I see doing that as part of my job), so I don't know if I should just dismiss this as harmless fun or not. But that wouldn't be me. I see this phenomenon as an indicator of things much larger and, unfortunately, much darker. First, people WORSHIP celebrity. As a society, we worship it. Otherwise, how would you explain the enormous success of people famous for just being famous, like Kim Kardashian? How would explain the continued popularity of horrifyingly bad TV shows like Jersey Shore? You explain it by realizing that the lure of fame is intoxicating. People want to be like THEM. They want to live like THEM. They want to be worshipped just like THEM.
Because of today's technology, fame can be as rapid and overwhelming as it is fleeting. Kobayashi is a legend because he is famous for something. That makes him a celebrity and that's enough. And, second, people tend to display the herding tendencies of sheep i.e. they will follow. And when ESPN began hyping the event to create buzz (and they were VERY successful at doing just that), everyone jumped on that bandwagon. So much so that there is MAJOR INTERNATIONAL news coverage of the event every year. ESPN said it's a sport worthy of highly produced, "live" coverage. And the public eats it up (pun intended), year after year.
Well, I have to say that even as "a child of Coney Island" who loves the bizarre eccentricities of the place, The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is just a little too bizarre, even for me. I never watch - it's my little protest to help keep gluttony at bay. Besides, I don't even like hot dogs.
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