There are two sides to all celebrities: The squeaky-clean images forced upon the public by PR reps and their actual personalities. To provide you with a glimpse into the real Hollywood characters are Mollygood’s very own readers, telling tales of celebrity encounters big and small. Up this week: Reader Shanna's meeting with Flavor Flav.
I had a run-in with the Foofy man himself, Flavor Flav, last week at the Dublin, IE airport. I was standing in line at the ATM with about a dozen other people. As the person at the front finished up and left the line, I realized it was Flav. He was without any entourage, and was wearing very normal clothing, a polo shirt and jeans. He was a lot more 'cleaned up' than he looks on TV, and there was no flashy bling.
He smiled when the few Americans in line recognized him and stopped to say hi. He was actually fairly soft-spoken, and didn’t talk at all like he does on TV. He posed for pictures and signed some autographs, shaking hands and asking people if they were here on vacation and even offering some advice on things to see in Dublin. He looked at his cell phone after a few minutes and said he had to go or he would miss his ride. He waved, gave some hugs, and then left. He was genuinely very nice and low-key. Just leads me to believe that a lot of how he acts and talks on TV is just as scripted as his reality show.
E-mail your own celebrity encounters to whitney@mollygood.com.
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Editor
This is actually kind of sad. I assumed racist producers were taking advantage of an unintelligent, desperate, washed up celebrity. In fact, William Jonathan Drayton, Jr. is to blame for his own minstrel show.
Damn - I got beat to the minstrel comment, but I would never believe he was being Bamboozled in the first place, he's PE baby. The broader question is whether your responsibility is to yourself or to society and if you have to choose, whether it's fair to judge - look at the trauma it caused Dave Chappelle.
Wow, that's a really interesting way to pose the issue. My first reaction was, "Of course you're responsible to society for your negative impact!" But throwing the personal element into it, perhaps Flavor Flav realized the only way he could see success was to create this character. That was a key theme in Lee's "Bamboozled," and why he ended the film with a montage honoring the actors of that era.
Regarding Public Enemy, Flavor Flav stood out as the clown in contrast to the heavy lyrical content; perhaps they wouldn't have been as successful without his levity.
On a completely different subject, I really like the song "Tangerine Speedo."
Funny you say that, I just went on “M y I n t e r r a c i a l M a t c h . c o M" and it's just what I suspected - photo after photo of recycled lolcats.
We ALL create charaters. All of us.
Are you really the same person when you are at home with your family and/or trusted people as that person that you are at work?
Do you act at a meetings with higher ups when you are proposing your next year's project, the same way you act with your on-the-internet chat room friends?
When you want to make people laugh don't you have to stretch it a little?
We all bring a little character enhancement to whom we really are to entertain ourselves from time to time. And we do that to entertain our colleages, as well. And, we do it to spice up our home lives.
Whatever works. That's what I say.
(I don't let anyone take pictures, ever, EVER.
If word gets out about your different selves:
Deny, Deny, Deny, is what I say.)
Queencrone:
Is it really "character creation" or just saving different facets of your authentic self for the appropriate audience?
Am I in "character" when I use a soft, affectionate tone to talk to my 3 yr old, but a firm, formal tone when I talk to a dishonest, defensive, difficult client in my professional life as an attorney? Is it a different "character" I show my husband when I dance in a silly way that makes him laugh until he's holding his sides and crying? Would I ever do that dance for my mother? Of course not. We don't show all or the same facets of our personalities to everyone in our life and it doesn't make us dishonest or schizophrenic. It makes us intelligent.