The end of integrity?

Maybe I am just becoming more cynical as I get older but it seems to me like personal integrity is a lost virtue. The message I hear loud and clear whenever I turn on the TV, read the paper, see a movie, drive by a billboard or otherwise soak in some advertising/media hype/infotainment is BE RICH BE FAMOUS BE CELEBRATED AT ALL COSTS.

Well, the message has disciples, folks. Let's see, there's James Frey, the bestselling author of two melodramatic books about the trials and tribulations of his life...the details of which it turns out are false.

Then we have JT Leroy, bestselling author of another made up sob story passed off as real-life experience. Oh, and by the way, JT Leroy doesn't exist, despite the faked photos of said individual.

How about Ashlee Simpson's lip-synch debacle on Saturday Night Live? The voice on her album is definitely not her own, so I can't imagine this was a big surprise to anyone.

And let's not even get into the mess of business and politics...

I know it's not a new phenomenon - heck, I remember Milli Vanilli - but it seems as if integrity, vision and talent are not worth a whole lot these days. The aforementioned authors both scored movie deals for their writing which haven't been affected by the revelation of their fraud. Ashlee Simpson is still turning studio-manufactured crapola into #1 hits. We the people are the ones plunking down the money that makes these people rich. Are we so jaded that we just shrug and say, whatever, everybody cheats? Are we so lazy that we just accept whatever the publicity machines feed us as art/music/literature? Or are we so enamored with the American Dream that we can't help but admire those who trick us into helping them get theirs?

***Added 25 January 06***

This just in from LA Weekly:

"Did a struggling white writer of gay erotica become one of multicultural literature’s most celebrated memoirists — by passing himself off as Native American?"

Here we go again...

Filed under integrity, James Frey, JT Leroy