Episode 58: Pedestals and Guillotines

[0] Welcome to Los Angeles, the celebrity capital of the world.

[1] It's a city that conjures palm line boulevards, sprawling mansions, luxury cars.

[2] At the center of all the glitz, Hollywood.

[3] Movie stars aren't the only ones here.

[4] Star gazers are drawn here too, like paper clips to a magnet.

[5] And point your attention to the left because we are seeing Beverly Hills for the first time.

[6] On the left -hand side, wow, some big house.

[7] house is down there, right?

[8] With the musac blaring, a handful of people on a celebrity tour peer out their van, hoping to glimpse the homes of L .A.'s rich and famous.

[9] The guide points out Gwen Stefani's house, and a clump of bushes behind which she claims is Quentin Tarantino's home.

[10] She pulls up near Katie Perry's compound.

[11] Do I have any Katie Perry fans aboard?

[12] Fireworks.

[13] Okay, well, here's her house.

[14] Look up to your left and you'll see the awning, the red awning.

[15] You can't really see it's red there, but we are right beneath her house.

[16] She actually owns the entire corner here.

[17] And look at her view.

[18] It's amazing, isn't it?

[19] One of the tour's most popular sites is the home of Kim Kardashian.

[20] Well, sort of.

[21] Kanye and Kim, they needed a house to have their friends over.

[22] And on the left hand side, this is the house they use.

[23] Rented for 12 ,000 a month.

[24] There's somebody right behind it so I can't stop.

[25] I'm sorry about that.

[26] But that is the house right there.

[27] Has its own little swimming.

[28] Boy, they had some big parties, too.

[29] Tours like this are big business.

[30] Andrew Imordino helps manage the tour company called Star Trek.

[31] He says not just Americans, but people from all over the world sign up for these tours.

[32] And they kind of want to just get that little feel and that little taste of what it's like to, you know, see the celebrity's homes and do all the crazy stuff that you see in the magazines and the television.

[33] But it's more than just wanting a taste of celebrity culture.

[34] The glitz and glamour, the swimming pools, the manicured grounds, the storied homes.

[35] Humans hunger for a chance to peer into and fantasize about lives of luxury and extravagance.

[36] This extends to our political leaders too.

[37] We adore the pomp of state dinners and inaugural balls.

[38] We dream of what it must be like when presidents make life and death decisions for a nation.

[39] No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

[40] We fantasize about what it must mean to be fabulously rich and powerful.

[41] Words can't describe how beautiful it was.

[42] Everything you saw was breathtaking.

[43] And we got to meet his girlfriend, Melania, who was amazing.

[44] as well.

[45] Hi, I'm Melania.

[46] Nice to meet you.

[47] Call it adulation, adoration, idolization.

[48] Humans are prone to suck up to the rich and powerful.

[49] But this turns out to be only one side of our psychology.

[50] On the other side, it's something entirely different.

[51] Many of us hate the rich because they're rich.

[52] We want to see the powerful topple from their pedestals.

[53] We enjoy seeing the glamorous fall and fail.

[54] The lure of celebrity tours is rivaled only by the popularity of tabloid magazines detailing the rehab trips and broken marriages of those same celebrities.

[55] If a monarchist enthralled by pomp and power sits on one of our shoulders, a vengeful populist sits on the other, a populist suspicious of power, distrustful of the wealthy, eager to have the high and mighty pulled off their pedestals.

[56] The thin line between adoring the rich and powerful and marching them to the guillotine this week on Hidden Brain.

[57] On a pre -dawn morning, a heist occurred in Paris.

[58] Breaking news this morning, and Kim Kardashian robbed at gunpoint in Paris late last night by five men dressed as police officers.

[59] The robbers made off not only with Kim Kay's 20 -carat emerald -cut diamond engagement ring, but other jewels in cash totaling more than $10 million.

[60] The news media was sympathetic to Kim's ordeal.

[61] close to Kim tells E .T. the mother of two is still very, very shaken up.

[62] Quote, she thought she was going to die.

[63] They put a gun to her head while they were searching the apartment.

[64] She was crying, begging them for her life.

[65] The sympathy didn't last long, especially on social media.

[66] Andrea McDonnell is a communications professor who's interested in celebrity culture.

[67] There's a tweet here from the House of WTF that says, quote, Kim Kardashian was held at gunpoint in a Paris hotel.

[68] Man will be charged with not pulling the trigger and saving humanity from mediocrity.

[69] Or this post.

[70] After years of desperation, Kim Kardashian finally has a reason to be in the news today.

[71] There were other snarky comments.

[72] Maybe Kim faked the robbery as a publicity stunt.

[73] Maybe she faked it so she could disappear for more plastic surgery.

[74] Where was the love?

[75] The outpouring of concern from Kim's millions of fans.

[76] Why, after a brutal robbery, did people turn on her?

[77] Andrea has a theory.

[78] Kim Kardashian is someone who has made her whole living out of being famous and employing her fame to make money and really flaunting her success and wealth in various ways.

[79] And so when that wealth is quite literally attacked in a very confrontational and personal way, our potential empathy for her, even if we are fans of hers, may be lacking there because of our own potential envy or distaste for some of her personal presentation of wealth.

[80] In other words, as much as many of us like seeing the rich and luxurious world of Kim, we don't like the idea that she's rubbing it in our faces.

[81] And so we don't mind when she's taken down a few notches.

[82] We do the same with our political leaders.

[83] We adore the pomp and circumstance associated with high office, but we pounce at the slightest gaffe.

[84] Vice President Dan Quayle was all but drawn and quartered when he urged a little boy to add an E to the spelling of the word potato.

[85] And Texas Governor Rick Perry suffered a moment of forgetfulness during a presidential debate.

[86] The third agency of government, I would do away with the education, the commerce, and let's see.

[87] I can't.

[88] The third.

[89] Sorry.

[90] Oops.

[91] That was the end of Rick Perry's role in the national spotlight, at least until President -elect Donald Trump chose him to leave the department he couldn't remember.

[92] Energy.

[93] Governor Howard Dean's 2004 campaign for president came to a crashing halt when he ended a televised speech with slightly too much enthusiasm.

[94] We're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico.

[95] We're going to California and Texas and New York.

[96] And we go to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan.

[97] And then we're going to Washington, D .C. to take back the White House.

[98] Goodbye, Mr. Dean.

[99] You get the point.

[100] We can adore our leaders one moment and skewer them the next.

[101] Not long ago, I was watching all the way, a wonderful movement.

[102] movie about Lyndon B. Johnson, starring actor Brian Cranston.

[103] There's one scene that stayed with me. It sums up the contradictory feelings humans have toward people in power.

[104] LB