Features

Celebrity in New Zealand is a weird thing. We subscribed to America’s world-conquering culture of celebrity worship, and then inevitably wanted to transpose the same devotion to homebred stars. But that’s difficult in a country of New Zealand’s size and humility. A country whose biggest celebrity has-been is Thingee, a country whose most famous Jew is Goldstein, and whose most notable celebrity makeover was performed on a sheep.

Nonetheless, the deplorable culture of pursuing fame for fame’s sake has taken hold of people in parts of our humble land. Oliver Driver, actor, broadcaster, and director, attributes the rise of this type of celebrity to the Sunday paper social pages: “They’ve done a terrible, terrible thing to increasing [sic] that sort of culture … you go to a party now and people are desperate to be photographed, it’s like being famous now is just being seen at those places, or going to those parties. And because of that people think you’re a celebrity, rather than because you’ve done a film, or you’ve scored a try.
    “It’s a strange thing, when it becomes this huge kind of weird merry-go-round, where people are actually pursuing fame, and kind of view that as success, rather than as the result of success.” This type of hollow fame is bemoaned around the world. Writer Clive James probably bemoaned it best, in a 2004 essay, “if somebody does something they have a right to be somebody, but merely being somebody means nothing if being somebody is the only thing that somebody does.”
   This vapid cult of celebrity becomes particularly strange in New Zealand, because there are a couple of crucial ingredients absent in our native celebrity equation: inaccessibility and excessive wealth. Surely what’s behind celebrity obsession is the escapism offered by following the life of an almost otherworldly figure. A person whose fame and requisite wealth allows them to live a lifestyle you couldn’t even imagine without the help of tabloid speculation. An individual who lives in a separate, magical world of ritz and glamour, which means a personal encounter would be quite impossible. 
   It’s hard for you to devote yourself to the life of, say, Josh Kronfeld, when you keep seeing him jamming on the harmonica in Castle Street backyards. New Zealand is too small for the famous to live in an exclusive part of society. Driver: “99 percent of the New Zealand celebrities you could list have just enough money to get by. They’re just doing their shopping in the local supermarket, they don’t have a maid, their car’s on HP. I guess in this country celebrity doesn’t really equal wealth … I can’t imagine what George Clooney’s life is really like; I’m sure he jets around the Riviera all the time. But I can imagine exactly what every dude’s life on Shortland Street is like, because it’s exactly the same as yours.”
   So, what is life like or a celebrity in New Zealand? Are you treated as a friend or a fair-game dickhead? John “Horse” McLeod gained national fame when his 18-year stint in the SAS qualified him for Extreme Treasure Island. His crazed, larger-than-life persona won hearts and television spots; he hosted a few Celebrity Treasure Island series, gave advice to everyday New Zealanders alongside Charlotte Dawson on How’s Life, and made no sense and scared young children in one infamous appearance on Sportscafe. 
   He describes his rise to fame: “To start with, it was chaos, and I thought ‘I’m glad I’m not Jonah Lomu.’ I adapted well I thought, and it made no difference to me that folk recognised me … no tall poppy stuff comes my way, besides, that rubbish is water off a duck’s back to me.” Horse was elected to the New Plymouth District Council in 2007, and is running for mayor of the region this year.
   TV presenter and actress Shavaughn Ruakere has had mixed experiences. “Overall I’ve had a pretty good experience … People do often treat you like they know you which I understand. You show up in their living room every week so it makes sense.” Ruakere says reading poor reviews and personal attacks are the worst parts of fame. “Reading sucky stuff about yourself … I remember the first time I read some less than favourable things about myself online. I cried buckets and swore to never go on TV again. That was a few years back, and now I’m a bit more rhino about it all. It’s one of those really sad things though … even if you read ten things about you and nine of them are good, it’s that one bad thing you put your worldly focus on. Silly but true, must be the ego eh? Why don’t they like me? Whyyyyyy?”
   Driver has also had mostly pleasant experiences with being recognised and approached, but describes how a degree of false humility is always expected. “We live in a country where if I do a show and someone comes up to me and goes ‘Hey man, you were really good in that show.’ If I go ‘Yeah thanks, I was really good,’ then they’ll go ‘Oh you weren’t that good bro, faaark,’ hahaha. People like to see people do well, they just don’t like people to admit that they’re doing well.”
    He also provides the best analogy of what life is like in New Zealand when you have a well-known face: “You know that thing where if you go to your local dairy every day, and because you go there every day the guy that runs it will give you a smile and let you off five cents short, or he’ll let you off for next time? I get that in every dairy. It’s a layer of civility and politeness.”
   America’s celebrity culture has swept across the world, engulfing New Zealand in the process. Obviously the most worrying part of this culture is that becoming famous for being famous is now a legitimate career option, a path treaded by the likes of John “Cocksy” Cocks and Aja Rock. But thankfully, New Zealand’s smallness not only allows people to realise that such pursuits are very silly indeed, but also means that this gross culture isn’t that much of a worry, and is in fact as harmless as Cocksy himself.