Smile! You're on Candid Camera
It occurs to me lately that the celebrity mugshot has gradually made inroads into our culture. What would have only found publication in such certified rags as Hollywood Confidential back in the 1950s is now everywhere you look. My brother in New York sent out the mugshot taken of Glen Campbell in Texas. Drunk. In a foul mood. Grizzled - in need of a shave.
I've been arrested three times in my 41 years - twice for being drunk and disorderly, and a third time because a cop thought I was being drunk and disorderly; well, he was right about the drunk part. The last time was 14 years ago, so I figure that I must be staying the course somehow, though I remain ever vigilant. Spending the night in the drunk tank is just not my idea of a good time, so if I decide that putting on a good drunk is part of that day's plan (which is almost never, as I don't like the way I feel the next day) I make sure that I am at least out of reach of the long arm of the law.
The point being, of course, that most reasonable folks just don't go out of their way to get arrested. And fortunately, when they are, the mug shot which is taken goes into a book that is seen only by cops and folks trying to pick out the criminals who did wrong to them - hopefully not you. In the Cincinnati mug shot book there was a picture from the late 1960s (perhaps taken during the riots which followed in the wake of Dr. King's assassination?) where an African-American gentleman held up his booking number with his thumb and forefinger and was wearing a broad grin - the only person I know of that was apparently happy to have his mug shot taken.
But if you are a celebrity your mug shot winds up plastered all over creation - on TV, in the newspapers and especially on the web. A standard police mug shot is about the worst picture that is likely to be taken of you, outside of your driver's license photo. The police photo of Michael Jackson taken recently is truly horrific - he looks like a wraith from an illustration in some gothic nineteenth-century grimoire. The National Enquirer has been repeatedly running a mug shot of Wynonna Judd which is - er - not flattering. A couple of years back I recall actress Yasmine Bleeth was arrested in Romulus, MI and a horrible mug shot taken. As someone who has seen Yasmine in person, I can report that at least in the flesh she is a remarkably stunning looking female, but in the the mug shot she looked like a three-dollar crackwhore.
In the broad view, it seems hardly fair that the mug shots of celebrities should be published so extensively. We do not publish the mug shots of others unless they are wanted for a crime, and a police mug shot always tends to capture a person at their worst. Do we feel that celebrities are equivalent to criminals because they are famous and we are not? I don't think that - but I do believe that these photos appear in the public domain due to the tabloid mentality of even the major news agencies. These pictures are at best a grim curiosity, but they are certainly not in the public interest.
Uncle Dave Lewis