Free My Formerly Hot Life by Stephanie Dolgoff Page B

his Peter Pan syndrome. I cannot tear myself away from even well-worn repeats of those VH1 reality shows, the ones in which celebrities who are known for something they accomplished a long time ago interact in front of the cameras like organisms in a petri dish. The format is pretty standard: Place a Formerly Famous person in ludicrously contrived situations with other Formerly Famous people and tape them bonding or else clawing one another’s spray tans off in exchange for a chance to get their names out into the public consciousness again (and thus, hopefully, reverse their Formerly status).
    The Surreal Life
included Erik Estrada from
CHiPs
, the Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin (as cool as you’d think), the late Tammy Faye Messner (cooler than you’d think), Vanilla Ice (even less cool than you’d think), female wrestler Chyna, Charo and many other random folks living in various houses together, trying to demonstrate that they are more than their personas. There is also a Formerly Famous weight-loss show,
Celebrity Fit Club
(on which we learned that the guy who played Screech on
Saved by the Bell
is not a nice person),
Confessions of a Teen Idol
and the low-rent
Bachelor
knockoffs starring Flava Flav from Public Enemy and Poison’s BretMichaels. On
Rock of Love
, Michaels fondled his way through a throng of grown-up groupies, perpetually surprised that it was so hard to divine which of these large-breasted, scantily clad women calling one another bitches and liars really loves him for
him
, you know?
    Ridiculous as they are, I had to ask myself why I watch these shows. I think a big reason is because I want to see how the Formerly Famous trying to regain their fame are coping with getting older. Aside from the fact that being older means you have less time before you die (which, let’s face it, sucks), I wouldn’t want to be the person I was in my 20s. I’ve built a better, more fulfilling life now than I ever had when I was young and hot (i.e., considered hot by people who don’t already know that I’m beautiful on the inside). I wonder if the celebrities on these shows feel that way? Are they handling getting older any better than I am? With their entirely redone bodies and the fact that they clearly don’t have much going on or they wouldn’t see shows like these as a good opportunity, they don’t seem like the likeliest crew from which to be learning about aging gracefully.
    Then again, wisdom often comes from unlikely sources. Staring at the screen has taught me that clinging desperately to what you once were is conduct unbecoming to a Formerly, as is taking yourself too seriously—both are far worse than any wrinkles, even those unsightly hash marks between your eyes that make you look perpetually pissed off. Botox can relax those away if they really bother you. But there is no injectable to help the Formerly who argues with the maître d’at The Ivy that he should get a table near Harvey Weinstein because he was once on
Charles in Charge
. That person is not aging gracefully. The one who wonders how it is that she’s about to do a weigh-in on national television with Marcia Brady, laughs and does it anyway is, in my view, getting older with the right attitude.
    Aside from getting to see what bizarre things famous people do when they’re supposedly being themselves, these shows are about watching the people we grew up watching trying to figure out what happens when you’re no longer what you were—and finding they have no more idea than the rest of us. I’m not sure why it’s comforting that mall queen Tiffany is as confused as I am, but it is. If, like the better-adjusted inmates of these shows, we can view the Formerly years not as the sun setting on our potential, but as a shot at being who we are now, this time with a sense of humor, we’re in good shape. Pass the Cheez-Its.
    My sense of humor on the subject of no longer being young is getting quite a workout. I remember a work party I went to maybe