Laura Benanti Quotes

Our culture is in moral chaos. On TV we celebrate freaks instead of honest, decent people.

Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980.

We live in a crazily youth-orientated world nowadays. It's a trickle-down thing. We see pictures of lithe, attractive celebrity couples such as Brad and Angelina or the Beckhams cavorting around, covered in tattoos, stomachs as flat as the singing in early 'X Factor' rounds.

There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today's pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.

When Paris Hilton can top the bestsellers' lists, we are one more Connect Four move closer to Armageddon.

It saddens me to see the reality-television shows that are getting so much fanfare that are a celebration of stupidity and the degradation of women. And those women are consistently wearing too short, too tight dresses. I hope the trend of aging gracefully returns.

If a Martian came down to Earth and watched television, he'd come to conclusion that all the world's society is based on Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. He'd be amazed that our society hasn't collapsed.

I wish my daughter wasn't spending time thinking of Kim Kardashian or Rihanna.

America has a love-hate relationship with celebrity. We love to follow celebrities, but we also love to mock them. And secretly, we believe we're better than they are.

I think fashion, mishandled, can be quite toxic. It becomes about image and the cult of celebrity. I think when an artist is seen at a lot of parties as a celebrity, I find that worrying. I think it can limit them.

Once they began doing 'Celebrity Apprentice,' apparently the audience wasn't that keen on the ordinary apprentice. That is probably the best indictment with our fascination with celebrity in our culture, which drives me crazy.

I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it's just crass.

The religious imagery and fairytales that formed our shared cultural references have been replaced by the cult of celebrity. Marilyn is the sex goddess, Camilla Parker Bowles is cast as the wicked witch, Che Guevara is the revolutionary. Celebrities have become visual shorthand for narratives that shape our lives.

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics - trying to play a serious part in the world - to a culture that's really entertainment-based.

Today, people are more into the glitz and the glamour of everything. We don't even read the inside of records anymore.

I really don't care what movie stars have to say about life.

I think that probably the time that people stopped thinking of Starbuck as 'a woman' was when they stopped thinking of the old show.

It's that experienced eye that knows what the public loves and how to create that Hollywood magic that drives pop culture.

Drag, in my view these days, has become the thing it used to make fun of - which is Jennifer Lopez. Now we all want to be her. We have stylists; we have special photographers.

The more celebrities I meet, the more disappointed I get in celebrity culture.

The modern holy trinity is money, sex and celebrity.

My mom is very religious and she said, 'Whatever you think about all the time, that's what you worship.' If that's the case I'd like everyone to pop open their Diet Coke cans and turn to page 37 of their People Magazines. In this holy scripture, we read the parable of Ms. Valerie Bertinelli.

Looking at the media today, I'm quite ashamed of myself, of things I've participated in. Everything is marketed to sex and gossip and it's just a shame that those are the things at the forefront, on people's minds, those are the things that make you popular, what you have on or how little you have on and it has nothing to do with music, nothing to do with sports it has nothing to do with the things so many communities put their faith in. It's just a sad place to be.

I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics - trying to play a serious part in the world - to a culture that's really entertainment-based. I mean, I know people who can tell you who won the last four seasons on American Idol and they don't know who their [bleeping] Representatives are.

Whether it's Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated.