Who's Who

Reese Witherspoon is a pretty big star. She's best known for a film that came out about 12 years ago titled Legally Blond, a comedy about a blond California college fashion merchandising major and sorority president (foreshadowing) who is dumped by her boyfriend for being an airhead (foreshadowed.) Brokenhearted, she follows him to Harvard Law School, intent on getting him back. She doesn't, and so tries to prove him wrong first by studying hard (the movie never says whether she ever did that in regards to fashion merchandising), then by working as an intern on a court case where she ultimately proves a woman innocent of murder. She graduates from Harvard with high honors, and gets a job at a prestigious Boston law firm. Her former flame, meanwhile, has graduated without honors and without any prospects. You see, the former flame is getting his comeuppance for ever doubting her intelligence in the first place (even though, had he not doubted it, she never would have gone to law school in the first place, and some poor woman would be rotting away in a cell for a murder she didn't commit. Maybe this fellow should dump a Harvard Med School student next. We might finally get a cure for cancer.) I'd recommend Legally Blond. It's funny, and Witherspoon is funny in it. If she doesn't quite make me forget Jean Harlow, Judy Holliday, Marilyn Monroe, or Goldie Hawn, well, I'm just wallowing in the past. Every generation has a right to the dumb blond pop culture icon of its own, assuming 12 years ago still counts as this generation. Since Blond, Witherspoon has appeared in several other hit movies, mostly comedies, playing smart blonds as well as dumb. She also played a smart (and, by most accounts, incredibly patient) brunette, June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, for which she received critical acclaim. Like I said, she's a pretty big star. Famous, too, which I guess is the same thing

Or not.  This past April,  Reese Witherspoon got in some legal trouble of her own. She and her husband Jim Toth were motoring around Atlanta--she was there to film a movie--in the very early morning hours when the car they were in was seen weaving across a double line by the last person you'd want to been seen doing something like that, a policeman. Toth, who had been behind the wheel, was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.139. Since Witherspoon was on the passenger side, all she had to do was stay in the car and stay quiet. Instead, the currently brunette actress went from playing dumb to acting dumb. She got out of the car when she was warned not to, and challenged the cop by asking this simple question:

"Do you know who I am?"

Soon in handcuffs along with her legally intoxicated husband, Witherspoon warned the officer that her arrest would be in the national news.

More about that national news in a moment. I'd like to jump ahead a month to just last week. Amanda Bynes is another big star. She's best known for a sitcom that ran on the WB network in the mid-2000s titled What I Like About You, in which she and Jennie Garth played sisters. She's also know for such teen-oriented moves as Big Fat Liar, What a Girl Wants, She's the Man, Sydney White, and Easy A. She also had a supporting role in Hairspray, so far her biggest hit.

Last week, Bynes allegedly had a hit of a different kind in the lobby of her New York City apartment building. A guard saw her smoking a joint and talking to herself. She was apparently so disoriented she couldn't even fake speaking into a cell phone. The guard called the police, who soon showed up outside her door. Another sign of disorientation: she didn't throw the bong out her window until AFTER letting the cops in. New York's Finest took her away in cuffs, but not before she blurted out:

"Do you know who I am?"

Before we go any further, I should assure you that I'm not a member of MADD, D.A.R.E, the W.C.T.U, or any other organization interested in preventing you from having fun and/or making an ass of yourself. Also, we've all had our run-ins with the law, often fully sober. You don't need any foreign substance in your bloodstream to tell you there's no reason to go past that stop sign when nobody's looking. Except for that cop hiding God-knows-where that was looking.

"Do you know who I am?"

The thing is, most of us know not to challenge the officer during those occasional run-ins because, let's face it, they don't know us from Adam. They don't know us from Reese Witherspoon or Amanda Bynes, either.

"Do you know who I am?"

I write about famous people quite a bit on this blog. But not because they're famous. Other than politicians, our celebrities tend to come from the arts, and the entertainment industry. Artistic types interest me, renowned or not. Of course, most artistic types--no matter how talented--never achieve fame. In fact, in a society where net worth is revered above all else, artistic types tend to get looked down on quite a bit. Ah, but not if you're one of the lucky few for whom, as the now-no-longer-famous Irene Cara once put it, people remember your name. Then people look up to you. Initially for the talent, I guess, but as time goes by, the name recognition is enough. They want to have their picture taken with you, they don't want you to have to wait in line, they want to make sure have the best seats in the house, the restaurant, the Dumbo ride at Disneyland for all I know. The famous come to expect this treatment from everybody. Including, it seems, the law. From Lady Justice herself.

"Do you know who I am?"

But the lady is blind and can't read People.

Reese Witherspoon was right when she said her arrest would make national news. The Atlanta police helped out a bit by videotaping the whole thing, which was played on YouTube, all four broadcast networks, all the cable news shows, Twitter, etc. She eventually apologized, and payed a fine of $213

Amanda Bynes, meanwhile, has threatened to sue everybody. The police, the media, anybody who might have had something unfavorable to say about her (nice thing about not being famous--she doesn't know I exist.)

There are more important news stories out there, I know. But when a celebrity expects preferential treatment from the law, such excessive media coverage seem like comeuppance to me.

"Do you know who I am?"

Next time a star asks that, I hope the officer answers the question with a question:

"Just who do you think you are?"