Celebrity Blogger Profile: Sir Ian McKellen

Ian McKellen is SO DONE with you lawmakers

This is the first in what could possibly develop into a series of Social Media Celebs, as long as we don’t run out of celebrities who know how to use the alphabet for more than just ordering their favorite psychoactive substance by initial.

Huh. Better get on this fast, now that I think of it!

As far as I’m aware, there are three: John Cusack (about whom we’ve blogged before), Jeff “The Dude” Bridges, and the invincible, possibly divine, Sir Ian McKellen, who is, as far as man can be, without flaw.

Except he doesn’t fly my airline. Sigh, do all the perfect men wake up and decide to just keep it to the XY side of the gene pool rather than cross over to XX via the XXX? Is that how this works?

But we were discussing celebrity bloggers. Right. /fangirl

Sir Ian was one of the very first celebrity bloggers, as in bloggers who were celebrities, not bloggers who blogged about celebrities, or (perish the thought) bloggers who became celebrities by blogging about celebrities (genus Perez Hilton). As McKellen notes on his site, his blog The White Book, about the filming of the Lord of the Rings, was one of the very first movie blogs, telling the story from the point of view of one of its major stars. As an front-runner in the field, it confronted questions about co-workers’ privacy, authority (do you give the producer censorship rights?), marketing and brand control (would blogging about it give the fans so much info they wouldn’t bother seeing the film? This was a real question back in 2003) among others. Only a diplomat would have been able to blog without annoying all of the highly-sensitized actors who felt each day the heavy hand of fandom approving or disapproving of their every move, and who were (as were most people at the time) skeptical of the power of the internet, except to destroy.

Here’s an excerpt from the last entry in The White Book:

When I’m asked to sign Gandalf as well as my own name by importunate autograph hunters, I explain that Gandalf doesn’t give autographs…If anyone persists I also explain that Gandalf isn’t here with us. Last week I went on to say that Gandalf doesn’t exist! Although of course he does.

Gandalf is a spirit, laid down in Tolkien’s novels with love and respect. The wizard and his creator had more in common than a bowl of weed. Isn’t Gandalf the old man that Tolkien (and many more of us) would like to be?

…

I like him for his sense of humour and sense of occasion. I like his independence and need for company. Kids, some as young as five, look wonderingly up as their grandparents introduce us, searching for Gandalf in my face. I hope they feel as I did aged three sitting on Father Christmas’s knee in the grotto of our local store in Wigan. I could see it was a cotton-wool beard and it didn’t fit. This wasn’t the real Santa Claus. He was elsewhere preparing my stocking. The real Gandalf is elsewhere and I bet those kids know it because they trust him and love him like their grandad.

Ian McKellen Wardrobe Fitting: mortifying photos are not new to social media!

He’s now channeling most of his blogging energy into his activism page, which has paid off in both public recognition as a leader in the fight for gay rights and public awareness of the entire question. It’s hard to ignore a Knight of the Realm when he out-Googles you. His rational tone and his impeccable English skills (it’s true what they say about a good education), along with his innumerable awards, sterling personal reputation, and actual title, make him hard to dismiss as some meat puppet who’s parroting lines, an accusation with which most celebrity bloggers are entirely too familiar. McKellen states his case without apologizing or asking for permission (as indeed he need not; but people didn’t always think this way) and expects it to be read by those who agree and those who disagree. His point of view is that of a priori knowledge that certain human rights are inherent but unacknowledged and often denied.

But enough from me; listen to him:

Actors and others who take advantage of their access to the media by publicising and letting fly the bees in their bonnets, are often criticised for not sticking to what they do best. Clergy can pronounce on anything, politicians on everything, but actors should stick to acting. I’ve been on occasion lambasted for expressing my views by the very journalists who have enquired about them!

Viggo Mortensen, his co-star in Lord of the Rings, has often been criticized by journalists for speaking out about political issues although he has a cum laude degree in Government.

What profession or sexual choice entitle a person to speak up? That this question even exists in our culture is the dilemma that lies at the heart of Sir Ian McKellen’s blogging, and in true pioneering blogger fashion, he decided to answer it:

All of them.