After his scandal about the attempted sale of a senate seat, former Illinois Governer Rod Blagojevich has been testing the waters of reality TV, and other forms of stardom based on notoriety. In 2009 Blagojevich tried to get on the shock-value reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, but could not be allowed to travel to Costa Rica, where it films, because of his judge's restrictions. His wife went on the show instead, because the two apparently needed the money. The show involves demeaning, survival-style tasks such as eating tarantulas. The same sense that probably attracts audiences to these scandals is related to whatever satisfaction people get out of watching celebrities and washed-up movie stars eat disgusting things in a jungle. It activates the communal tabloid gland in the same way Sofia Johansson claims that average people gain satisfaction from viewing celebrities in the news who are both put on pedestals and perversely humanized at the same time. Next, Blagojevich starred in a musical put on by the Second City comedy troupe entitled "Rod Blagojevich Superstar." Making comedy of a serious situation seems to be another form of modern scandal synthesis. Like every other political figure these days he's also got an autobiographical book out: The Governor: The Truth Behind the Political Scandal That Continues to Rock the Nation, thus reaping profits from his notoriety. Now Blagojevich has been slated to appear on the upcoming season of Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. Trump predicts that Blagojevich may actually be the star of the show. This post-scandal stardom is just another instance of what Ellis Cashmore considers to be the "thriving on scandal" that permeates our times, and makes a person more famous than ever before. Another interesting indicator of how scandal melds with entertainment can be seen with the CBS series The Good Wife. The show is an extrapolation, using different fictional characters, of the possible struggles of lawyer Silda Spitzer, wife of former New York Governer Eliot Spitzer, after his prostitution scandal. It is particularly interesting to see how the public imagination has been captured by the allure of scandal enough to indulge in an entire fantasy based on real events.
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