It’s always interesting to see what hill a person will die on — which cause they will defend, no matter what the risk to their ability to look themselves in the mirror afterwards.
For some (me), that cause is the argument that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is artistically superior to any other movie ever made. And for others, it is that the children of the famous should never be accused of benefiting from nepotism, no matter how obviously they have exploited that nepotism.
This latter argument has been much in evidence since 18-year-old Brooklyn Beckham published his book of photography, What I See, with much fanfare last week. Penguin Random House, which apparently learned nothing after publishing Pippa-sister-of-Kate Middleton’s hilariously terrible book about how to be Pippa in 2012, describes his work as “unique, authentic and stylish”, yet even this short sentence turns out to contain only one accurate word.
Just a glimpse at these photos — such as a blurry table (“I like this picture — it’s out of focus but you can tell there’s a lot going on”) — proves without question these are indeed authentic. Perhaps you are thinking, “Come on, he’s just 18. Give the kid a break!” Some have been urgently dying on this very hill.
“Critics should encourage this budding photographer. After all, David Bailey didn’t even get his first photography job as an assistant until he was 21,” wrote GQ magazine, sweetly maintaining the fiction that it was Beckham’s talent that got him this book deal. The BBC’s arts editor, Will Gompertz, felt moved to write Beckham an open letter in which he insisted: “The snide remarks being made about your work are cheap and self-serving. Ignore them.”
This attitude is well-intentioned, but it is wrong. It is our moral duty to laugh at Beckham’s photos, and at the blithely self-entitled endeavours of all children of celebrities who get a free ride, thanks entirely to their connections.
Two weeks ago, the guest on Desert Island Discs was designer Stella McCartney, whose father was, I believe, big in music.
Now, McCartney clearly has her own talent, and I take my hat off to both her and her sister, Mary, a photographer, for not pursuing a career in music — unlike, for example, John Lennon’s sons, who always look as if they are working through some Freudian issues on stage. Nonetheless, when Kirsty Young asked her how she persuaded Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell to model in her graduate show, McCartney insisted, “I do think, had another person asked them, they might’ve done it. It was a moment where they were like: ‘Yeah! We’ll do a degree show for Britain’.” Young, quite rightly, laughed in her face.
Gwyneth Paltrow is, unsurprisingly, an eternal font of such nonsense. She’ll talk about how “hard-working” she is, without mentioning that she got her start via her godfather, Steven Spielberg. That Paltrow turned out to be a gifted actor is entirely beside the point; her stunning lack of self-awareness really should have prepared us for Goop.
Some wear their privilege with humility. Michael (son of Kirk) Douglas, Rafe (son of Timothy) Spall and Rory (son of Roy) Kinnear are always happy to acknowledge how much easier they have had it thanks to their parents. Duncan (son of David Bowie) Jones used his real and more anonymous surname when he became a film director. But in the main, there is a notable tendency among celebrity offspring to act like they hit a triple when they were born on third base, and then affecting outrage when anyone suggests family connections may have played a part.
Of course, our celebrity-dazzled media culture is culpable here, with magazines and publishers and directors eager to sign up the children of stars such as Jude Law and Sadie Frost, Sting and Ray Winstone, for no obvious reason — all of whom insist they got there on their own merit and it’s just a coincidence their godmother is Madonna.
Nepotism is inevitable, but self-entitlement is toxic, which is why it is essential to call it out. It is especially incredible that anyone can defend gifting privileged children with ready-made success when we see the ultimate endpoint sitting in the Oval Office. Donald Trump and his children never got a job without their respective fathers’ help, and yet are happy to sneer that actual politicians never had “real jobs”, as Eric Trump recently put it.
An easy ride hasn’t, actually, helped any of the Trumps, except in their bids to become terrible people.
So I’m sorry, Brooklyn, but this is for your own good: you should not have been given a book deal, because your photos are bad. But maybe, if you work really hard, don’t take the gigs you are offered only because of your surname, and don’t expect a red carpet for every endeavour, one day they won’t be. You’re welcome.
