Out of Step.

It’s been a feature of my life – finding icons unconvincing, especially when it comes to people. I could never, for example, find Chaplin’s humour anything other than predictable and unfunny. I never found Marilyn Munroe attractive; she always seemed to me to be covering rampant insecurity with heavy layers of paint and the frenetic pursuit of indecorous behaviour. And the worst of all was Elvis Presley. All I ever saw in him was a strutting, hopelessly overcooked egomaniac who could sing a bit.

And then there are the TV soaps. Let’s face it: by and large they’re badly written, badly directed and badly acted. And yet a very large percentage of the population seem addicted to them.

I have tried to see what others see in these icons but I’ve never got there, so it seems one of three explanations apply.

a) My tastes are simply out of step with the majority.

b) There’s something I’m missing.

c) Popular icons are usually created by third parties for their own ends, and once an icon is made – justifiably or not – it becomes self-perpetuating and the majority are taken in by it.

All three?