Part of running a campaign is also acting the part, and actors can be pretty good at that. Celebrities can have more talent in front of audiences, generally; and they may be more apt to deal with scandals more deftly, in part because the public assumes that scandals are simply part of their lives. Reagan himself was a skilled performer who used a combination of theatrics and performance in radio and television pseudo-events to basically play the part of a president. Yet, these same useful assets may prove to be a double-edged sword because celebrity, inevitably, brings scrutiny.

The sufferings of a homosexual prince from Gujarat is clearly not everyone’s cup of tea and sympathy. When Manvendra Singh Gohil, the prince of Rajpipla decided to come out as gay, he did so in a Gujarati language daily, the Divya Bhaskar. The story caused a sensation and moved Oprah Winfrey enough to fly him to the US to appear on her show. Now a Gujarati film based on his life story has been denied a tax exemption service in his home state because the movie depicts “social evil.” 

Memoirs are the great equalizer of writing. In a genre utterly non-denominational, there is room for any story in any pattern of prose. The Christian Science Monitor reports that memoirs have seen sales increase from $170 million to $270 million since 1999. Most nonfiction MFA writing programs are geared substantially towards the genre; Hunter College even requires prospective students to submit a memoir proposal as part of their application.