Celebrity Culture: A Media Obsession

Have you ever picked up an issue of “Us Weekly” or “Hello! Magazine” and asked yourself, “Who honestly reads this garbage?” The fact is that enough people are reading, writing, and producing gossip magazines, blogs and television shows (E! is an entire network) are being watched thus making celebrity “news” a very lucrative industry. According to WolframAlpha, perezhilton.com gets 6.8 million daily page views, and TMZ.com 9.3 million. The question of “why?” is still a valid one. Kobe Bryant is an excellent basketball player (with apologies to the haters) but should that spur interest in his marital life? Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a talented actor, but for what possible purpose should the public be informed that he is “real-life” friends with Zooey Deschanel? Why should every politician hoping to have a shot at governance have to have an expensive haircut, be seen at bars, and have funny clips on Youtube (it’s worse in the States where you are wise to publish an autobiography, appear on Oprah, and have Chuck Norris or Will.i.am supporting you)?

Although more prevalent in recent times, it should be noted now that this is not an entirely contemporary phenomenon. Oscar Wilde’s sexuality was cause for trial and severe scandal. When Charles Dickens visited America for the first time, the fanfare was so great that barbers would try to sell alleged pieces of his hair. In fact, Dickens was so appalled by what he found to be American vulgarity and crassness that it led to a long-standing falling out. Now, the celebrity status of Charles Dickens being more earned than that of Paris Hilton is a valid distinction to make in this case. One problem is the ubiquity of modern media; people are always plugged in and anchors need something to deliver. The fact is that Anderson is going to get viewers by reporting on Kim Kardashian’s tweet about the death of Whitney Houston (actually happened). People are capable of gaining celebrity status simply by being famous (reality TV and viral videos come to mind) and the more famous they are, the more interested people seem to be in them.

But this raises the question of who is to blame for garbage media? Is there not a responsibility on the part of media providers to give the public something substantial? To quote Ricky Gervais in the Extras Christmas special, “You can’t say, ‘Oh, it’s exploitation, but it’s what the public wants.’ No! The Victorian freak show never went away. Now it’s called ‘Big Brother’ or ‘American Idol.’” As much as I revere Ricky, the media’s obsession with Spears’s snatch and Portman’s ring is a bit like the story of the scorpion and the frog. For those unfamiliar, the scorpion one day asks the frog the carry him across a pond. The frog says that he would love to, but can’t help but fear that the scorpion would sting him. The scorpion points out that doing so would only kill them both. The frog obliges but halfway across the pond, the frog notices a sharp pain. When he asks the scorpion how he could doom them both, the scorpion replies “I couldn’t help it. It was in my nature.” Media, as an industry, will seek out that which will attract viewers, even at the cost of its own integrity, because it is the nature of the system (this is a good reminder of the importance of state media such as the CBC and BBC).

It is funny that Gervais’s character, Andy Millman, should use Big Brother as the platform for his speech since the state of affairs in which people are drowning in trivial and pointless “news” to the point that serious issues such as the global food crisis, epidemic or soldier suicide (a larger killer than enemy combatants for US soldiers) get lost in the noise sounds more like the vision of Aldous Huxley. Huxley said the world will be conquered through apathy and indifference, not oppression and cruelty. I, however, posit that no person or group of people are cultivating this culture; it is rather an ugly mould which has grown organically and lives off of a positive feedback loop between media outlets and consumers. So do yourself a favour and ignore it. Engage people in topics with breadth. Support thought-provoking media. Don’t watch Jersey Shore or My Super Sweet Sixteen “just to laugh at them”: this worsens the problem. And keep in mind the immortal words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”