Matt Gurney in today’s National Post:
“Our celebrity worship has finally reached its logical conclusion. For years celebrities could beat their partners, go on drug-fueled rampages, drive drunk and escape serious consequences. We considered that acceptable, so long as they stayed rich, famous and available for public display. We’ve watched human beings destroy themselves in real time before our very eyes, and took no action other than driving up network ratings and tabloid sales. In this world of celebrity, everyone now gets one rape for free.”
A sad but too accurate indictment of us all. We are entertained by evil and titillated by the carnage in another human’s life so long as they are in that holiest of human categories: Celebrity.
Knowing this, drama is often manufactured by celebrity handlers, reported by tabloids, and lapped up by people standing in grocery lines and sitting wide-eyed in their living rooms taking in the day’s summary of out-of-control, substance addicted, fornicating celebs – their oh-so-sexy images paraded across the screen.
And so it goes. You become a fan. You buy into the drama: good girl loses her way, becomes bad girl, falls into addiction and abuse, goes away for a while, comes back whole and clean and pure, makes a movie and an album. You buy it, thinking “Wow, she’s been through a lot…” And she has: a lot of handling, a lot of drugs, a lot of pretending – but this is no reason for you to keep your place as an enabler.
Most of the life you watch IS the script itself, an orchestrated live action drama they hope to keep in perpetual view while shaking you down for nickels and dimes. Their pictures on lunchboxes, their voices in McDonald’s, their images on billboards. In truth, no shakedown is needed; we are eager to take our wallets out and purchase their image, their essence.
Celebrity: a person we celebrate. You’d think we’d spend more time celebrating dignity. What is it that makes us celebrate the opposite?
