Monday, August 9, 2010

Make Celebrities Work

Paris (Hilton) runs errands in Los Angeles

Britney (Spears) beats the heat with a milkshake

Jude (Law) & Sienna (Miller) escape to Lbiza


These are a few of the headlines for celebrity news online. And it makes me shake my head in disgust. Who cares???

Paris is shopping again. That’s no surprise.

Brittany likes junk food. Now there is a shocker!

And a celebrity pair are vacationing in an exotic location. Don’t they all??

While some people may be unquenchable in their thirst of every tidbit of bland information about the people they enjoy watching, reading about and imitating, it’s pretty pathetic when the every day mundane tasks of mortal living ~of any human being~ are considered news worthy.

Someone is actually paid to follow these people around to photograph and write about them driving their own cars, taking a walk in the park or leaving the dentist’s office. REALLY???



Aside from following anyone’s life THAT closely being unnaturally, obsessively scary, it’s a blatant violation of their privacy and who really cares if they grocery shop or put gas in their cars?? So does everyone else!

If we’re going to call people celebrities and make magazine shrines to them, blow up their photos in larger than life signs and dedicate valuable news space, they had better be doing something worthy of that attention.

Signing a new movie or show deal.

Sponsoring a charitable event.

Endorsing a greener or healthier lifestyle.

Bringing attention to a good cause or program.

Motivating people for a more educated and skilled future.

Helping out natural disaster victims.

THESE are news worthy things for celebrities to get face time for. If famous people were left alone for the normal dull aspects of their lives, if they wanted to get the lime light, they have to do something worthy of the attention. Something hopefully productive, altruistic or remotely significant in some tangible way.

I recognize that the economy is actually affected by people wanting to dress like and imitate celebrities, but something as general as shopping in a large city or drinking thick sweetened milk does nothing to boost the sales of products or good and services or promote awareness that will provide a considerable enough change in the money exchange for us to care.

I don't care if Paris buys new shoes. Britney will probably continues to get fat and then slim down for the rest of the life of her popularity. And Jude can take whoever the flavor of the month, wherever he wants and it couldn't motivate me to care in the least.

If these people are just "normal people" who became household names because they did something that made us familiar with their face/body/voice, then they're not really role models and we shouldn't scrutinize their lives.

If they ARE role models though, then shouldn't they be getting attention for something that actually affects people in a positive way?

The same should apply to anyone. If they do something news worthy, let's hear about it. Otherwise, leave their runs to 7 Eleven for a cup of coffee out of the news. It's just NOT news.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would place the blame in the people who buy these mags as much as anyone. If there was no market for these stories, they would write about something else. The under-educated, gossip-happy and just plain people in this country who love to invade the privacy of others are keeping these stories coming.

schwarzefahne said...

Well put Madam! Kudos!