posted
For the most part, I ignore news of drunken celebutants as much as possible. I highly admire Craig Fergusen's stance on leaving them alone and wishing them well, but mostly I relegate Britney, Lindsey, Paris, et al, to that class of "ditzy substance abusers who will burn out young."
However, I have to wonder how much nominal ditzy behavior becomes exaggerated (and encouraged) due to overwhelming attention. Not the fans, so much, but the media. Check out this new video of Britney hitting a parked car while trying to park. Not the part about her hitting the car and then never looking at it or leaving a note (although I suspect she'd be smart enough to know that any note she left would be stolen and posted on TMZ within seconds), but check out how many photographers are following her on a regular basis just waiting for her to drop a stitch.
How could you not go crazy living like that?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I am sure that I couldn't handle it. I do sympathize a bit more for those that were thrust into the spotlight while they were still growing up, before they were mentally ready to understand and handle the attention, fame, and the impact that it would have on their lives.
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posted
I don't know that anyone can be mentally ready for it. She really should be surrounded with a private army, like prominent politicians have.
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Although I haven't fully considered it, I think I'd be okay with increased legal protection for celebrities against paparazzi, slander, and the like. So long as it protects me from having to hear about them, that is.
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posted
I just have to wonder who buys all these magazines. There is so many of them. I mean, there used to be a clear line between People, (which was an offshoot of Life)and the Star/Enquirer. I suppose the Star felt some dignity in not being the World Weekly News.
Then People spawned Us, which mined Hollywood for the most shocking cover stories possible, and then In Touch came along looking a lot like Us, but with headlines as made up as the Star. But they preserve a careful line of not being so far fetched.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Confession #1: I totally read them. All the trashy magazines, in the line at the supermarket and at the gym. I like pretty clothes and I like gossip, but I believe gossip is horribly destructive when the topic is fellow people in the community and I don't want any part of that. However, I recognize there is a huge need in myself to talk about other people, and so...I read those magazines. I don't buy them, if that's even any better.
Confession #2: Britney has my sympathy. I think she's not that bright, clearly screwed up, and I don't see it getting any better. I think as a teenager, she was completely used and very ill-served. I also don't think there is anyone who despises her more than herself.
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posted
I value the illusion of community. (in discussing characters I do not have to create myself.)
For imaginary characters, I do have a full-on, unoriginal crush on Spike that's heading into its third month.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Thinking of celubutants and the attention they encourage/endure, I am reminded of a story that Nomemon occasionally tells of an attention-starved kid who would act like a dog in order to get kids to play with him. They treated him like a dog, which he was literally asking for, but it's still sad that he was treated so poorly.
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posted
Kind of like how I used to not turn my homework in to get attention from my teachers. At least, that's the only explanation that makes any sense.
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posted
My roommates and I once considered turning our apartment into a halfway house for young endangered starlets.
We realized how much we survived of one another's support, and then we realized most of these girls don't have that.
I used to make fun of these young women, but now I mostly just feel bad for them, and wish I could help.
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I think the best way to help is to not support, directly or indirectly, those who profit from their misery.
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I'd feel sorry for her if there weren't small children being endangered by her behavior.
Also, she has courted the attention aggressively in the past, so what did she think would happen? She has deals with magazines, changes clothes during the day to sell more pictures, and sold pictures of her ex-step-daughter without the permission of the little girl's mother. She goes to restaurants and night clubs where she knows there will be tons of photographers.
I feel sorry for people who genuinely don't want the attention, like Jennifer Aniston or Jodie Foster. Also, it is possible to avoid the media if you truly want to. Does anybody know anything about Christian Bale's private life? How about Cate Blanchett?
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quote:Also, she has courted the attention aggressively in the past, so what did she think would happen?
Of course, those decisions were largely made when she was only a child and less prepared to grasp the magnitude of the consequences. Not that that's an excuse, but I do sympathize a bit for those that have to try to decide which course of life leads to the most happiness before they can even grasp what happiness or life really is.
Sure, some children manage to handle fame and stardom in a healthy way, but I suspect that it is largely due to the good guidance of their parents.
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posted
You know, Porter, that's a really apt comparison. It hadn't occurred to me before in those terms, but I definitely see the parallel.
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I'm pretty sure if I had papparazzi following me around all the time, the tabloid editors would eventually just get tired of all the pictures of me being an ass. "Here's yet another picture of Enigmatic hungover, pantsless, and flipping us off. Umm, got anything else?"
posted
I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to spend money on a monthly tabloid showing Enigmatic being an ass.
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quote:I'd feel sorry for her if there weren't small children being endangered by her behavior.
I guess I don't know enough about the situation to understand this. Or, I don't know what of the many things I've glimpsed are true.
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posted
I read that whats-his-bucket who plays Harry Potter in the movies wore identical clothes to and from the studio every day for six months, so that when papparazzi took a picture of him, it looked like it was from the same day as the pictures they took of him previously, and thus the pictures were less valuable.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd feel sorry for her if there weren't small children being endangered by her behavior. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess I don't know enough about the situation to understand this. Or, I don't know what of the many things I've glimpsed are true.
Well, I think there are some valid claims of drug and alcohol abuse going on. That's never a good situation for a kid to be in. Not to mention she often seems just clueless as a parent-- like installing a baby seat backwards, or not even putting your kid in one in a moving car.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: Noemon, if it's something you're alright with sharing, what story are you and mph referring to?
I don't have any problem with sharing it--I may have even related it here before. I don't have time to type it out or find a copy of it. If Porter doesn't beat me to it I'll find the last time I related it and paste the story into a post tonight. Or just, you know, type it out. :)
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posted
I'd find it on Sakeriver, because I know you've shared it there, Noemon, except that Sakeriver is down.
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quote:When I was in late grade school there was this kid named Clayton that I knew. He didn't really have any friends, but he hung around the periphery of my group of friends. At recess, we would generally go to one spot or another on the playground and just stand around talking. Clayton was pretty desperate for attention, and very willingly pretended to be our dog. I think he may even have initiated it, honestly. He'd go around for the duration of each recess period, either crouched over or on his hands and knees, occasionally making barking noises while everyone else stood around talking. Occasionally one of us would throw him a starburst, which he would eat off the ground. The fact that he was a willing participant in his own humiliation doesn't make my memory of having been one of the people who demeaned him any more pleasant.
posted
I have always felt sorry for Britney Spears and her comrades. How can anyone live like that? She basically has no life at all. She's past celebrity, she's just famously unhappy.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It has to be difficult to balance the need for press to keep your career going, and the desire to have some semblance of a normal life. I agree with MPH - I don't read, buy, or discuss the information from celebrity gossip magazines. I certainly don't want to give money to the paparazzi who abuse people, and I'm not going to encourage my friends to support them by gossiping about the celebs.
Just because they entertain us, I don't see how that makes it OK for us to take away their privacy and prevent them from enjoying life. If anything, we should respect their privacy MORE in their personal lives, because they already give us so much of their life when they perform for us.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I've run out of sympathy for Britney Spears. I just don't care anymore.
I hear and read far more about her life than I'd ever care to, largely just by doing the grocery shopping in my family. Yes, she entered fame way too young, and yes, there are people in her life who have probably exploited her.
But... She's twenty-six now, for crying out loud. She's a mother of two. She's put two marriages behind her. After shaving her head, going through rehab, sobbing during an interview, kissing Madonna, flipping off the paparazzi, caterwalling about her sex life on a reality show, and creating enough vapid and self-indulgent quotes to give a dozen comedians material for a year, I'm beginning to suspect that someone must have suggested that she keep her mouth shut and act like a grown-up for a while by now. And that person was ignored. The disturbing thing I'm seeing at the edges of stories is that the few people trying to rein her in are getting snubbed or cast aside.
She's one of the richest women in entertainment. It wouldn't be difficult to go somewhere else for a year and let the buzz die for a while, live a normal life. It's not like she's doing her image or career any service by the way she's acting in the public eye. She could leave and come back. Or she could just leave. But she won't.
The "ooh, I'm such a naughty little girl" thing was abhorrent enough when she was in her teens. To abhorrent, we've now added pathetic and seedy. The time in which one could believe she was an unwitting participant in the image she was projecting into our culture is long past. I pray that she and her ilk will have ceased affecting the world of fashion before my daughter hits puberty.
At best, I don't care about Britney Spears one way or another. At worst, I think that when you try to flog the horse of your own fame too hard for too long, the attention you eventually get isn't the kind you're used to. She's worth a hundred million dollars. Perhaps she can afford a clue.
Lindsey Lohan I can still feel a glimpse of sympathy for. At least at one point she seemed to show evidence of talent. And maybe she's still young enough to be willing to listen.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Hmm. I guess I feel less sympathy for Lohan. But I'm now remembering why I didn't like Spears in the first place, because I just couldn't figure out how "Hit me baby one more time" was an okay message.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
To be a little more precise than "British", Bale's Welsh, and in fact was faking a (cockney?) accent in The Prestige.
It's easy to mistake him for American, as he decided to keep the accent on while doing press for Batman as a show of respect to such a cultural icon. Posts: 254 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:It has to be difficult to balance the need for press to keep your career going, and the desire to have some semblance of a normal life.
Not really. Some of the biggest stars have the most private personal lives. In addition to Christian Bale and Jodie Foster, there's Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, etc. All of them have great careers and a reasonable semblance of a normal life. Paul Simon doesn't get accosted by photographers when he shops, nor does Beyonce. It's easy to avoid the kind of publicity that Britney Spears has courted for years and still advance your career.
quote:If anything, we should respect their privacy MORE in their personal lives, because they already give us so much of their life when they perform for us.
They're being paid a lot of money to perform. By us. That's all that we owe them (it's nice if we give them loyalty and admiration, but we don't owe it to them). I think it can be argued that they are much more well-compensated for doing something they enjoy than, say, nurses, who give much more of themselves.
Look, I don't buy the magazines. But I shop in grocery stores and I go to a salon and I can't help but look at the headlines. Plus, I have friends in the entertainment industry and they like to talk about these things.
Posts: 3037 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Do we owe them less respect than anyone else? What bugs me so much is that there's no way we would accept this kind of stalking and harassment as acceptable behavior if it happened to us, or anyone we know. So why do we think it's OK that celebrities are subject to it?
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Do we owe them less respect than anyone else? What bugs me so much is that there's no way we would accept this kind of stalking and harassment as acceptable behavior if it happened to us, or anyone we know. So why do we think it's OK that celebrities are subject to it?
Seconded.
No offense to the title creator but this dispensing of "sympathy" like some kind diety is kind of silly neh?
"I've decided to be nice and give celebrity my teensy bit of sympathy"
Thanks loads, now how about we judge the slime that spend all their time stalking these people?
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Do we owe them less respect than anyone else? What bugs me so much is that there's no way we would accept this kind of stalking and harassment as acceptable behavior if it happened to us, or anyone we know. So why do we think it's OK that celebrities are subject to it?
One reason why is because they are paid far more than they deserve, especially in comparison the average American, that it's easy to believe at some level that there's a karmic price to be paid.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:No offense to the title creator but this dispensing of "sympathy" like some kind diety is kind of silly neh?
"Sympathy" is not something that I've heard much coming from diety to mortals. Mercy, justice, grace, yes. Sympathy? No.
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