Let’s face it: our culture has become so obsessed with celebrities and their goings-on that we talk about them as if they are some of our longtime buddies.
This is not the case! Celebrities don’t know you, nor do they care to know you.
The circumstances surrounding Jessica and Nick’s divorce are none of your business. Nor is the fact that Denise Richards is now dating her ex-best friend’s ex-husband, Richie Sambora.
How do I know these bits of gossip, you ask? I, too, for some stupid reason, was at one time preoccupied with celebrities and what they wore to the Academy Awards.
But this summer I studied abroad in London, where I didn’t have access to either E! and VH1 or “Us Weekly” and “People” to get my celebrity gossip fill. I went for six whole weeks (gasp!) without knowing what baby blunder Britney Spears had made the previous week, or what Lindsay Lohan drank at an L.A. club.
At first, I thought I was going to go crazy without this information constantly being fed to my brain. But honestly, I felt so much better about spending my time looking at museums or reading one of London’s dozen daily newspapers.
Don’t get me wrong: Britian is equally, if not more, in tune with celebrity gossip. It has entire magazines dedicated to the “WAGS” (England soccer team’s Wives And Girlfriends). But since I didn’t know any of these people, I didn’t care to spend my time reading about them.
Since this mindless information is what consumers want, the media are taking every opportunity to feed it to us. In addition to showing “100 Greatest Red Carpet Blunders,” E! also has a ticker going along the bottom of the screen to fill audiences in on down-to-the-minute celebrity news.
When I was primarily interested in this stuff, this scrolling news was like a bonus for me. But now I wonder, ‘What the heck is the point?’ Some of these people aren’t even genuine celebrities.
Take Kristen Cavallari from MTV’s “Laguna Beach.” She basically goes to high school, and boom!–she’s featured in magazines and is now shown on E! and VH1 all the time. What has she done since she graduated from high school? Did she even go to college? I’m just sort of wondering if her high school life is the only thing she’s got under her belt as a “celebrity.”
Don’t even get me started on the reigning army of “celebutantes”–those who are famous for being famous. The Hilton sisters, Paris Latsis, the “Laguna Beach” kids… the list goes on and on. I don’t care if they’ve had cameos in movies or if they’ve recorded their own albums (Paris Hilton’s self-titled first album, just dropped this week, is so good that it even makes her cry. Well, you know what? It makes me cry too.). These kids are essentially famous for doing absolutely nothing except being born into money. It’s sad to think we know every detail of their lives, and yet know so little about people who matter and (Gasp!) actually contribute to society.
It doesn’t help that these celebrities contribute to their own notoriety. The dozens of awards shows we’re bomarded with every year only serve to remind us how much better celebrities are than us. So do shows like MTV’s “Cribs” and VH1’s “The Fabulous Life.” Not only do we know what the names of Madonna’s kids are, but we also know what they read, where they go to school and what they got for Christmas.
When I was in my celebrity-obsession phase, I had no real concept of what was really going on in the world–politics, for instance. Of course, I could tell you the basic stuff, but ask me about the details of a candidate’s platform and I was completely blank. I got tired of living that mindless life.
This column wasn’t meant to be a rant on celebrity obsession (even though that’s what it might seem to be). It was intended to be a call to action to buy “Newsweek” instead of “US Weekly” at the grocery store next time. Or to watch CNN Headline News instead of E!’s “100 Greatest Fashion Tips.”
I encourage all of you up-and-coming SMU starlets to realize that knowing about history, art and politics is so much more fulfilling than all of that celebrity crap. Guys will appreciate conversation more with you as well. A genuinely intelligent woman is a much better catch than a girl who can tell you the make and cut of every Chanel couture dress ever made.
Kate Murphy is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at [email protected].