CULTURE OF CELEBRITY:Our hunger for celebrity gossip through tabloids and glossy magazines shows no sign of abating. Yet we still don't like admitting to reading them, writes ROSEMARY MACCABE
THESE DAYS JENNIFER Aniston features at least once a month on the cover of one of the tabloid glossies. Why’s that? Does she have a movie out? If that were the criteria, she would be the most prolific actor in the US. As it happens, there’s no movie mentioned – but look! She went to the grocery store on her own and, at this particular angle, looks slightly drawn and upset. Why’s that? Oh yes! She’s sad and lonely and not only that, she’s had to endure images of Brangelina happily toting their brood from airport to airport on their path to redeeming the entire human race from its excesses. (Surely it won’t be long before they team up with Bono and get it over with.)
But how does this kind of inane “reportage” even happen? Do any of us really, truly believe Aniston spends her days schlepping around grocery stores praying Brad will see the light? (More on this later.) Yet somehow it’s more fun to buy into a reconstructed – and more sensational – reality that has been invented by a celebrity magazine or gossip website.
Federico Fellini may have coined the term "paparazzo" in his 1960 film La Dolce Vita, but there's no way he could have predicted the way our obsession with celebrities and their "sometimes scandalous but mostly quite normal" lives have mushroomed – withstanding war, recession, technology and recession (again). What we have is a multimillion euro industry reliant on cameras, PR people and carefully constructed photo-ops. So who's playing who?
There wouldn’t be a celeb culture or that lucrative industry if there wasn’t a public appetite for photographs, video and soundbites from the beautiful people. But it appears that some people prefer to keep their interest as a guilty secret – strictly between them and their (celebrity) gods. Out of the roughly 20 people who admitted in the course of one afternoon on O’Connell Street to reading celebrity magazines, all of them were women; 50 per cent said – and this is not a word of a lie – that they read them “in the hairdresser”. That same 50 per cent, without fail, declined the opportunity to be featured in these very pages. But the facts speak for themselves; gossip magazines do a roaring trade and, despite a recession-related sales dip, show no signs of disappearing off the radar.
Despite my goldfish-like ability to wipe the hard drive of my cerebral cortex on an almost daily basis – I forget birthdays, names, addresses, and can't remember my car registration number – I can tell you the name of Paris Hilton's dog. I could recite, almost verbatim, the speech Tyra Banks gave on The Tyra Banks Showas her way of addressing "the weight issue". (That, incidentally, is worth looking up. It ends with Banks, dressed in a swimming costume, tears fresh in her eyes, screeching at the camera, "kiss my fat ass".) I could also tell you when Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck ended their engagement, and the names of Lopez's twins, along with Brangelina's and Mariah Carey's. I can even tell you the name of Scarlett Johansson's twin brother (answers on a postcard).
The interesting and perhaps worrying thing about today’s celebrity obsession is that we no longer want our celebrities preserved in their glamorous gift wrapping. One friend says she buys these magazine because: “I want to know what they’re wearing, what they’re eating, what their diets are like, what make-up they use . . . and we love it when we see a celebrity fall from grace, don’t we?”
We don’t want images of superstars dressed up to the nines, enjoying themselves at a lavish party – although those photographs sell, but mostly to fashion magazines and to a specific audience who wants to see what the celebrities are wearing. What we want are images of celebrities in turmoil. We want to read about their tragic lives. We want to see them, post-birth, carrying the baby weight. The internet has made it easier for us to access even the most mundane minutiae of a celeb’s life and track their every move. During Justin Bieber’s last visit to Dublin, the social-networking site Twitter was awash with rumours of his whereabouts. He’s in Monsoon; he’s on Grafton Street; he’s in a car on his way to the O2 right now.
Celebrities, for their part, are far from innocent in the cycle of gossip, although their levels of guilt vary from very low (stand up, Brad and Angelina , George Clooney and Liv Tyler, whose careers, not personal lives, have driven their fame) to stratospheric levels.
Fame-hungry D-listers such as Katie Price and Kerry Katona have managed, through clever PR management, paparazzi co-ordination and selling stories to whatever gossip magazine will take them, to propel themselves on to front pages, and, in return, earn themselves a not-insubstantial living. This, notwithstanding the fact that Katona has had some very bad luck with that nasty ex-husband of hers and has to sell her house and worries about the future of her kids at the moment, with all that’s been going on. (All that being said, she looks great – thinner than ever!)
It would seem that this cycle of life – albeit of a different kind to that envisaged by dear old Elton – will continue apace. Confused? Take the media, who will put celebrities on their pages for as long as we continue to buy it – both literally and figuratively. The stories, we know, are often largely fabricated – by the celebrities themselves; by their PR companies, who wish their clients to be thrust into the spotlight, perhaps after a short break due to them not doing very much with their lives (ahem, Peter Andre and Chantelle Houghton); or by the magazines, for whom celebrity gossip is their proverbial bread and butter.
Then add celebrities, whose careers are often dependent on the column inches they garner. A Robert Pattinson film, for example, will, after all, sell better if he's pictured out and about with his Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart than if he sulks in his bunker, giving exhaustively dull interviews to Vanity Fair.
Throw in the paparazzi, who spend most of their time chasing hapless celebrities or, in some cases, waiting around for celebrities to tip them off that they are frolicking in the surf with their latest beau or eating a burger. (Sam Delaney, a former editor of Heat magazine, listing 10 things the experience taught him, quipped, “there’s nothing more thrilling in life than seeing a celebrity in a mundane public place”.) The paparazzi are then paid for their day’s work by the media, whose page-filling depends on . . . well, you see where this is going.
The crux of the matter is, if they build it, we will come; and if we come, they will continue to build and rebuild. Our curiosity, our appetite for gossip, our desire to see these super-humans, these immortals, in their mortal form is unlikely to disappear – and, despite the fact that most people seem to believe celebrity gossip is bad for us.
What’s the alternative? Give up buying celebrity-driven gossip magazines and read books? Turn away from visions of Paris, Nicole and Britney, and instead read lengthy interviews with actors and musicians in publications such as NME and Wonderland? Spend time with friends and family, discussing events relevant to the here and now? Surely not. If nothing else, we don’t want to add to the unemployment pool a bevvy of tabloid journos and would-be D-listers, do we?
This much I know: how does your anodyne celebrity knowledge compare?
Paris Hilton has a tiny dog named Tinkerbell. She once took her everywhere, and even spent thousands on a bespoke doggy playhouse.
Katie Price's now ex-husband Alex (Reid, of Celebrity Big Brotherfame) bought her a miniature pig for their wedding. Adorable!
Scarlett Johansson has a twin brother named Hunter, who is, a survey says, not that hot. Shocker!
Jennifer Aniston is really, really lonely. No, really. It doesn’t matter that she’s gone out with every hot man in Hollywood – hello, Bradley Cooper – because she is obviously very unhappy. (Blame Angelina.)
Simon Cowell still loves Sinitta. It’s patently obvious, and only a fool would believe otherwise.
Prince Harry has been calling Pippa Middleton non-stop since bum-gate, or, as some people are calling it, the royal wedding. He’s mad about her, so he is, and her banker boyfriend – who is worth millions – is not best pleased.
Cheryl Cole, bless her cheated-on broken heart, considered moving in with Derek, her blond backing-dancer ex-boyfriend, before hooking up, we think, with not-really-ex-any-more-husband Ashley on the night of her 28th birthday at London’s uber-chic Sanderson hotel.
Karina Tracuma poker dealer
I occasionally buy celebrity magazines, but I mostly buy 3D World and some digital art magazines. I buy Grazia and Marie Claire mostly. Today I’m going to buy Grazia for the fashion. I want to know what the celebrities are wearing, what beauty products they’re using. I think we want to take the best parts, to take advice. Sometimes I buy Shape, to see how celebrities look after themselves. It gives you a boost. It gives you an idea of how you could look too. But money is important. I can’t afford to go to the gym at the moment, for example. At the end of the day, everybody compares themselves to celebrities.
Sheila Morgan
I buy the odd magazine, but I usually get them from my daughter. I like to keep up with what some of the celebrities are doing and how they’re getting on with their lives, like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and their kids or Madonna and her kids, and to see if Madonna is looking well and ageing gracefully. I’m not a fan of Lady Gaga, I don’t think she’s a good role model for kids, and the meat dress was ridiculous, or maybe it’s my age. I’m interested in fashion, but am generally disappointed – most of the magazines don’t take into consideration anyone over the age of 30. I’m not shocked by the speed at which the celebrities live their lives and get married and divorced . It’s their lives. I wouldn’t have the energy. Even reading about it makes me tired.
Elaine Gorman student
I mostly read magazines for the fashion. I don’t like the whole idea of celebrity culture; the way it makes you think you have to look amazing all the time. When you see a celeb, you’re more likely to think, “I have to look like them”. It gives people something to fixate on, or else it might make them feel better about their own lives. As long as there are famous people, people will want to know about them.
Aoife Cassidy student
I read celebrity magazines, but . . . I kind of hate myself for reading them. I’m sucked in because they’re there – the pictures, the clothes, all these beautiful people. I think the media relies on celebrities so much that it kind of controls what we’re into. We’re conditioned to love celebrities, but if there were other things on offer, we might go for them.
Jennifer Lil Buckley hair stylist
I buy them because I want to see the trends, what’s coming in and what people are wearing. I don’t like reading about people like Katie Price and Cheryl Cole because it’s all tabloid, all made up to sell magazines. It’s almost like a new culture, the whole E! television channel thing. A lot of people get hooked on these other people’s dramas. Sometimes reading about them makes people feel better about their own lives.
Una Mac Coille student
I do buy them but I don’t even know which ones I read. I’ll be drawn to the pictures and scandalous stories. When it’s things like who’s gained or lost weight, you think, “oh, you’re just like me”. It makes you feel better, but there’s also more pressure on you.