Has the media fallen prey to the cult of celebrity?

national | arts and media | opinion/analysis

Friday January 21, 2005 15:19

by Laura Synnott

Irish media is following the British tabloids in its coverage of celebrity lifestyle, little realising that people are growing tired of being bombarded with 'famous' peoples lives.

Is Elizabeth Hurley’s arrival at yet another party really a quality front-page photo? According to a well-known national broadsheet, the answer is a resounding yes. While we are familiar with the tabloids bombarding us with images of the celebrity lifestyle, a new low for the Irish newspaper industry was reached with this development.
We can see the Irish media across the board, tap into this celebrity cult, with RTE developing a celebrity reality TV show. This programme was the epitome of celebrity culture gone too far and was proven to be a failure. Further to this, the RTE News then went on to announce the break-up of a famous Irish couple as part of their headlines. This couple’s separation also was covered in depth by the newspapers with weeks and weeks of photographs and quotes from the relevant parties. The question has to be asked, how much do the Irish public want to know? Are the media merely reflecting society’s interest?
While we constantly hear people bemoaning the constant coverage of certain celebrities, the stark reality is that people buy the newspaper and turn on the programme if they will hear the latest scandal or development. In the UK, editors of the glossy magazines know they will sell thousands more copies of an issue if they have a certain celebrity on the cover. This fascination with the lifestyles of the rich and famous passes through the generations from Audrey Hepburn to Princess Diana. The Irish media have learnt this lesson, little realising that people are now growing tired of this constant celebrity coverage with intimate details of their lives known to everyone. The media are gaining more and more access to places and the public are reaching saturation point.
Recently, the front story of a national broadsheet was the solicitor Gerard Keane and his wife’s dismissal of rumours over the state of their marriage. While this couple’s celebrity status has to be questioned, this newspaper believed the story worthy enough to be their front-page headline. This kind of gossip is expected in tabloids, but the broadsheets are now realising the usefulness of celebrities and their lives. It is interesting to note the different types of celebrities that adorn the tabloids and the broadsheets. While the tabloids feature any kind of celebrity that might have caused any scandal recently, the broadsheets favour upper class, refined celebrities. While they are following their tabloid road of highlighting the celebrity lifestyle, the broadsheets are misguided in believing that people want to hear about their lifestyles.

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Comments (5 of 5)

you're quite right

by yawn - pride & prejudice - sense and sensibility - morality tales

Fri Jan 21, 2005 20:14

people don't want that sort of liberty.
which is why they have movies, magazines,
morality tales, and so on.
tell them clearly.
tell them-
you don't want that sort of liberty.
you really want to be intelligent just like me,
and find interesting people and explore your own family scandals and secrets and have an interesting fulfilling career. But maybe you don't.
get real.
people come in all different types.
some go on telly.
some go in the movies.
some never leave the plantation.
now yes it would be wonderful if all the satelite channels and all the newspapers only fed us 24/7 356 days a year constant real stuff about all the bad things being done, wouldn't it?
oh yes that would make things better.
Liz Hurley began as a punkii walking down Camden Road in the late 1980s.
Get into her, she's cool in way, and has helped oodles of other people not be too bad.
And never stop worrying about the places you don't hear about. You might like to make a list of all the countries in the world and then subtract the bottom bar list "indymedia centres" from that list.
You'll find that most people who live in those places, are the majority of the planet and live without rights to be a punkii or to be really concerned about shite tv, to get a proper trial, to get a proper wage to buy a fashion maggie and hey guess what their lands are over-run by mercenary types addicted to horror. (many who are american and european as it happens and many who aren't.
That's called darkness.
and it's all over the non-indymedia low paid world which lives in freedom with the / liz hurley over paid ex punky world.

Think it over.
Pass it on.

you might be interested.

by smile

Sat Jan 22, 2005 08:40

the Louvre in the last week decided to allow the movie makers to film scenes for the celuloid version of "the Code of Da Vinci" by a Mr Brown, a charming morality tale which spans art, cryptology, gender politics, myth and leaves a religious debate taste in the mouth.
They had previously been "haughty", "conceited" and "missed the point" but now have found oodles of tourists going to have a goo at the paintings, and then ending up under the pyramid "of 666 panes of glass" and gasping when they realise after *whom* the hall underneath that pyramid is named. It appears they go away having learnt something.
Mr Tom Hanks the actor from Forest Gump and Apollo the disaster solved with sticky back plastic and intiative will play the role of a merrovingnian.
(you're all merrovingians and children of the rasta-queen)
For you fans of trashy charmingly written novels, the next hit is by Jared Joker on Dante, and then next year there'll be a "krishna kode" on mid twentieth century forgery and name dropping.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1325595&issue_id=11990

http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Guardian/0,4029,1396117,00.html

Fabulous

by big mouth

Thu Jan 27, 2005 17:08

The Celtic tiger with it's greatness and might needs celebrity and trash. All that matters now is wealth because wealth is health. If you are rich you will be healthier. Got cancer? A million dollars and your cured. Otherwise, if you are a skanger, then that means you are lazy and deserve to keep that growth.

In Ireland, people like to be rich, and celebrities, because they are wealthy, are needed to grace the front of magazines, so people have a visual goal to adhere to. I love celebrities.

Celebrities and Fascism

by Terry

Fri Jan 28, 2005 14:31

The cult of celebrities which is now so widespread and global is the cousin of fascism.

If you think about it, fascism can only thrive where the cult of the leader is encouraged and works. One will notice that in countries where fascism exists or has existed, the media imagery of that country is nearly always dominated by the ever present image of the dictator.

The cult of celebrities is just another case of this and it is a way of getting people used to the idea of heros, strong people and leaders. Therefore when the dictator is slotted in place, they are just essentially another celeb which is gladly accepted on the stage show of society and as always without question. Many people these days are celebs not for what they do or did, but simply because we see them in the media alot.

A point worth noting is that if one recalls over the past 20 or 30 years of TV, there has been lots of programs about World War II which of course was a direct result of fascism, but never is there anything about how societies largely come to accept dictators and the psychology of the whole thing. I guess the reason is because it is against the wishes of the elite that we truly understand how it all happens. And as the present corporate media are part and parcel of the main powers behind global capitalism which is increasinly becoming more brutal, sinister and fascist like, it's no wonder we have the rise of celebrities in all forms of media, particulary over the last 10 to 15 years. Please note, I am aware global capitalism has always been brutal outside of the 'West', -it just that those conditions are finally coming home to us here.

More about the Culture of Narcissim

Fri Jan 28, 2005 14:59

Chrisopher Lasch (author) wrote a book back in 1979 called:
The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

It is extremely illumminating on the present state of a celeb filled media in society today and is more relevant than ever before. At the time of publication the thesis of the book was perhaps really only applicable to the USA, but since then much of Europe iincluding Ireland have picked up the trends, fashions, influence and form of society that was already existing back then in the USA.

He goes into great detail on the underlying psychlogical underpinnings of the behaviour of people and how this is manifested in all the various spheres of life and society

It's actually available (or was at least a few months ago in Hodges & Figgis bookshop in ) in paperback form.
Or see Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0393307387/103-4724576-9961447

See for example a review of Lasch:
The Gift of Christopher Lasch
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9408/opinion/seaton.html

Google shows up quite a lot on this book and a lot of people on both the Right and the Left have differing opinions of him. Judge for yourself, but getting hold of the book and reading it is even better.

Lots on Narcissim itself at:
http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/personality_disorders/narcissism/archive_1.html

And for Christopher Lasch Online Resource see related link below

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Has the media fallen prey to the cult of celebrity?

Comments (5 of 5)