Price of celebrity

[KiwiCoromandel]

THE hyped madness that surrounds celebrities is the fault of the media outlets that publish celebrity photos and stories, right? And those flames of celebrity reportage are fanned by thousands of celebrities who tenaciously hunger for global attention, adulation and money, surely?

They're in cahoots, the press and the celebrities, helping each other's greedy cause while we readers, gulping down their products with eternal gratitude, are gullible fools. Yeah, right on.

Well, a quick look at of the back page of this week's Who Weekly tramples on that particular theory. In a rare case of a non-celebrity making it into the frame of a celebrity photograph, an anonymous young woman has defiantly pushed forward another hypothesis of why celebrity, as a genre, continues to swell in importance.

She is shown in a full-page image that also features English glamour model Jordan and her husband, pop singer Peter Andre, two of the world's better examples of fame fanaticism.

Jordan is famous around the world because she has very large, incredibly enhanced breasts. Andre? Well, he married Jordan.

The young, anonymous woman has cottoned on to this fact because, fearlessly, and with a plastic shopping bag firmly grasped in one hand, she has pulled up her top to show some also quite large breasts to Andre.

As the famous duo walk past her, Andre is captured by a photographer's lens turning his head to stare at the woman's breasts. At the same time, Jordan, in the words of Who Weekly, "barely blinks at this upfront fan".

Shot in London last month, the weirdness of this image muddles the brain in a multitude of ways. In one sense, it's like a role reversal of men shouting barely legible obscenities at women from passing cars. It's a crude display of power. In another sense it crystallises how everyday fans of the celebrity world urge the star circus on.

Here is an unknown woman who reckons that showing her breasts spontaneously to a stranger, in public and in front of his wife and the paparazzi, is the only way she can interact with a famous person like Andre.

She has given up on the welcoming smile, proffered autograph book or witty comment as a means of contact with fame. In the ethereal world of celebrity worship, those actions have lost their currency. Her gesture suggests that to talk true celebrity you've got to tunnel right to the nerve point of stardom and speak in a language everyone understands.

You've got to prove you are worthy of being noticed. You've got to take your top off and hope sincerely that you will be led to the splendiferous jewels of celebrity's promised land of eternal happiness and self-importance. And, in the end, the pages of glossy tattle rags.

It worked for Jordan, along with a good many other women. Surely, it can work for you.

source:smh.com.au