Let’s be honest for a moment, shall we?
Part of you giggles just a bit every time that they send Lindsay Lohan back to rehab, even though it’s a tragedy that your estranged uncle just fell off the wagon. Part of you truly hates Mel Gibson for the terrible things he said in his drunken rant abercrombie sale , even though you have friends who’ve said far worse when they were wasted. Part of you is anxiously awaiting the train-wreck Miley Cyrus will soon become.
Don’t feel too bad, because I feel the same way. Why do we feel that way though?
The answer is quite obvious actually. At some point or another, every one of us (your dear, sweet grandmother included) has wanted to see the mighty fall. The fact of the matter is that in today’s society the mighty aren’t our philosophers or our religious leaders, but celebrities. It’s not a good thing, but it’s just the way things are.
We all want to see celebrities humbled and brought down to our, common, level. We want to see them fail because it makes us feel better about ourselves. In a way, we’re the school yard bullies.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a celebrity though. Imagine having a TMZ (glorified paparazzi) camera in your face every time you turn around asking you about your latest failed relationship, or that movie you were in that sucked, or what you were ordering at your favorite restaurant. I think if someone cornered me coming out of a restaurant and shoved a camera in my face to ask me a few questions about a friend’s drug problem (or any personal matter) I’d be hard pressed not to knock their teeth down their throat.
Now I don’t want anyone to think I’m excusing the behavior of Mel Gibson or Lindsay Lohan, because I’m not. What they did was wrong, plain and simple. However, I really wonder if Lohan would have kept going back to the drugs if it hadn’t been for the media frenzy every single time she got out of rehab. What if we just gave her the time to heal, in her own private life?
I mean, isn’t it a bit sick that we have entire television shows dedicated to watching celebrities try to get over their drug addictions, judging the way that they dress, and speculating on how long their marriage will last?
I don’t want to hear ‘That is what they signed up for’ either, because it’s a pathetic justification for the fact that we hold them to an impossible standard and then mock them when they fall.
I guess the point that I’m trying to get at is that next time you see a celebrity humiliated on TV, before you start a ‘ROFL’ text frenzy, maybe you should take a quick look in the mirror and think about some of your own faults.
January 15, 2012