I love to read "trash magazines." You know the ones...In Touch, Us Weekly, Life & Style...I actually think I have standards because I don't read "Star" or any of the supermarket newspaper-type tabloids. I'm still working on figuring out what it is about these magazines that's so addictive, because I know I'm not the only one who gets sucked into reading about the lives of complete strangers, who may or may not appear to be living glamorous lives, just because...
Because it's like an ongoing soap opera if you stay on top of it, and in addition -though it's not the most glowing achievement in life - it's fun to be the person who is up on all the latest. I'm that girl in the office who people ask "so what's going on with Tom and Katie? Any news?" or "So did Denise Richards really steal Heather Locklear's husband?" or "Did Jessica Simpson really cheat on Nick Lachey?" I set them straight. I tell them the latest, most quality news from a range of sources, together with my own powers of discernment about what is real news, and what is simply made up. These magazines make a lot of shit up completely arbitrarily and then it just goes down in the books as being a fact. Such as "Teri Hatcher and George Clooney had a torrid, but brief love affair. Clooney ended it while Hatcher was left devastated." They always use that word: "devastated." As if. It's all sooo dramatic. And yet, that's what is so entertaining about it. It's real but it's not real.
I don't limit myself to the magazines. I also indulge in reading "TheSuperficial.com," "PerezHilton.com" (even though Perez Hilton is clearly a total douchebag) and "Defamer." Defamer deserves credit for being of slightly better reading quality than the previous two sites mentioned, but basically it's all just a bunch of catty shit. A bunch of catty shit that satisfies both my vicarious need to be catty too and voyeuristic tendencies that seem to be in pretty much all of us these days. You have to admit, some of this stuff is fascinating - you can't help but find yourself immersed in it. In that way, tabloids are very much like Lays potato chips. You really can't stop at one. You read one little tidbit, and then your attention is grabbed by the next one. At the same time, when I'm reading these magazines or blogs sometimes I'm suddenly struck by a sense of guilt. Not so much guilt that I'm wasting my time reading about the personal lives and careers of celebrities (though that has been a factor), but guilt that their privacy is so savagely exploited and I am one of the little cash cows that keeps the industry of paparazzi and paperwaste chugging right along. I wish it were not so difficult in this world to do absolutely what you feel is the right and moral thing. I feel this way about so many things in life, from eating meat to working in tobacco defense. That's a pretty wide spectrum man.
Back to these tabloids, I don't completely buy the statement that "celebrities put themselves in a public light, so therefore they have no choice but to be subjected to the scrutiny of photographers, so-called journalists and the general public at all times." To some extent, this is true. I'm not saying it's not true. But what seems to be between the lines is: "celebrities make so much money doing what they're doing, therefore they deserve to be hounded." Or at least that's what I perceive. Somehow that makes it okay. Because celebrities are profiting so heavily from the entertainment industry, they must pay with their privacy. Being subject to public scrutiny is one thing, while being harassed and intimidated for profit is another. And the truth is, none of us really want to be spied on, do we? Certainly not by a bunch of men in black SUVs! Weather it's the paparazzi or the CIA...
If photographers and trash-mag journalists spent as much time chasing after Dick Cheney as they do picking apart the minute details of Reese Witherspoon's grocery list and trying to ram into celebrities in traffic, that would be so cool. I think the paparazzi should organize a "Stalk-Your-Politician-of-Choice" Day. Each of these schlubs could grab their precious camera, pick a politician that they would like to stalk, and make it a day. I think it's a brilliant idea. Us Weekly could publish an issue called "Politicians: They're NOT just like Us!" They could publish candid photos of all of the pricks in Washington being total fucking hypocrites all over the place, and then maybe for a second the public would turn their attention back to things that actually have relevance in their lives, like the fact that we're being SPIED ON, that our democracy is evaporating before our very eyes, that our President and his cabinet have been LYING to us for the past six years, that women's rights are being attacked, oil companies are raping us all, global warming is fucking real and there is poverty among the working class.
So many regular Americans have shut off to issues such as the Patriot Act, illegal wiretapping, and other attacks on our constitutional freedoms by the Bush administration. People genuinely don't want to know or think about these problems. People just want to sit and eat their bag of Cheetos in peace without being forced to think about other people's problems, which is all fine and good, but these are OUR problems and so many have surrendered to the idea that we have no choice but to give up our freedoms to protect against terrorism. Those people are WRONG. I think this is partly just plain old stupidity, but there is also this catatonia as a result of being overwhelmed by all the problems that face humankind in general. People are paralyzed by the thought of being responsible or rising to speak or challenging the shit-tide that is also known as our government, so people just retreat into ignorance. It's softer there. I know. I go there sometimes. I go there with Us Weekly.
Entertaining ourselves is crucial. We must enjoy our individual lives and find satisfaction in the little things that make our days more humorous, even if the walls come crashing down upon us. But I also wish that people would see more often when there is still that time to speak up as loud as you can, to hold up the walls and say NO NO NO!!! You cannot fucking spy on me!!! IN FACT, who is spying on THEM? That is an area where I think we could really benefit from some intel.
So I implore the paparazzi to take a break from spying on Lindsay Lohan and take a day to spy on the government!
Posted by Maria at May 13, 2006 10:39 AM | TrackBack