I've no idea if newspaper folk actually ever say things like Stop Press! or Hold the front page! outside the covers of fiction and films*, but if they do so, they certainly will be tonight. For one of the most devastating news stories of the year has just broken.No, it's not the story that MPs of all party colours have been fiddling their expenses (buying manure at the tax payers' expense anyone? Doth not irony already have a name...). Nor that the Prime Minister has appeared on YouTube gurning like a 1950s Granddad at a holiday camp's funny faces competition. Nor that bankers have taken reckless gambles with other people's money (an old news story by now, surely?). Nor even that the Government was so out of touch with public opinion that it didn't realise how outraged British people would be at the suggestion that Gurkha soldiers - who had fought and risked their lives for this country - should be denied residence here and was thus voted down by both the Opposition and its own MPs in the House of Commons.
No, none of those things, but something much, much worse. Glamour model Katie Price (aka Jordan) and her pop star husband of five years, Peter Andre, have split up. A true symbol of our times, the couple met on the set of a celebrity reality TV show in 2004 and married the following year. They lived out their courtship and married lives in a blur of stories in publications ranging from the red topped tabloids to the pages of the glossies, from TV-centric gossip mags to their own reality TV shows. Every row, every breast augmentation, every pregnancy, every tattoo, house move, pastime, 'autobiography', clothing line, pop single or interview has been intricately documented in the full-beam headlights of public view.
Now, it's easy to have a little private unkind laugh at the expense of those who choose to live their lives so grotesquely in public, and I'm sure there will be many who feel that the marriage of these two people was itself a publicity-related construct. That may or may not be the case and I'm not really bothered either way.
What I am curious about, though, is how celebrity relationships are quite different from those that regular folk like you (guessing here) and me have. Or 'civilians' as Elizabeth Hurley famously put it.
You see, I reckon in the world of celebrity that everything just moves one heck of a lot faster. The getting together, courtship, house hunting, marriage, pregnancy announcements, joyful expressions of parental fulfillment, rumours of infidelity, battles with addictions to drugs / drink / cosmetic surgery, trial separations, divorce - well, the whole gamut just takes place quicker. The cycle cycles faster. The metronome ticks in double time.
If I were a gambling person, I'd bet that the first pictures of Katie or Peter with a new significant other in tow will appear in just a few weeks from now. Yet here am I, almost two years on from splitting up with my ex and only just about ready to countenance even thinking about dating again. If I was a celebrity, I'd probably not only have dated again, but married too and be heading up to my next high-profile divorce.
There was an article in the newspaper last week about animals and the way we regard them, not written so much from an animal welfare point of view but a philosophical and ethical one. The central point of the discussion looked at the differences between humans and animals without straying into the territory of anthropomorphism or taking the currently modish viewpoint that there are no differences at all. Or as the philosopher Jeremy Bentham put it so succinctly, "The question is not can they talk. Nor can they reason. But can they suffer?"
So my philosophical question is this then: what is the relationship time difference between celebrities and the rest of us civilians?
*Fram - can you enlighten me please?
"We should care because animals and humans are different", The Guardian, 8th May 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/08/animal-welfare-ethics
NB - as a consequence of this newspaper article, I'm going to buy a copy of The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands (Granta Books, November 2008). Rowlands, Professor of philosophy at Miami University, lived with a companion wolf called Brenin for eleven years. He believes that a deeper understanding of what it is to be human and the different kinds of intelligence both posses can emerge from "somewhere between the wolf and the philosopher".
I will return with a comment more in tune with your post a bit later, Katy, but in answer to your newspaper question, yes, to both. My experience is that both were very common back in the days when the majority of newspapers were afternoon editions, meant to be read in the evening after the work day.
ReplyDeleteWith most newspapers now printed in the very early morning hours, I am certain the cries are less frequent because less news, other than sports, is happening during the evening hours, which is the time when these newspapers are being put together.
Situations are somewhat different at national and metro dailies, where multiple editions often are printed a few hours apart, thereby reducing the logic for and the expenses of "stopping the presses."
In most instances, I place celebrities below animals in terms of intelligence and a focal point for my interest. Most "so-called celebrities" are not particularly accomplished at anything; they just happen to appear in the public eye a great deal. Take the television newscaster, for example, or the washed-up actor turned game show player or the participant in a reality television program. Who are they really, and who cares?
ReplyDeleteIn answer to your question about celebrities racing through relationships, I think it usually comes about because they are hedonists to the extreme, insecure to the extreme, narcissistic to the extreme and a few more adjectives of a similar nature. Most "ordinary" people are not that way -- at least, not to the extreme.
Now, as for the "mechanical intelligence" of wolves, I agree with the description, but know there is more than that present. Since I am not in the right frame of mind for appearing foolish, I will let it go there.
If you read the book, Katy, maybe review it?
I shall have to prowl the internet. I don't even know these peple except that Vanessa at Fidra says not to bother with the books. We have something even more exciting coming up in the press - it's Budget night in Australia - let's see how many more basic economic blunders (a) the Treasurer and (b) the journalists can make....it is enough to make me want to retire to bed with a good book Katy!
ReplyDeleteThank you for enlightening me Fram, much appreciated. It's a question I've wondered many times - and a phrase (like "follow that cab!") that I'd love to use. Yes, that's certainly true the metropolitan dailies / national editions in London - I've notice they ahve things like "final" or "late" printed on the front. Does that imply different (updated) front pages, same inner contents?
ReplyDeleteI am just about to order the Wolf book, and love the idea of writing a review. I'll do that, thank you for the idea.
I'm sure you're right about the (often) ephemeral nature of 'so called celebrities'. What was also puzzling me most about some 'celebs' was how they don't appear to go through / react to these situations in quite the same way most people do.
Ooh how was the budget Cat? As exciting (!) as you expected? Politicians seems to be shooting themselves in the communal foot here at the moment like a bunch of armed lemmings who can't wait to hurl themselves into the abyss. Books certainly seem to provide a most satisfactory alternative! :-)
ReplyDeleteNewspapers have varying policies for "final" or "late" editions, Katy, but the implication (not the guarantee) is that at least something on the front page has been modified. Possibly, the inside as well, most certainly so if a front page story is "jumped" to an inside page.
ReplyDeleteSome so-called celebrities probably do suffer aftershocks from a relationship gone bad. There has to be more than publicity seeking and "sensitive souls" behind their constant going to and coming from "rehab/detox" facilities.
um doesn't celebrity time vary from everyday citizen time according to the theory of relativity? E=mc2 and the mass of a celebrity is usually augmented by plastic surgery? I had heard that pundits speculated this was just another publicity stunt in a long line and bookies had odds on them getting back together soon at 2 to 1 or something like (not sure cos i'm not a gambling person myself)
ReplyDeleteBudget was dire Katy - the government expects me to live on air alone. I won't have the energy to lick my fur at this rate let alone write communication boards!
ReplyDeleteAh-ha, so a little mystery (to me) of the newspaper world becomes a little clearer. Thank you Fram.
ReplyDeleteI've sometimes wondered if the possession of the kind of drive or impulsion that compels some people to seek the spotlight (for nothing much more than being famous for the sake of being famous, rather than an obvious talent, say) is just that - a compulsion. In which case I guess it's perfectly possible that those comulsions drive the other stuff - addictions, publicity-seeking etc - too?
By Jove, Melinda, I've think you've got it! Very funny :-) A staged publicity stunt by two such reclusive and retiring individuals, surely not??! 2-1 you say, hmmm, not great odds there. But one thing's for certain - the whole he said / she said stuff is going to be on the red top front pages for weeks - that's a dead cert :-)
ReplyDeleteYour budget dire too, eh? Sometimes the whole thing gets so farcical that you quite literally couldn't make it up. Politics is in a right old turmoil over here, the newest revelation being that many MPs (of all major parties) have been being rather 'optimistic' with their expenses claims. Just the latest in a long line of calamities that have seriously dented people's faith in their elected members.
ReplyDeleteThe rather worrying side effect, though, with European & local elections coming up in June and a General Election next yr, is exactly whom a fed up and jaded public might elect as their representatives. I think there's a risk it could all go horribly wrong.
I'm just hoping it'll mean we finally get them off the box!! Maybe it just seems faster as we see their lives in soundbites...
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely weekend sweet,
Sarah))