The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/16/09 Section: Opinions

JOSH WHITE

Only months after a near-total collapse of the American financial sector, and in the midst of a worsening economic crisis, some people still care whether Brad Pitt should spend his life and millions of dollars with Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie.

I recently overheard a group enthusiastically discussing that and other topics related to famous actors - not their films, nor their characters, but who they impregnated and who they didn't.

They knew a lot about Brad Pitt, George Clooney and maybe others who made "Ocean's Eleven."

Then it struck me that I knew about as much as they did, and not because I devote myself to celebrity gossip sites or checkout-aisle tabloids.

Newspapers, magazines and 24-hour news networks deserve some blame for the widely shared obsession with celebrities.

They've taught a generation of Americans it's OK to live in creepy, vicarious dream worlds in which we think we actually know actors, musicians and models.

Whether we want to or not, we think of them as sort of distant, but not totally estranged, relatives.

Media outlets have for way too long presented these stories as actual news items. It's confusing. It rearranges our priorities and keeps us sheltered from real problems and concerns.

Singer Chris Brown beating his equally-famous girlfriend Rihanna - you can't help but hear of these things - is not important. That may sound extraordinarily callous.

But seriously, why do we really care that this admittedly awful thing happened? It's not news. It doesn't truly affect anyone but the two people involved and their friends and families.

The problem is, celebrities are interesting. If a rich and stupid person does something rich and stupid, it's fun to read about. And so the public demand for this stuff is huge.

But following the everyday exploits and excesses of people most of us will probably never meet is psychotic behavior, not a breezy pastime.

These people are no different from most everyone else except they often look really, really good. And some of them can act.

Enjoying a movie is one thing: you've had a hard day, maybe gotten fired, and you want to see a septuagenarian Clint Eastwood crack down on neighborhood crime in "Gran Torino."

The next day, you want to share the excitement of a good movie. I get that.

But people choosing to hold lively conversations over celebrity breakups and reconciliations - that's troubling.

The Academy Awards ceremony made news when Heath Ledger received a posthumous Oscar for his role as The Joker in "The Dark Knight."

Ledger's death from prescription drugs - again, you can't help knowing these things - garnered interest in the story, but so too did his actual work. The Academy recognized him for his talent and not for his private life.

As the economic news of the last several months has shown, America could possibly fall, and fall rather easily and unexpectedly, from the inside because of shortsightedness and fantasy-driven greed. Now is the time to finally kill "celeb-reality."

- Josh White is a graduate student from Carrollton majoring in public administration.

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