Comment on nosiness - 2003Originally published http://www.spot.no/32850.html Duvet-peaking
– A new national sport? We
want to know all there is to know about celebrities. What they do, why they
do it and who they’re doing it with. Most of all we’d love to be a fly on the
wall while things happened under the duvet – preferably many enough to be
able to lift up and look underneath. Who’s Wondering – We, Or
The Press? Lately I’ve noticed how important
it is for us to know what celebrities do in their own time. If we
didn’t want to read about it, magazines/papers wouldn’t write about it. Is
Bruce Willis back with Demi More? Is Janet Jackson in a relationship with
Justin Timberlake? Who’s Robbie Williams dating again? Is Geri Halliwell
getting married? These are all
questions we ask ourselves after we’ve read a small teaser in
for instance Hello or OK magazine. Then we wonder, “Huh, maybe Gwyneth
really is a cover and Norwegian Eva is together with the Spanish Prince
again...?” The truth is that first of all we really don’t have any right
to know what these people do in their own time, and second of all we wouldn’t
even know about these things if the press hadn’t followed these people around
day and night to dig up something intriguing to feed us with. Most
people have the I don’t really care and it doesn’t really interest me, but
since we’re skipping through it and it’s there... attitude. I guess we’ve all
wondered about one thing or another regarding a celebrity, but the question
is whether we had wondered about it if we hadn’t heard it somewhere
first. Had anyone wondered whether or not Ricky Martin was gay or not if the
press hadn’t asked the question first? Would the relationship between Ally
McBeal and Indiana Jones interest anyone if the press hadn’t been on their
backs all the time, following their every move? Maybe we wonder what our
neighbour does every once in a while, but do we go over there, ring the
doorbell and ask Hey you! Who’s that chap you’re shagging? Have you been
seeing him long? You see, I was just wondering, and most likely I’m not the
only one, so what I’ll do is I’ll write a memo from this conversation, add a
couple of juicy details and print one copy for each household...?
For a while there
was a lot of focus on the fact that Robert Downey Jr is what would be
regarded as a junkie, and not on his ability as an actor. OK, so he
has a problem. To my knowledge he’s not the only person in the world who has
problems with those things, and to be rather bloody honest it interests me
right up the arse what he does when he’s not doing a movie. Every other week
it was “Downey Jr back on drugs”, “Downey Jr arrested” and “Downey
Jr drug free and healthy”. What he does privately should have nothing to
do with how his latest picture is reviewed, unless he does a lousy job on it.
Whether or not it has anything to do with his actual problem. Some have problems
with the fact that Elton John is gay. Seriously, unless he shags his boyfriend
David on stage in front of a crowd, I can’t say I see the real problem. You
don’t need all the gory details about what’s going on behind closed doors,
and even though it’s only a small number of people who are actually
interested in knowing anything whatsoever about just that, the tabloid
press ask the questions anyway. It’s between the lines. “Elton John and
David Furnish having a romantic dinner together in St. Tropez” with room
for interpretations such as “and guess
what’s going on after the romantic dinner in France, just the two
of’em, alone, in the bedroom...”
Is Bruce Willis a
better or worse actor if he’s dating Demi More or not? Is Robbie Williams a
better or worse singer if he’s single or in a relationship? Is Geri Halliwell
getting more or less talented if she got married? Is Elton John’s music
better or worse because he goes to bed with a man every night? Is Harrison
Ford’s movie better or worse because he’s dating Carlista Flockhart in his
own time? If Brad Pitt had divorced Jennifer Aniston and started dating Tom
Cruise instead, would his abilities as an actor get better or worse? The answers to
these questions, at least in my head, is no. My attitude is that as
long as they keep making movies/music, I don’t give a sh*t what they do in
their own time, while some have a tendency to judge an actor/musician by
what they do outside their job. Because it is a job they’re doing,
just like the rest of us. The biggest difference is that they have a slightly
better income than the rest of us, but does that mean we have to know
what they do under their duvet, in their own home, when they’re off work?
Would it be equally interesting if there was a two page article about what Anna
from London did with Andy from Cornwall over the weekend? Hardly.
Don’t any public
personalities have the right to a personal life? In that case, shouldn’t
there be more articles about Bus driver Anderson, age 56, who drives bus
292 between Borehamwood and Edgware every day, who in his own time has sex
with his wife twice a week, most likely between the news and the sports more
often? He’s just as public as Robbie Williams, does a job like Robbie
does and meet as many people – if not more – every day that appreciates what
he does. But for some strange reason is Mr Williams more interesting than Mr
Anderson. Why? The answer may be Because the press makes us interested in
Robbie, not Anderson.
Does it really
matter that much what Elton does with his private parts, compared to what the
receptionist at Shakespeare Hotel does with his? No, that’s right, we don’t
want to know about a receptionist, cause we don’t know him. Do we know
a celebrity after reading a couple of gossip-articles about them? We seem to
like to think we do. What? She sleeps with him!? Well, that says
everything about her, now, doesn’t it? and then we automatically know
everything about her as a person, what she thinks and why she does what she
does. When we know what happens in the bedroom, we know everything. Hooray
for the new national sport. |