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The Price of Fame

Entry 1049, on 2009-07-09 at 21:50:22 (Rating 4, News)

What is the price of fame? This is a question I have been wanting to blog about for a while and the incidents surrounding the death of Michael Jackson have provided a trigger to actually go ahead with that entry.

I often hear celebrities say they want the media to leave them alone and let them get on with their lives, but I think they are being disingenuous when they say that, or at the very least they are being unrealistic.

What would these people be without the media and the continual intrusions into their lives by their fans? They would be nothing, so it seems a bit hypocritical to ask the media to leave them alone when things go wrong. And yes, I do think this extends to the ultimate tragedy in a star's life: their death, although dying seems to have been the best thing Jackson has done for years as far as his music career is concerned.

But what about the star's friends and family? Do they deserve the stress caused by the media poking around in the messy details of the celebrity's life? Clearly there should be limits but the idea that the media should keep away from the family of a recently deceased star is probably unreasonable. The associates of the famous person most likely gained some benefit from his fame and its reasonable that they should have to endure some negative aspects to that as well.

So I would suggest to the friends and family of Jackson that they should get over it (the media circus that is not, not the death) because they welcomed the fame and money that media stardom brought Jackson when things were going well and now they have to pay the price by being harassed by the media after his death.

And the same applies to all people who rely on the media to maintain their high profile with the public, especially people who do very little apart from being the target of celebrity stories (a good example would be the British royal family). I mean, its only trashy newspapers and equally trashy women's magazines (and their readers) who really care what these people do so they can hardly claim to be unfairly treated when some of the publicity they get isn't as positive as they would like.

So yes, there is a price for fame and anyone who benefits from popular media who help maintain their fame should be prepared to pay that price.

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