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Maybe celebrities deserve our sympathy, not our scorn

Carrie Miller

by Carrie Miller

15 Mar 05:50am

Filed under: Celebrity, Lara Bingle, Media, Society

49 comments

The media storm surrounding Lara Bingle and that bloke who plays cricket has got me thinking about the pressures of celebrity and whether we should give a bugger about putting famous people under such intense scrutiny. It also got me thinking about my own brief, shameful experience with harassing a star.

Who are you really John Cusack?

Several years ago I went to dinner at a posh Chinese restaurant. This may sound perfectly benign, but I’m a squeamish vegetarian. Being surrounded by living things swimming in tanks meant the only thing on the menu that looked vaguely appetising was the beer. Two slabs later, while my friends were still picking at their entrees, I decided I needed to make a phone call.

I staggered down the restaurant stairs like a drag queen post-Sleaze Ball and off to the phone box outside. In the middle of this drink-and-dial episode I spotted a large man sheltering a smaller man in a way that made him look important. So I dropped the phone and tottered over to see who the smaller man was. It turned out it was the actor John Cusack. Being a self-anointed film critic I proceeded helpfully to tell him who he was. “You’re John Cusack”, I slurred.

But it didn’t stop there. As the phone dangled impotently in the box a few metres away my friend could probably hear me reveal to Mr Cusack his list of film credits and a discriminating appraisal of his work. The larger man – the actor’s security detail as it turned out – stopped me mid-sentence. He said calmly but firmly, “He’s not John Cusack tonight, lady”.

I wasn’t going to let that go through to the keeper – not in my state.

Directing my drunken indignation at Cusack, who by the way had not even looked at me, much less spoken a word to me, I shouted “Who the f… do you think you are?” Kindly, he didn’t ask the same of me. The actor just looked at the ground and stayed looking at it until an expensive car pulled up and he was bundled into it and driven away from the crazy lady left standing on the street.

Which brings me to the question: can we empathise with celebrities who want to be left alone?

There seems to be two schools of thought on this. One is what I call the ‘Princess Diana was like a member of my own family’ view. Members of this club seem to take everything a celebrity goes through personally. They buy all the gossip mags and then melodramatically lament the demise of a celebrity. “They were never allowed to just have a normal life”, they snivel. The other are a much colder, smug lot who think, suck it up with your personal trainers and chefs, you deserve what you get.

The interesting thing about these opposing sides is they have more in common than either would like to admit. When a celebrity gets into trouble both believe they have the moral right to weigh into a debate about who’s to blame. It’s received wisdom that this is all due to the tabloid media and their obsession with elevating then destroying celebrities before you can say “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”.

But our feeling that we can make such moral judgments – whether about the media in the case of the Di fan club, or the celebrities themselves in the case of the rest of us – is a function of something with deeper historical roots.

What both sides fail to recognise is that celebrities aren’t people in any real sense; they’re mythical creatures of the Ancient Greek variety. They facilitate the public enactment of tragic myths and therefore serve the same function a Greek tragedy did to the populace of that ancient place.

Sorry to break it to those who take the moral high ground about Di’s relationship to the paparazzi, Michael Jackson’s enabling doctor, or Tiger Wood’s penis, but the celebrity dramas that play out in our living rooms have a long history.

From Sophocles to Shakespeare, Beckett and beyond, dramatic tragedies generally involve the reversal of fortune of a protagonist that elicits pity and fear in their spectators. The great philosopher Aristotle believed that the role of tragedy was to produce a catharsis – a purification of the emotions that it evokes.

Given this, it seems those breathless over break-ups splashed across Woman’s Day like Lara and Clarkey’s may not be such phonies after all. They may just be part of a long tradition of audiences who are able to experience a much needed emotional cleansing. Perhaps us morally smug types who look down on such people could do with a bit of a scrub ourselves.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t think of anything worse than being famous. Imagine having to deal with obnoxious drunks who won’t leave you alone when you’re trying to enjoy a quiet night out.

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49 comments

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    • Ben says:

      05:37am | 15/03/10

      “What both sides fail to recognise is that celebrities aren’t people in any real sense; they’re mythical creatures of the Ancient Greek variety. They facilitate the public enactment of tragic myths and therefore serve the same function a Greek tragedy did to the populace of that ancient place.”

      Well, yeah, but…they’re people too, yeah?

      Reply

    • formersnag says:

      06:44am | 15/03/10

      In the case of “Lady Di”, “Princess Mary” or “George Clooney”. “Celebrities” who do not necessarily, seek it, aggressively. Then YES.

      In the case of “Lara Bingle”, “Paris Hilton” et al. “Famous” people, seeking fame, aggressively with $200,000, Exclusive Gossip Magazine articles. Then NO.

      Reply

    • chris says:

      07:51am | 15/03/10

      I have to side with formersnag on this one.

    • dancan says:

      10:08am | 15/03/10

      I agree.  I think that is something many people forget in this argument.  A lot of people who defend invasive journalism say “they’re celebrity, they should get used to it, and it goes with the territory”.  But they’re not celebrities.  They’re artists who entered into the field because they love it; they excel at it because of hard work and natural talent they possess.  It is the public that label them “celebrity” and focus on their lives to make up for the short falls in their own.

      Simply doing the job you enjoy and being really good at it does not constitute a reason for hounding someone or being invasive to their lives.

      Rarely will you find a high calibre artist who says “I entered into this for the fame and money”.  Those who do say this are often B grade at best, or the Paris Hiltons of the world.

    • SLF says:

      08:42am | 15/03/10

      The ones who deserve our sympathy tend to get it, the ones who don’t do not. It really does seem to be that simple.

      Slebs who court the media for popularity and their own agenda should not complain when the public backlash when they feel let down or if the sleb suddenly decides they don’t want to play anymore.

      Unfortunatley for slebs there are always drunks, who make everyone’s existance and misery, not just the celebrities..

      Reply

    • hmmmmm says:

      09:08am | 15/03/10

      I’m curious about how this whole thing became about Lara Bingle and Michael Clarke when it should be about a married man, taking a non-consensual picture of a teenage girl in the shower (albeit his girlfriend) and distributing it to his ‘mates’.  Fevola seems to have got off scott free from this one which makes me enormously suspicious and wary of jumping on the ‘hate Lara’ bandwagon….seems she may just be the sacrificial lamb to distract everyone from coming down hard on and making accountable, god forbid, a sporting figure.

      Reply

    • EJ says:

      09:37am | 15/03/10

      Hear Hear!! I’ve been trying to get something like this published all week but was ignored. The whole saga is abour BRENDAN FEVOLA & his neanderthal mates, & yet the media have turned it into destroying Bingle & Clarks relationship. The one at fault, the one needing to be vilified is FEVOLA…..not only for taking the photo & sending it off to his equally childish footy mates….but also because HE was married at the time….whilst Bingle was single & only 19 years old. The media of this country is really on the nose at present!!

    • SLF says:

      10:06am | 15/03/10

      If it was all about Fevola…why did the photo emerge 2 weeks ahead of the season when he is in last chance saloon after being booted from his last club.

      What benefit would there be for him in this scandal, absolutely zero. Sure taking the pic and sending it to mates was pretty low, but I do not believe he has anything to do with this.

      The reason this is in the news at the moment is because Lara Bingle and her people want it to be and by the look of things have engineered it so that she will make a fortune off the back of something which happened years ago.

      Sacrificial lamb! Pull the other one, she and her people have executed this campaign beautifully on behalf of Lara Bingle Inc.

    • Cuppa says:

      01:13pm | 15/03/10

      Your kidding right?You say she was only nineteen?Well she was old enough to have an affair with a married man(and then say she didnt realise he was married.Riiiiiiight….).Lara Bingle seems to be fairly morally bankrupt & deserves what she gets.

    • Pete says:

      09:54am | 15/03/10

      The best thing to do with celebrities is just to ignore them.

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      10:09am | 15/03/10

      Ummm, I guess you guys make a point. But you also miss one: this whole affair was, as the wags (not those WAGs) have dubbed it, a ‘Bingle bungle’. Clearly the whole Fevola-gate picture scandal was orchestrated by camp Bingle to get her some attention and pitch some employment ideas to TV outlets etc. Unfortunately, her fiancé balked at the whole thing.

      It isn’t that I don’t have some sympathy for Bingle, but it is silly to be naive about what actually happened. And, yes, Fevola is a jerk, but that is not newsworthy. And what is the deal with that Max Markson fellow?

      Reply

    • hmmmmm says:

      10:51am | 15/03/10

      SLFand AdamC - you misunderstand.  I don’t necessarily think that Fevola engineered the release of this photo, I just don’t think that he has been appropriately reprimanded for obviously not deleting the picture as per the request and for circulating it to friends to begin with.  And I’m curious as to how we are manipulated by media to suddenly make Lara Bingle the villain. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the photo was taken without consent and THAT is my concern.  I don’t think it is clear that camp Bingle orchestrated anything.  I think she was badly managed into responding to the situation, in a way I wouldn’t have, by doing the interview with Women’s Day, but to use that decision to excuse the reprehensible behaviour of Brendan Fevola staggers me.  There is no doubt that someone HAS orchestrated this, I just think Bingle had moved on from Fevola, was doing well with Clarke, and someone wanted them both to hurt….Fevola’s wife perhaps?

      Reply

    • AdamC says:

      11:56am | 15/03/10

      Hold on, Hmmm, I wasn’t excusing Fevola’s behaviour at all. But this imbroglio isn’t about Fevola. This image is years old, it was clearly dug out from the publicity grave to re-animate Lara Bingle’s profile. And, even if Bingle and Markson were not involved in actually resurrecting the picture (which I don’t believe), they certainly came up with the aggressive, self-promoting response pretty fast!

      Like I said, I have sympathy for Bingle. She made a mistake in dating Fevola when he was a married bastard (and still is) and she made a mistake when she exploited this story to raise her profile. I actually feel a little sorry for her, but she took certain risks with her personal life that she is old enough to take personal responsibility for.

    • Greg says:

      11:06am | 15/03/10

      So you’re comparing Woman’s Day treatment of real people to Shakespeare’s treatement of either fictional characters or historical figures long since dead….

      Riiiiight.

      Reply

    • Bob says:

      11:26am | 15/03/10

      I do my best to ignore the tabloid gossip but this got me thinking. If WAG stands for ‘Wives and Girlfriends’ then it is plural. Does that mean WOG is singular for ‘Wife or Girlfriend’? And is Bingle now a FAG, ‘Formerly a Girlfriend’?

      Reply

    • Bob says:

      12:42pm | 15/03/10

      This is beginning to vex me. What if she decides to do a dirty expose of their private life? Would that make her a BAG (Bitchy Angry Girlfriend)?

      We really should get this sorted, I’d hate to embarass myself by using the wrong acronym!

    • Ellen Jones says:

      11:37am | 15/03/10

      I hate vegetarians. Might write an opinion piece about it, entitled “Why I hate vegetarians - that means you”.

      Reply

    • Brian B says:

      01:33pm | 15/03/10

      Have you noticed that vegetarians always have to tell you “I’m a vegetarian”, even if it has nothing to do with the conversation, or in this case, the article?

      It’s like, “I’m a vegetarian - a higher form of life”

      Cheez!!

    • Gimme Cow says:

      02:23pm | 15/03/10

      And people who claim to be be vegetarian, but still eat fish.  They’re not vegetarians, they’re meat-racists.

    • Carrie Miller says:

      02:30pm | 15/03/10

      Ellen, that’s a great idea. I’m one and I give myself the shits..

    • Ginger Mick says:

      02:32pm | 15/03/10

      Something very sinister about them. Herr Hitler was one.

    • AFR says:

      02:36pm | 15/03/10

      Its ok, vegetarians have no souls.

      I appreicate this is off-topic, but sorry, the Bingle/Clarke/Favola things has been done to death.

    • Elizabeth says:

      12:14pm | 15/03/10

      You had me at ” Two slabs later…”

      Reply

    • Carrie Miller says:

      02:28pm | 15/03/10

      Ah, a woman after my own heart. Few and far between by the looks of the comments today.

    • Bob says:

      04:06pm | 15/03/10

      I would have been impressed by the two slabs had you not blown the chance to throw up on John Cusack.

    • TB says:

      12:39pm | 15/03/10

      Celebs need neither scorn nor sympathy. They need us (the public) to mind our own business and leave them the **** alone. The personal affairs of these people are of no genuine concern whatsoever to the broader public, and anybody who thinks otherwise needs to take a good, hard look at themselves.

      I hate to burst the bubbles of the proles out there, but these so-called celebs are human beings, too. They’re just as fallible and messed up as everybody else, perhaps more so because they’ve got swathes of complete strangers practically stalking them. Because let’s face it, at the end of the day, that’s all that celebrity is to you. No matter how much you read about them, watch them on TV, or think you know them, they’re just another one of the billions of complete strangers you’ve never met, and probably never will. So why the hell are you so interested in their every move? So put down that copy of New Idea (or No Idea as I prefer to call it) and take up a hobby that’s, you know, less creepy.

      Reply

    • Matt Stewart says:

      01:09pm | 15/03/10

      We make them, we own them.  If they don’t like it, they should choose a different career.  I’m not part of the ‘cult of celebrity’, but I think it’s pathetic when multi-millionaires complain that their pay-masters want a little more from them.

      Interesting use of the word ‘proles’, too.  The proles were fed on a diet of pop songs and pornography, while members of the outer party walked around feeling smugly superior, failing to realise that they were the real prisoners of the inner party.

    • dancan says:

      02:56pm | 15/03/10

      That’s absurd Matt.  You don’t make anyone, you don’t own anyone if you believe anything different then you’re just deluding yourself with some idea of self-entitlement.  It’s the agent and their talent that makes them, it’s the studio and sponsors that own them.  You like me are just the slobs who watch them. 

      If you feel that you’re not getting value for money from that movie/show/concert etc then ask for a better performance on the stage not from their personal lives.

      But if you truly believe you are the pay-master and that you own these celebrities, why don’t you put that theory to the test and write to one of your employees demanding they change something.  As their boss I’m sure the celebrity in question will jump at your command.

    • marley says:

      02:59pm | 15/03/10

      Well I don’t know.  When the celebrity is deliberately marketing her latest personal imbroglio to a tabloid magazine for substantial bucks, and recruiting her family to do the same, I don’t get the message that she actual wants to be left “the ***** alone.”  I get the message that she wants to be in the public eye and have us all discussing her travails.

      So if some of the discussion backfires, well, that’s the nature of the game she’s playing.  A bit hard to conjure up much sympathy in this particular instance.

    • Matt Stewart says:

      03:19pm | 15/03/10

      Bwahahaha dancan… You think we judge and reward our actors based on talent.  That’s so sweet.  Naive, but sweet.  You must be one those people that thinks Sandra Bullock can act.

      As I said, I don’t go in for the cult of celebrity, but fans maketh the celebrity and they can demand whatever they want.  Celebrities can ignore their fans and be forgotten, work to find new fans, or give their fans what they want.  They can’t ask to be adored on their own terms.

    • matt stewart says:

      03:29pm | 15/03/10

      I mean seriously dancan, do you think Megan Fox has acting talent, or do you think she’s eye candy?  And the fact is, you don’t need to be in a movie to be eye candy, any image will do.  If she wants to be loved for her acting skills, she’s going to have to learn to act.  Talent… LOL.

      I must admit, some celebrities try really hard to hide their public lives from the media, and I can respect them for it.  Any celebrity that cam-whores one day and demands privacy the next is an idiot.  TB is right that they don’t deserve scorn or sympathy, but neither do they deserve to be left alone.

    • Cuppa says:

      01:18pm | 15/03/10

      Apparently Lara Bingle flushed her engagement ring down the toilet.That ring was worth more than a lot of hard working people earn in three or four years.If its true, than that is the actions of an ungrateful, spoilt brat who deserves everything she gets.

      Reply

    • Gregory says:

      01:29pm | 15/03/10

      You got your first sentence wrong. “Lara Bingle and that bloke who plays cricket” should read “Michael Clarke and that girl who models bikini’s”. Don’t for a second think her modelling talents up trump Clarkes cricketing talents.

      Reply

    • DL says:

      02:27pm | 15/03/10

      If your stupid enough to have an affair with Fevola then she deserves it

      Reply

    • Martt says:

      02:36pm | 15/03/10

      Superbly succint, DL.  Well done.

      Reply

    • Hendo says:

      03:03pm | 15/03/10

      On a related topic (i.e. Clarke and the Test against NZ), I’d just like to say “Let the sledging begin!”

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      03:13pm | 15/03/10

      I don’t buy the Greek myth analogy. It sounds like something Cate Blanchett would try to say at a Sydney Theatre Company awards ceremony, in that ridiculous affected sing song voice - ‘But you see friends, we’re all like actors in a tragic Greek play, the plebians feed off all the emotions we have to give, they’re like vampires, that’s why I can’t stand to be around common people.’ Paraphrasing, but no doubt close to something she’s actually said.

      Individually, celebrities deserve about as much sympathy as individual ranks in the SS deserved. I mean sure, you can feel sorry for them because they’ve been roped into something bigger and more despicable than they are, but ultimately, they’re still the people behind the triggers, making the choice to open fire.

      It’s the same with celebrities. They’re part of something bigger, something that really deserves our scorn. They’re part of a global industrial entertainment complex devoted to keeping us scared, stupid and distracted. There are exceptions, as there are to every rule, but for the life of me I can’t find one that’s Australian, so restricting it to Australian celebrities, yes, we should not consider them human. In fact… in fifty years I think the only worthwhile celebrity to come out of Australia is Nick Cave, and he moved to Berlin.

      Occassionaly celebrities come along that hold a mirror to the morally bankrupt world in which we live but they’re few and far between. You know, at the moment I think Lady GaGa is the closest we have to a genuine iconoclast. She’s subverting the tropes of celebrity and fame, openly transgressive, possessed of barely restrained violence and sexuality in the face of everything sanitised and Disney in the world. I just checked out her new, 9 minute long music video and realised she ticks all the boxes in a way that I don’t think anyone has since… Marilyn Manson in the mid-90s, before he got stupid? David Bowie pre-Dancing in the Street?

      You know in Ancient Rome, the only people lower on the class structure than slaves and whores were actors. Because even prostitution in ancient Rome had an element of the divine too it, in Temples devoted to Bacchus it was even considered sacred. Slaves existed to help their masters, and the Senate recognised that without slaves Rome wouldn’t exist. But actors existed only for entertainment. They were frivolous.

      So how is it in 2000 years these people, who once you’d have had to trade 5 of for 1 able bodied Gallic farmhand, have become subjects of global obsession?

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      03:45pm | 15/03/10

      I have a cunning plan.  Stop buying the magazines.

      Next problem!!!!

      Reply

    • S.L says:

      03:49pm | 15/03/10

      So Carrie you staggered out of a Chinese Resteraunt to a public phone box. Er how long ago was the afforementioned incident with the alleged Mr Cusack? How old were you both 12?
      I’m surprised nobody else has mentioned this, a Journo without a shoe phone!!!!!!
      I was at Erina Fair last Friday when the infamous Ms Bingle was getting in some retail therapy with a gal pal. Didn’t have to see her (and I didn’t), every female from 15 to 25 was talking about her (in not so kind words) but as you say that’s the price of celebrity. The public are either kicking them to the curb or kissing their backsides.
      It can also be a funny creature. Until Fevolas affair with Lara a few years back no one north of the Murray had heard of him and same for her to the south so you could say it helped both their profiles…........

      Reply

    • Carrie Miller says:

      06:33pm | 15/03/10

      Just to make people more annoyed with me, not only am I a vegetarian, I got my first mobile phone in September 2006. And I only got on Facebook 5 weeks ago. Talk about an out-of-touch, lefty elitist. Being 42 I’m guessing that my meeting with Mr Cusack was in 2004 or thereabouts. Hope that clears that up, S.L.

    • S.L says:

      10:14am | 16/03/10

      Good on you Carrie I couldn’t care if you were left, right or in the middle. I live with a vegetarian so I can’t even have a crack at you there and I’m not on Facebook! Elitist? Well I thought that was the charter of a journo to “dumb down” stories so us uneducated sods can understand the point you’re writing about.
      Annoyed with you ? No! Surprised you replied? Yes…....

    • AdamC says:

      03:53pm | 15/03/10

      “[Celebrities are] part of a global industrial entertainment complex devoted to keeping us scared, stupid and distracted.”

      Really, Zeta, distracted from what? Because I know I was planning to take down this ghastly corporate police state of ours today but, when I heard that Lara B had flushed Pup’s diamond ring down the dunny, I simply had to peer at news.com.au all day waiting for updates. However, I think most of my fellow commuters this morning probably didn’t need to be distracted from anything (with the exception of those with a hangover).

      Still, it’s not the Punch until someone alludes to a conspiracy theory in the comments.

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      07:56pm | 15/03/10

      No, a conspiracy theory would have been - “[Celebrities are] part of a global industrial entertainment complex devoted to keeping us distracted from the hideous truth that Rupert Murdoch knows the location of the hidden city of R’Lyeh and he’s one more multi billion dollar Avatar sequel away from funding an expedition to unearth Cthulhu, the Sleeper Who Must Awaken.”

    • hmmmmm says:

      04:05pm | 15/03/10

      AdamC - you miss my point again.  This SHOULD be about Fevola, rather than the relationship between Bingle and Clarke/Bingle career/Max Markson blah blah blah.  You seem to think everything about this situation is so ‘clear’ whereas I think the exact opposite.  I believe that somewhere in the murky depths of this situation is the truth, but it is unlikely to every emerge because everyone keeps dealing in absolutes.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      04:22pm | 15/03/10

      Cate Blanchett’s an artist, and a celebrity. She can do it. Most celebrities can’t, Sir.
      If you can write an essay about anything, as you once claimed, be discriminating, or, in other words, think.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      08:03pm | 15/03/10

      PS That was in response to Zeta. 4.13.p.m.

      Reply

    • Andrew says:

      08:57am | 16/03/10

      Q. What does a celebrity hate more than getting constant attention?
      A, Not getting constant attention.

      These people (for the most part) spend big dollars to get their name out there, and they then wonder why people take such interest in their lives. They pretend they hate it, but when the attention stops they will then spend big dollars getting their name back out there.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole photo incident isn’t a carefully stage managed thing designed to get the “where the bloody hell are you” chick, back into front page news.

      Reply

    • Man says:

      12:45pm | 16/03/10

      Celebrities get paid millions for their work. Why is it then their off-screen antics are just as popular? Because they get paid for those ‘exclusives’ too! It’s of little wonder then that some of the has-beens lose all self-respect and begin to abuse the media’s addiction to them doing ludicrous things. Celebs that deliberately generate controversy around themselves aren’t worth the attention.

      When they’re not doing the things that made them a celebrity in the first place, ignore them. It shouldn’t be a decision of sympathy or scorn. Don’t do anything to them and get on with your own life. Maybe then the news would be filled with more important things.

      Reply

    • Scott the realist says:

      05:22pm | 16/03/10

      You don’t have to be a celebrity or tosser as I like to call them, and all those who wish that career path have to know the issues that come with that choice if you don’t want that choose a different career path and I don’t care what you do on your own time because i think you are of no consequence to the world as a whole, so stop making comment on world issues as if you matter for a start, no celebrity is worth the obscene money they are paid so to make things right a little penalty is in place no -one forces you to be a celebrity so htfu .

      Reply
 
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