Celebrity culture: admiration or worship?

The death of Michael Jackson – and the attendant outpouring – got us talking about whether Americans’ obsession with celebrities amounts to a kind of idolatry.

MARY: When I was in college, I listened to Billy Joel’s two big albums 52^nd Street and The Stranger for hours on end. I memorized all the words. To this day, hearing any one of those songs, I can tell you what song is next on the album.

Shortly after graduating from college, after years communing with his soulful lyrics, I actually met Billy Joel. And I was smacked in the face with the most astounding revelation: Billy didn’t know me.

All those years, it had felt as if we’d had a relationship. No, we were soulmates. His words spoke to me. All these years, I’d been the one listening to his music. Didn’t he know that?

Rationally, of course, I knew better. But actually meeting him face-to-face, I was confronted with the startling reality that whatever “relationship” I’d experienced had really been all one-sided. Whatever connection we seemed to share ultimately amounted to me talking to myself.

That experience taught me that, at some level, there’s something basically unhealthy about putting too much of our hearts into celebrities: people we can only admire or worship from afar. I think it can be a form of emotional self-gratification passing for human connection, at one level, but really, it’s all about me.

ROBIN: The hoopla over Michael’s passing is a bit disconcerting to me as I’m visiting friends near Santa Barbara later this week and am facing the prospect of the roads near Neverland Ranch being clogged by hordes of Michael Jackson fans.

Those fans’ tearful reactions, though, remind me of how I felt when Princess Diana died. An Anglophile at heart, I had followed her ascent to royalty, the births of her children, her trend-setting style and the demise of her marriage.

And when I’d learned she’d died, I felt like I was mourning someone I knew. Even got up early to watch the funeral, just as I had for her wedding.

Diana, of course, never knew me—or any of the thousands of Brits who clogged the entrance of Buckingham Palace after her death. And who thinks about Diana anymore?

I think celebrity worship makes us feel part of something bigger than ourselves, perhaps fills a longing for connection with like-minded others, a sense of community we hunger for, and a fleeting pseudo-connection (in our minds, at least) with the kind of widespread recognition that most of us will never see in our own lives.

AMY: Another interesting point is that often, celebrities take all kinds of heat, deserved or not, while they’re alive, but then death comes and changes things. I suppose it’s like that on a smaller scale for the non-famous, too. Reminds me of the old song, “Give Me Flowers While I’m Living,” popularized by acts like Flatt & Scruggs and the Carter Family:

In this world today while we’re living some folks say the worst of us they can,
But when we are dead and in our caskets they always slip some lilies in your hand
Won’t you give me my flowers while I'm living and let me enjoy them while I can
Please don't wait till I’m ready to be buried and then slip some lilies in my hand.

Then again, for some people, it doesn’t matter that the person they’re criticizing has died. Early Web site reports of Michael Jackson’s death elicited comments expressing joy over the imagined eternal damnation of the deceased, by people certain that child molestation charges against Jackson shouldn’t have been dismissed. (I didn’t pay enough attention to the allegations or trial to form an opinion, but I find such comments in poor taste, regardless of what happened.)

So an element of our culture revolves around worshipping the famous and successful, while at the same time it’s dedicated to tearing them down. Everyone’s a critic, yes, but what are we missing that we try to replace with obsessions, both positive and negative, of other human beings? And how easily do we forget that is exactly what they are: human?

KEN: I go back and forth on celebrity worship. When I tell someone I’m a movie critic I feel I have to add that I don’t really care who’s married to who or who’s recently been outed; if the real-life drama has no impact on what’s on the screen, then I don’t care. In my more cynical moments, I think all of us grown-ups miss high school. We graduate, and, at a loss for what to do with ourselves, we latch on to a new class of popular kids we can fawn over… until we decide it’s time to destroy them, which we do, with unseemly glee.

But I’d be crazy not to acknowledge the very real impact famous people have had on me and others. Though I stay away from the gossip, I certainly like reading interviews with my favorite creators, hunting for great anecdotes or clues into their process. Their repeated success translates to taking that person more seriously than I would other complete strangers. Clearly, this esteemed director (or actor, or writer, or what-have-you) has more to offer me than Joe Schmoe. Clearly.

But I have seen positive side effects to this behavior and—how to phrase it?—mass co-dependency. Long before I worked at the Reporter I was a lowly promotions grunt for a local rock station, and I got to work a lot of signings and meet-and-greets with rock stars and actors. There were a lot of creepy fans, but there were a lot more who came out just to show their appreciation for the artist who’d changed their lives. More than once, this or that rock star (and you’d be surprised who) made that little extra gesture that made someone’s day.

But let’s put down the gossip rags and close the Perez Hilton browser tabs, all right? No one comes out looking good when we rip into the rich and famous for having the audacity to be talented (or good-looking, or just lucky).

BILL: Like Ken, I’ve been a movie lover all my life, and followed my obsession to film school at the University of Texas in Austin. I’m not sure that I ever thought of the directors and actors that I most admired as flawless souls; there was way too much evidence to the contrary, in news reports or anecdotes in books or magazines.

But as a student I did imagine myself eventually working with or getting to know those folks—and how very cool that would be. Sometimes, I’m afraid, I valued those dreams more than real relationships with family and friends. And when my hopes for a film-industry career didn’t pan out, I spent a few years feeling at least slightly embittered.

Later I had a little taste of what it’s like to “know” a celebrity, when I created a Web site—now defunct—for a favorite director. Within six months the site caught his eye, and he e-mailed to ask if I’d like to conduct an “exclusive” phone interview for his latest film. (The release wasn’t a success, and he’d temporarily left the country to avoid the mainstream press.)

I took the opportunity, and ended up with my face and a three-paragraph blurb in USA Today, when a friend notified one of their columnists. And you know what? Nothing in my life changed, and at age 40 I was mature enough to handle that and simply enjoy the moment. Thank heaven.