Being a fan of the reality television series, Jon and Kate plus 8, I obviously couldn’t escape the flood of tabloid and news concerning the couple’s maritial troubles. (If you have no clue what the show Jon and Kate plus 8 is about, it’s just a TV series about this family of ten — two parents, a set of twins and a set of sextuplets.) Whenever I go to the supermarket or drugstore, I am bombarded with pictures of the family with giant headlines saying that Jon cheated on Kate or vice versa.  No, I do not read these articles, but oddly enough, you always seem to get the gist of everything that is written in a tabloid magazine by looking at its cover. There is also the fact that you can’t help but think that people actually took the time to write complete and utter… poo.

Which begs the question: why is there even a demand for these sensationalistic magazines full of stories that are partly or completely untrue? Honestly, why should I care about who Brad Pitt sleeps with? Why should anyone care? Oddly enough, the case of Jon and Kate that I mention above is an interesting one, considering that their decision on their marriage will definitely affect the television show they are on. However, curiosity on whether or not the show will continue does not excuse the blatant and extremely creepy stalking that is going on. The season premiere of the hit series also featured for the first time, the Gosselin family being followed by the paparazzi as they’re getting decorations for a birthday party for their newly turned five year-old sextuplets. (They were also during the party, which made it even creepier and frankly, disgusting.) Even though the Gosselins do have a good part of their everyday life on display, I fail to comprehend the need to know all the other details that they don’t want people to know.

To theorize, perhaps to those who do read tabloids, the act of reading them becomes a legal and non-committal way of satisfying their stalkerish tendencies. Or has it become another way to live vicariously through celebrities? In any case, if anyone does understand why people read this complete and utter nonsense (when there are obviously more interesting and productive things to do), please tell me. I’d really like to know. What compels you to read tabloids? Do you really think that anything written in them is true? Why and why not? What’s the benefit from say… knowing that Lindsay Lohan or whoever went partying last night?

To conclude, although the public gaze does in a way de-humanize (and perhaps deify) celebrities or television/film/musical personalities, a fundamental thing that everyone has to remember is that they are all simply human beings just like us. There are definitely things that you don’t want people to find out about and therefore it is none of their business; not to mention that spreading rumours/”decorated” or false stories can be extremely hurtful and destructive. Even if celebrities are constantly in the public eye, they do have the right to have their own secrets as well as the right to deal with their troubles and hardships without anyone scrutinizing them or their decisions unless they choose to divulge these secrets.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 10:13 am and is filed under Entertainment, TV, We've Got Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.