In case you haven't noticed, celebrities have become little demi-gods who are treated with fawning deference by the press. Why is that?

When was the last time you read a celebrity profile that was "disparaging, demeaning or derogatory"?

The rules of the game, as established by the glossy magazines and the stars' PR reps, ensure that "access" (well, a half-hour chat in a restaurant that enables the magazine to proclaim it has an "exclusive" interview) and the all-important exclusive cover shot are granted only to those magazines and journalists who will refrain from anything but fawning prose. It works out well for everybody. Celebrity journalists who play along get a good payday, magazines get newsstand sales bumps, and the rest of us are inculcated into the received myths of Celebland, the legends that sustain the illusion that it is somehow truly important.

Sure, it's possible to publish a rant on the Web (as U.K. journalist Brendan O'Neill did in a devastating piece calling Brad and Angelina "celebrity colonialists"), but such critiques are largely irrelevant to the vast, well-oiled, pap-dispensing Publicity-Industrial Complex (a phrase I believe I was the first to use, in an essay arguing that J.D. Salinger's rejection of this apparatus is a reticence to be admired rather than ridiculed).

The fact is, celebrities don't need a signed contract—celebrity profilers know that the power lies in the hands of PR people, who in many cases demand writer approval before committing one of their stars to a cover story. And no profiler who makes a lucrative living off elaborate fawning wants to do anything that might jeopardize his pre-approval status.

So when Angelina Jolie is proclaiemd "the best woman in the world" by Esquire, don't be surprised. And when celebrity activism gets trumpeted as proof of the heightened caring and moral superiority of the over-privileged entertainment class, don't be shocked. After all, questioning the validity of the cause or the contentions of the star can end your career.

Posted by: Greg at 11:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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