So I just woke up one day, and decided, as you do, that I would make it my personal mission in life to find out if Charles Le Pere had any part, no matter how small, in the construction of the Suez Canal. I will obviously keep all those on the edge of their seats posted, as this is a matter of extreme importance and urgency.
So I reckon I’m on the 12th minute or so. I was so excited that my article on celebrity worship was finally published and it came out in the Sunday Independent newspaper on 15 November, and a big thank you goes to two colleagues at work who made it all happen; to the editor who published it; to all the people that have been giving me wonderful and encouraging comments; and of course to God! If I had a spouse I’m sure I would have thanked him, or not, if I was already thinking of moving on as was the case when Hilary Swank omitted to thank her then-husband Chad Lowe at an Oscar award ceremony, but that’s another story entirely.
So because the Sunday Independent doesn’t have a link to the story online for some reason, here it is. I am not responsible for either the Beyonce photo or the title of the story. My original title was “Mad Icon Disease – How Obsessed Are We with Celebrities?”
November 15, 2009 Edition 1
Rosaline Daniel
“SLEEPING in the streets, and pulling out their hair – for someone they never knew.” – actor James Cromwell as Prince Philip on the public mourning for Diana, Princess of Wales in The Queen.
Brutal perhaps, but he has a point. Why are we so obsessed with the lives of celebrities who are basically strangers to us? Why do we care that it was indeed former rugby star Joost van der Westhuizen caught on video cheating on his wife with a stripper? Or that Madonna is now opening a girl’s school in Malawi, where her two adopted children are from?
We are fascinated by those in the public eye, and this fascination is nothing new. The ancient Olympic Games produced some of the first celebrities who received what was akin to red-carpet treatment on their return home. Similarly, the ancient Romans heralded and immortalised their leaders such as Julius Caesar by imprinting their faces on coins and creating sculptures of them.
Modern-day celebrity is fuelled by mass media in the form of tabloid magazines, fan and celebrity websites, entertainment segments on “serious” news networks and entire television programmes and channels devoted to creating and promoting the “cult of celebrity”. And yes, there is a huge audience of celebrity watchers.
If you want to bond with the average person, don’t ask them what the latest death toll is in Iraq or Afghanistan; or what the current bone of contention is in Zimbabwe’s unity government. Instead, ask them if they think SA Idols joint winner Sasha-Lee Davids should have conceded defeat gracefully to the real winner, Jason Hartman, and let him have his moment of glory – even if it wasn’t her fault but really the result of the organisers’ sms/voting bungle.
Why do we think that having such knowledge gives us a sense of relationship with these people? And yet, why wouldn’t we think we know them, given that their entire lives are constantly shoved in our faces? In fact, we probably “know” more about the average A-list celebrity than we do about our neighbours – at work or at home.
Such knowledge can lead to a sense of false familiarity. A 2002 scientific survey known as the Celebrity Worship Scale and published in the Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, found that celebrity worship is not an uncommon phenomenon. Dubbed “celebrity worship syndrome” (CWS), or “mad icon disease”, it comes in three forms: mild, moderate and severe.
“Mild” could be discussing the sex and drugs tape scandal of Van der Westhuizen. “Moderate” refers to those who have “an intense personal-type relationship” with a celebrity (which could describe those who made the trip to Kensington Palace following Princess Diana’s death in 1997).
“Severe”, though, is reserved for people who believe they have a special bond with their celebrity and would lie, or even die, for them.
People like John Hinckley Jr, who so wanted to impress actress Jodie Foster he tried to assassinate US president Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC, on March 30, 1981. Just days before his failed assassination attempt, Hinckley wrote this to Foster:
“There is a definite possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. It is for this very reason that I am writing you this letter now. As you well know by now I love you very much.”
Thousands of years ago, fame was gained through title, or great exploits that had a direct impact on the lives of others, and was spread by word of mouth.
Nowadays, celebrity is a global phenomenon, driven by mass media and the stars themselves, who bombard us with disposable information.
We are all involved to some extent in the lives of our celebrity icons, where, like a consumer brand, we pick and choose whom we think we know.
For some, it’s easier to form an imagined relationship with a famous person than it is with a normal person. As Oscar Wilde said: “(It is)… through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.”
And if you substitute “entertainment” for “art”, is it really so surprising that thousands of devoted admirers flocked to mourn Diana, the “People’s Princess” – someone they never knew?
Thanks Scottie. Your quote helped.
Went out for dinner yesterday with a friend. Was quite a funny experience. We were at a revolving sushi bar, which appeared to be having a bad night as there was hardly any food revolving and when we placed orders with the chefs, they weren’t that interested.
We sat next to this Afrikaner couple who were terribly loved up and opposite us was this couple and the woman just kept on looking at me and smiling the whole night. It was a bit disconcerting, although I did think she looked familiar.
Anyway when they were leaving, the woman comes over to us and starts this long conversation about how I look like her adopted daughter’s Angolan friend Faye and how she was looking at me and telling her husband how I resembled Faye. She asked us where we were from, since we don’t look South African, where we live (oh really? why have you come all this way to eat? — it’s only a 15 minute drive, whereas she had to take a 30 minute drive at least to get there), whether we were students, etc etc. I could see her husband out of the corner of my eye pacing and waiting for her. Anyway, she was a dearie and was very friendly.
Towards the end of the night, as Peter, the waiter from Zambia, is chatting to us, the Afrikaaner woman pipes up and tells me I cannot drink coke with sushi, that it’s a huge no-no and I should have had wine. (My friend had a cranberry juice.) My friend tells them that we’re both driving and she’s like doesn’t matter. Sushi is not to be had with coke. They were quite funny too.
In the end Peter claimed their computer was down so there was no receipt and no breakdown of our order, (although the couple next to us managed to get a receipt from their waiter), but we couldn’t be bothered to fight that since the amount sounded about right.
Peter then announced that he would like to get to know us and said we should come on a Saturday or a Sunday and the sushi will be on him, but we need to give him our phone numbers so that he can contact us. In the end we asked him to go get us some mints, as the couple next to us had been given some.
The “no coke with sushi” woman’s companion gave us his mints, we all had a laugh, and then we made a hurried get away before Peter could come and continue his “sushi on me” chat up line.
So last Friday night I went out with Mireille, Alisha, Rutendo and Angelique for tapas at Fork on Long Street, and then to see a play called “Iago’s Last Dance” which was about relationships and HIV/AIDS.
The play was really very good and so was the dinner and the company. I felt like we were in an episode of Sex and the City, except we were 5 single (alright 4 and 1 married) gals out on the town, livin’ and laughin’ it up as we talked about men, Cape Town, G4S (which stands for G4 Security, although Rutendo thought it stood for “Good for Sex”), and a certain man who is having a certain effect on all the ladies it seems.
A friend’s nearly 10 year old daughter came to stay with me this weekend, ‘cos she didn’t want me to “feel lonely”. Her mum’s away for work and she left her three sisters and came to hang out with me. We ate a lot of junk food, watched Hannah Montana and generally had fun. I had thought she was very quiet and shy, but she was quite talkative and told me she’s “mysterious”. Thanks for keeping me company “Nina Ballerina”.
So I went to see a film by myself for the first time in SA (I’ve been here nearly 2 years now), something I used to do all the time in England and America. The honour goes to “Sunshine Cleaning” which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then I bought the “How to lose friends and alienate people” DVD and then went and treated myself to sushi afterwards. A nice little day I’d say.
I just feel so tired and really need to go on leave — just to sleep if nothing else. Work is great, I love it, and I just got back from a trip to Leipzig, Germany, which was a wonderful opportunity.
It was good to get out of Cape Town, and just be around the “ordinary”. Won’t explain more than that. Met some great people, went to the opera to see The Barber of Seville (in Italian with German subtitles), and sold a lot of books. Was inspired to go back to school and do a Masters or PhD. We’ll see.
Photos will be posted soon.
Day One - (Tuesday):
Wake up knowing I’m getting a cold as stuff is going on in my nose. Go to work and feel okay though. Joke with colleagues and with the big contrary bear. By midday, I want to go home, but can’t as have to do some work for my boss by the end of the day. On the way home, go to buy Viral Choice and Vitamin C at the pharmacy.
Night One:
Couldn’t sleep at all. Headache like you wouldn’t believe. Legs HURT. Legs HURT! Head pounding, eyes pounding, throat pounding. Whole flippin’ head POUNDING. Have to blow nose one nostril at a time as one is blocked and one isn’t. Every time I do, it feels like someone hit me in the eye with a sledgehammer. Can’t breathe through nose so have to keep mouth open. Lips dry, and yet liquid is coming out of mouth. Nose tickles and then liquid comes out of there too. Keep drinking tea and juice the whole night. Tissues sodden with yuck are accumulating on the floor.
Day Two (Wednesday):
Spend the whole day in bed. Aching all over. Tissues now sodden with dark yellow yuck which if I remember correctly signifies infection. Wonder how my friend Nike, who used to get the flu on a regular basis, coped. In and out of sleep. Eat toast so can take medicine, which doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Keep on taking Panado, which definitely doesn’t do anything for the headache.
Night Two:
Much better. Actually sleep, although wake up a lot, but aware that have got some sleep. Hacking cough starts though and definitely can’t go to work.
Day Three (Thursday):
Wake up feeling better than yesterday, but head still hurts and now mid section hurts, rather than legs. Who invented flu anyway and why does it just creep up out of nowhere?
Was driving through Sea Point today and stopped behind a “bakkie” (a truck) at a red light. The back was open and there were three scruffy, tired looking girls in the back, ranging probably from ages 4-10. Anyway, they were all looking at me, and then at each other, and you could tell they were talking about me.
I then shrugged my shoulders as if to say “what’s up”, and then gave them a smile and they all gave me huge smiles back. The light changed to green and we all started to move. They then waved at me and I waved back and we just carried on waving. Waving, waving, waving.
They soon turned right and I continued straight, but we all carried on waving. I dunno, it just made all seem well in the world.