By John Danz Jr – undertakerlives@gmail.com
The average American would answer that with a resounding “they’re lying, cheating bastards!” However, I have found something else these two share – among many others before them.
Incessant, interminable, unnecessary media scrutiny.
Folks, let me give you a scenario here. You’re on your way through the door of the workplace you despise full of coworkers that you think would be better suited in caskets than cubicles. Everyone looks at you, almost in unison, as you slowly drudge your way in. You look at the walls around the building, and there are lists of times that you have had sex with other women, pictures of your many rendezvous, and audio recordings of phone conversations you’ve had with the incriminating women playing over the loudspeaker. You then become the office a-hole. Forget cheating, say there’s pictures of you just walking to the store all over the place, lists of outfits you’ve worn, things like that.
You could insert this scenario into any one of your pathetic jobs and it would work out fine, because the result would be the same: You don’t like undue attention regarding your personal life.
So, why do we give it to celebrities? Why do we mercilessly beat their characters into the ground when they screw up? When we screw up, you know, the “normal” people, we expect forgiveness at least once. In that same breath, we’re plastered to Access Hollywood and demeaning some Hollywood idiot that cheated on his wife. People, may I remind you: These celebs you adore so much, the celebs that you’re so capricious and inconsistent with – they’re people too. Humans. They eat, sleep, and defecate just as you do, albeit in nicer toilets.
At this point, I’ve already stooped to the level of entertainment news writers by using a sensationalized title, but I think I’ve done my job. Here you are, the reader, thinking this article would be about how I think these guys are deplorable douchebags that deserve no forgiveness. And here I am, the writer, telling you that you need lives. At least outside the realm of your National Enquirer and Us Weekly universe.
I have my own way of seeing the American media these days: For every one story about pertinent issues that affect us all as a nation, there’s five more about how Katy Perry smells like cheese, complete with scratch-‘n-sniff pages.
It’s no wonder there are so many entertainment magazines, websites and TV shows – so many people flock like sheep to them. Cheating, lies, scandals, heartbreak and triumph are usual subjects of these shows, and they’re aspects of our own bankrupt lives as well. We cheat, we lie, we do bad things, we break hearts, and very seldom do we triumph – at least in my eyes. So why do we care about these celebrities? They’re no different than us, they just get paid loads more to do a tenth of the work of the average hard working American. If you had a photographer following you around everywhere, trying to sneak a picture in through cracks in your window, you’d be pissed. Yet, a person who follows this celebrity crap reveres the pictures they take and pass them around. What kind of stupid hypocrisy is that? Just as an aside, I think paparazzi are the lowest form of scum to ever walk this crumbling Earth and should be allowed to be shot in the head for stalking these people, period.
I think I may have figured it out: The more people immerse themselves in the lives of celebrities, the more they feel that all of that glory is attainable. Sure, they may extensively scrutinize their faults and mistakes, but deep down these celeb worshipers know that each slip makes them that much more human. More like themselves. And in the end, it makes them happier about their own decrepit lives. It helps them forget about the stack of bills beginning to resemble Mt. Everest on their table.
Let me let you all in on a little secret, in closing: Tom and Katie don’t give a damn about you. Period. They have no idea of your existence, they never will or will they ever care to know. The same applies for Brad and Angelina, Tiger Woods, Tony Parker and all the others I could list. Someone had to tell you this eventually, and the sooner you realize it, the happier you will be in the long run.
Leave these people the hell alone. They deserve just as much privacy as you would want if you did something of the sort. They don’t need the cameras, they don’t need the nosy, death-deserving paparazzi, and they certainly don’t need your foolish comments.
John Danz Jr. is a work in progress, who enjoys the freedom of writing. Contact him at undertakerlives@gmail.com.