Hollywood ScrutinizationLIVE YOUR OWN LIFE

It baffles me that our society is so obsessed with Hollywood and celebrities. It seems that the smallest events in their lives consume ours; the public is so focused on them that they sometimes forget that their lives are just as important. Honestly, who cares if some actress half way across the country named their baby 'Apple'? Not I. Why should I listen to Paris Hilton? What outstanding achievement has she accomplished that deems it reasonable for me to listen to her advice? She tells me to vote, I should probably go vote. I'm not saying that you shouldn't vote, voteing is extremely important (especially amongst our age group), but I'm not going to do it just because some rich blonde girl in California tells me to. Paris herself didn't even cast a vote after being one of the covergirls for P. Diddy's Vote or Die campaign. How's that for irony? Or idiocy, for that matter. Speaking of which, I fail to comprehend how Paris came up with the idea that she created the phrase 'that's hot'. I don't understand how she thinks she's original in saying this. I believe it was VH1's Best Week Ever that said "please, somebody coin 'that's cold' before she comes out with winterwear".


And Britney Spears; the posterchild for our generation, the product of today's media. It's no wonder she's going crazy and shaving her head, she hasn't had a moments peace since she was on the Mickey Mouse Club when she was six years old! Having cameras constantly shoved in your face for two decades when you go to the grocery store is enough to make anyone a little looney. Honestly, I feel terrible for Britney. Her six year old self had no idea what she was getting into.



The media's focus on celebrities is a negative on both ends. It causes distress amongst those who are constantly scrutinized by America as well as those who spend their free time stalking the actions of people half way across the country (whom they've never met and know only through television screens). There's all this talk about the image of celebrities and how it's having a negative impact on how we see ourselves, causing us to overanalyze our bodies and nitpick at the little things. No one is perfect. Celebrities obviously aren't (one word; airbrush). We know this, we are constantly told it, and yet we continue to base our perceptions of what we should look like from the media. If our society focused less on those publicized by the media and more on our own lives this idea of what we SHOULD look like would dwindle. I fail to understand why I should look like people who are making fools of themselves in front of the entire nation. Most of the civilized world, come to think of it.


Take Lindsay Lohan, for example. She's been in the spotlight since she was young; we all remember her in the remake of The Parent Trap. Since then she's been popping up continuously in various movies, as well as on the news quite often lately for her drug use and DWIs. She's grown to have a image completely different than who we saw her as when she first appeared on screen. If this is the image everyone seems to be going for, then I'm slightly confused; I wasn't aware that it was a good thing to look like a strung out cokehead. And yet, we continue to focus on them. If she's having her own problems, let her deal with them. Don't stalk her with videocameras and broadcast it for the world to see, how is that helping her get over her addiction? It's just putting more pressure on her. I'm not saying that she should be acting how she is, she's a role model whether she likes it or not and she needs to pull herself together. I'm merely saying the media should focus on more vital matters instead of the trivial trash that gets thrown on 9 o'clock news. If celebrities were left to live their own lives and not persistantly hounded by paparazzi they might be able to calm down and straighten themselves out, and we'd have more appropriate role models.


****
After writing this post I proceeded to watch some of Dave Chappelle's stand up on Comedy Central. If you haven't had the pleasure of watching Dave Chappelle, take my word for it; He's extremely hilarious and induces genuine laughter. I mention this because in the act Dave was performing he the actually mentioned the topic of this post. He talks about how foolish it is that we're all so focused on celebrities and that our concentration on them is ridiculous (once I find out which act it is I'll attach a video of it on this post).