Nouse.co.uk » A culture of celebrity-worship

A culture of celebrity-worship

October 30, 2008
Holly Thomas

1.58 pm, Tuesday night. Waiting in the ladies toilets of a much-frequented York club (go on, guess), I am joined by a pair of girls tripping over their stilettos. One is thin, and pretty in a ‘four hours ago’ sort of way, the other much curvier, also pretty, and somewhat constricted by her ill-fitting top. In a bid to seek distraction from my boredom, I eavesdrop on their conversation.

Thin girl (striking a pose in front of the grimy mirror): “Oh my GOD I am SO wasted!”

Curvy girl: “I know, I was going to give it a break after Freshers’ Week, but then when I got your text I was like, this year doesn’t count anyway!”

Thin girl: “True that!” (Pauses to re-arrange her artfully messed-up ‘bedhead’ hair). She turns sideways, and places a hand against her pancake-flat stomach.

“Oh my God I have put on SO much weight this week, I am SO never going to Efes EVER again.”
Curvy girl (struggling with the strings of her top): “Oh my God shut up, I would kill to look like you. I was looking at myself earlier and I can actually grab CHUNKS of my stomach. It is so not funny.”
Thin girl: “Whatever hun, you are SO skinny at the moment. And I would KILL for boobs like yours.”
At this point I decide that maybe I’m not that desperate to pee, and I slide past the two girls, and back out into the anonymity of the scrum.

The following day, standing in line in Your:Shop, I overhear a similar exchange. A girl is holding a Mars bar, and bemoaning the devastating effect it will have upon her figure/complexion/life in general. As she and her friend pass the magazine section they pause and one stoops to pick up a copy of a popular weekly magazine. Emblazoned on the cover are the words ‘Posh’s weight plunges’ set between two pictures of Victoria Beckham demonstrating the shocking effect of some trauma or other.

“God”, she says, looking at Posh.
“I know, it’s awful,” says her friend. “How could someone do that to themselves?”

Looking slightly cheered, the girl holding the Mars bar joins the queue.

Society seems to have reached bizarre levels of contradiction. Never before have we been so wise to the magical properties of broccoli and omega 3s, so clued up on the perils of drinking, drugs, and deep-fried chocolate bars. We are bombarded with self-help books and agony aunt columns, telling us how to make ourselves more fulfilled, well rounded and balanced individuals. Obesity has reached unprecedented levels. ‘Happiness classes’ for children, intended to combat discipline problems and encourage positive interaction, are reportedly having the opposite effect, leaving youngsters depressed and insecure. Students, supposedly enjoying the first flush of independent adulthood, are the group most vulnerable to mental illness; one in four of us reportedly suffer from some psychological disorder.

Conversely, media coverage detailing our sorry state seems only to engender a morbid fascination from the general public. Imperfect though we doubtless are, we devour with glee tales of the inferior; we may be eating a ready meal, but the poor sod being interviewed by Jamie Oliver in Rotherham can’t even boil water! Imagine! Sure, a student may enjoy a drink (or several), and a bit of a bop (or deferred collapse) on the tiles, but compared to the most recent reports of Amy Winehouse’s sorry spiral, it all appears rather more acceptable. So how did we come to this?

Let’s start off with that perpetual source of angst, our bodies. A 2004 government report on obesity by the Select Committee on Health states that the number of obese men (those with a Body Mass Index over 30, a healthy range being between 20 and 25) nearly doubled between 1993 and 2002, from 13.2% to 22.1%. The number of obese women also rose significantly during that period, from 16.4% to 22.8%. Nevertheless, it is not only this extreme group which has seen such growth; the report also states that what we commonly regard as ‘normal’ is in fact overweight; only a third of the adult population is within the healthy range. Our society has adjusted accordingly. Clothes sizes have gradually crept up, and what would once have been a 14 is now a 10. Airlines warn that obese passengers must pay for the two seats necessary to carry their bulk, and hospitals now find they must purchase new equipment to cater for the specialist needs of obese patients. And unfortunately it’s pretty much a given that no one finishes their first year of university the svelte young creature they were when they arrived.

However things aren’t looking good at the other end of the spectrum either. Macabre pictures of jutting ribcages, hollow eyes and skin stretched over bones barely covered by flesh haunt the pages of newspapers and magazines. The headline ‘My Anorexia Hell’, or its equivalent, is practically a given on the cover of at least one weekly gossip mag, and horrifically this sickness is increasingly prevalent amongst young boys, despite its common association with girls and young women.

So why, given the gallons of ink spilled on these topics, does the situation only seem to get worse? And what satisfaction is it that we derive from gawping at these stories, what voyeuristic pleasure at revelling in the misery of others, these burger-guzzling 30-stoners and tragic stick insects? We tuck in to chips, yet eagerly lap up every new celeb diet fad. It makes no sense.

In search of an answer, I return to Your:Shop and lurking next to the magazine shelves, I pounce upon the next unfortunate soul I see clutching a copy of Closer magazine.

Katie, a first year English student, said: “Well, I suppose it’s always nice to think you could maybe look like that one day if you really made the effort…. although obviously no one does. And awful though it is, if you’re really feeling down about yourself then a photo of a really horribly skinny celebrity makes you think that even if you are a bit bigger than you’d like to be yourself, at least you don’t look that starved”
Could this be the key? Is this entire flaw-obsessed culture self-perpetuating? I grab some glossies of my own and head for the library to examine them. Settling myself in a corner, and hoping that no one notices my deviation from what might be considered more suitable study material, I unload my less weighty cargo. Not normally one to peruse such material (for cashflow reasons; I’m not that worthy), my findings are stark, to say the least.

One has a cover feature entitled “Stars getting older- winners and losers”. Turning to it, I find photos of various ‘aging’ celebrities, the photo of each accompanied either by an approving tick for having spent the necessary $20k per month to achieve the face/body of a 25 year old at 40, or an angry purple ‘X’, because the expression they were pulling at the time happened to give the impression of age lines. Ironically, the tag line begins: “Everyone knows it’s hard being a woman in Hollywood…” Is it any wonder, with paparazzi ready to pounce every time you squint and get ‘crow’s feet’ around your eyes?

I delve deeper. Particularly astonishing are the blatant contradictions that can be found even within the same publication. One contained an article entitled “Fern: Behind the smiles”. The piece claimed that although Fern Britton has lost an incredible 6st through gastric band surgery (she had previously been dangerously overweight), and is looking better than ever, “losing weight has also made her lose true confidence”. Barely 50 pages later was an article about a former bulimia sufferer, whose gastric band operation, which she had undergone despite not technically being heavy enough to qualify under normal circumstances, had been “the best thing” she’d ever done. Another magazine lamented the recent weight loss of Victoria Beckham then continued with articles on how to emulate the transformation of Big Brother ‘star’ Imogen Thomas, who lost a stone through a strict diet and rigorous exercise routine. An article on Jordan and Peter’s rumored separation included a small insert about Jordan’s lipo-induced cellulite- which was doubtless of crucial relevance to her marital difficulties.

But why? Why, having turned the page on Fern’s depression, do we scour articles on the ‘skinny gene’ diet to determine whether we are ‘the hunter’, ‘the gatherer’, ‘the nomad’ or ‘the teacher’? Why examine our fingertips for the whorl patterns that would indicate that our diet should be rich in black beans, brussell sprouts and turmeric, and that yoga or pilates are the ideal exercises for us? Suzy Cox, features editor of Grazia magazine, says: “ We want to look at pictures of celebrities because they’re aspirational- people want to see how the ‘other half’ live, look, and how they got there, so that maybe, in some way, they can too”

Perhaps Fern is our safety net. We probably won’t take up pilates, munch flaxseeds in between striking the ‘sun’ and ‘dog’ poses or swap pineapple smoothies for toast at breakfast. So hearing about Fern’s ‘misery’ and decreased confidence since her weight loss acts as a boost- ‘I may not be skinny, but maybe I’m happier for it’. Likewise, the one in a thousand of us who actually fulfill their ‘hunter’ destiny and emerge Angelina Jolie-lean may live with the satisfaction of never again being made to feel like a galumphing prole every time they see a maybelline ad.

It is not just our appearances which we compare so scrupulously with those plastered across Closer and Heat. The culture of social drinking, one most students can relate to is another case in point. Since 24-hour drinking was introduced, reports have claimed that alcohol related hospital admission have risen as much as 300%. Again, newspapers and magazines delight in reporting every gruesome detail; the death of a student from Exeter University in February was hailed as a tragic consequence of the casual approach this generation takes towards consuming potentially lethal quantities of drink. Exeter University banned drinking games (the student died after an organized bar crawl), but if the headlines reporting hospital admissions and drunken violence are anything to go by, the state we’re in has remained unaltered. And once again, our famous friends match us shot for shot.

Take Kerry Katona’s recent ‘drunken’ exhibition on GMTV. Whilst the majority may live out their less coherent moments amidst the company of friends, her slurred words sounded all the more shameful for being broadcast on national television… and in the pre-noon hours, obviously. How much less guilty we might feel about our two-for-one cocktail extravaganza the previous night, when hungover, and observed by none other than perhaps housemates (probably in a similar state), we flick on the telly to be greeted by this sorry sight. Not that our antics are exactly wholesome; University security staff have been heard to remark that this was the “worst Freshers’ Week” they could remember, describing ambulance callouts, merrymakers throwing up anywhere but in the toilet, and generally giving the impression that students don’t know when to stop.

Do we really feel that as long as our behavior is ‘worsted’, as long as we are not quite hitting the very lowest rung of the social ladder, we can get away with it ?

“I don’t think it’s quite that clear-cut” says Emily, a third year philosophy student. “I mean, I would probably still go out, whether I was reading about Amy Winehouse, or whoever. But I suppose it does make you think that whatever I get up to, it’s probably not that dire. And at least it’s private.”
Suzy Cox, features editor of Grazia magazine, says: “ I don’t think that anyone could look at the pictures of Britney at her darkest moments, and feel better about themselves. It’s one thing to see a picture of one of Girls Aloud leaving a club a little the worse for wear, or Madonna with a hair out of place, and to think, ‘at least they’re human after all’. But when a star has more serious problems, as it seems Britney did, that’s when a journalist has to be especially responsible about the way they report on that person”.

Clearly then, our sensibilities have not forsaken us entirely. We recognise that, amusing though the antics of the notorious few are, there comes a point when enough really is enough; when waking up with your miniskirt around your neck, makeup everywhere but your face, might be a sign that your approach to life could use a bit of a rethink. Tempting though a diet of goji berries and avocado smoothies might sound, hopefully our willpower will crack before our lives are overtaken entirely by calorie charts. And finally we should count our blessings that should we have an off day, the paparazzi aren’t about to immortalise the moment for all to see.