Media Celebrity
Next month, the sixth of seven Harry Potter books
will be published. For those who don't know about the books, it's the story of
a boy wizard and his travails in a school for wizardry. One of the ongoing
jokes of the books, is that every year there a new Defense Against the Dark Arts
teacher. Through the five books, he has had three teachers who didn't teach
much of anything, and two who were somewhat
effective.
One of his ineffective
teachers -- the one from his second year in the book Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets -- is a celebrity in the wizarding world, named Gilderoy
Lockhart. Lockhart essentially stole other wizards' stories and used his
charisma to achieve celebrity. It wasn't much of a surprise when we learned
that he didn't know how to do some of the things he had written
about.
There is one scene in the book,
where Lockhart advises Harry, "celebrity is as celebrity
does."
No, I don't understand what that
means either. But then again, I haven't achieved the level of celebrity that I
would like.
That said, in today's
media-saturated world, it's far too easy to become a celebrity. For some reason
that I can't determine, the media seem to love turning ordinary people who don't
do anything all that outrageous, into celebrities. Oftentimes, they are either
accused of, or the victim of some crime. Like it or not, murder, kidnapping,
and rape happen all of the time. When it happens among the wealthy and
attractive, for some reason, the news media seem to think we should care, even
when it didn't happen locally.
The
following is a list of people whose names we know, thanks to the news media.
And I am generally of the opinion that there is no reason why we should know
their names unless we happen to live somewhere close
by.
-- Scott Peterson and his wife
Laci.
-- Charles
Stewart
-- Elizabeth
Smart
-- JonBenet
Ramsey
-- Susan
Smith
-- Jennifer
Wilbanks
-- Megan
Kanka
-- Terri Schiavo, her husband Michael,
and her parents, Bob and Mary
Schindler
Those last two points are
names of people who are local to me, so I would know them anyway. The reality
remains that I don't understand why people in Iowa, for instance, should know
who they were.
There are three names in
the news right now that I'm kind of on the fence about whether they legitimately
qualify for their celebrity. First are the father and son John Allen Mohammed
and Lee Boyd Malvo, convicted of being the snipers that terrorized the
Washington, DC area a few years ago. Hiding in a car and shooting people at
random because they just happen to be there is somewhat different of a crime
from killing someone you know / are related to / are married to / you've had an
affair with. Also, you can make the argument that theirs was the first real
news event in this country since September 11,
2001.
The other name is Natallee
Holloway. A teenager who disappeared while on a high school vacation in Aruba
doesn't happen as often as others. I might change my opinion once we have a
better feel for what happened to her. The media are still overplaying her
story, but I wouldn't fault them for playing it. Not right
now.
I can understand taking an
interest in criminal trials involving a celebrity, but not becoming a celebrity
by virtue of your involvement in a criminal trial. Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake,
Phil Spector, and Michael Jackson's trials made (and will make in the case of
Spector) for good copy because they are famous for doing other
things.
I suppose this is not a new
phenomenon. I suspect that it began back in the 1960's, where there are a lot
of people whose names became well-known by virtue of their involvement in
strange or unusual crimes (usually as victims). But they were strange and
unusual. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were killed because
they tried to bring civil rights to Mississippi. Watching the media circus
that's going on right now as the trial of someone accused in their killing 41
years ago makes me wonder how much of a circus surrounded their original deaths.
Kitty Genovese is famous for having been murdered in front of a bunch of people
who just stood there watching, with nobody trying to help. These crimes are a
bit more outrageous than a husband killing his wife, or a teenager being
kidnapped, but that their names are still known 4 decades later probably is
quite telling.
My challenge to the news
media? How about airing something that matters to us.
Posted: Fri - June 17, 2005 at 12:11 AM