If you’ve never picked up an Us Weekly or Star, then you must be an eccentric, a liar, or a North Korean. Tabloid photos of the rich and famous filling their cars with gas or sunning themselves in the Caribbean reliably interest most of us, even though we feel we ought to know better. We know paparazzi produce their images by disgraceful means, but we can’t resist the product. Why not? In advance of the Zócalo event “Are We All Paparazzi Now?” we asked several scholars for some enlightenment about what’s happening in our brains. Why are we so fascinated by photos and video of celebrities going about their daily lives?
We get to be just like them
Celebrities often embody the things we strive to have: a great body, fancy clothes, a mansion, and a beautiful love interest. Because celebrities have achieved material success and adulation, their lives represent the American dream. We watch in part to see what the dream looks like. From seeing their hairstyles, sunglasses, handbags, and shoes, we also get consumption tips on how at least to look like celebrities ourselves.
Of course, celebrity watchers are not necessarily admirers. Part of the pleasure of celebrity watching can lie in finding their imperfections, discovering they’re not that special after all. Celebrities give the rest of us an opportunity to vent any class-based resentment, since we are otherwise a society that seldom thinks about class.
When paparazzi shots emphasize that celebrities are “just like us,” taking their kids to school or getting coffee, then they imply that we can also be just like them. Stories of everyday, average people becoming famous suggest that, like winners of a lottery, anyone can become the next big reality star. Or at least walk in knockoffs of their shoes.
Karen Sternheimer is a sociologist at the University of Southern California and the author of Celebrity Culture and the American Dream: Stardom and Social Mobility.
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We love their pretty faces, and we think they’re our friends
Research shows that celebrities are appealing because they offer entertainment, escapism, and sometimes even psychological fulfillment and a sense of identity. That strong and deeply-rooted psychological boost helps to explain our fascination with images of the daily lives of celebrities. Celebrities are marketed and treated as modern-day religious icons, so fans are understandably keen to see how they live. We often want to copy what stars are doing, in the hopes that some of their magic will rub off on us. And seeing celebrities outside of their carefully (and sometimes not so carefully) crafted professional context gives us a sense that we can relate to them on a personal level as we would with a friend. That perception of proximity and closeness reinforces our sense of attachment.
Of course, one other factor contributes to the frenzy: our innate reaction to “beauty.” Studies show that humans gravitate toward “beautiful faces,” which trigger the same parts of the brain that are activated when people become addicted to cocaine and gambling. Even babies prefer attractive faces. Put this all together and its’ no wonder we can’t resist photos and videos of celebrities. So when you indulge in the guilty pleasure of checking out the pop culture magazines while waiting in line at check-out stands, you’re at least in plenty of company.
James Houran, Ph.D. is a psychologist and partner with HVS Executive Search. He has published many studies on celebrity worship and co-authored Celebrity Worshippers: Inside the Minds of Stargazers.
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We need celebrities to replace the woman down the street
For as long as human civilization has existed, we have been preoccupied with Other People’s Lives. Whether we are gossiping about the lady who lives down the street, the Homecoming Queen, or our crazy aunt–the intricacies of others’ daily lives is always a source of fascination. While our interest may appear petty and our gossiping superficial (surely, the latest in the Euro crisis, the ebbs and flows in financial markets, or the diplomacy nuances with China are more significant), this exchange of information about other people lets us to talk to each other and bond. Most people know more about their office mates’ dating life or what their friend had for dinner than the latest in geopolitical affairs.
This interest in banality has reached unprecedented levels with the rise of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, which allow us to tell our circle of friends and acquaintances about the burrito we ate for lunch, the latest Mad Men episode, or our mood at any moment of the day.
Simultaneously, social media and the 24/7 news cycle have changed the currency of celebrity. No longer are we interested in celebrities as icons. Now we want to know what they had for dinner, where they went shopping, and how they take out the trash–maybe “just like us.” We want photographs of this banal stuff of life and we want it in real time. TMZ and Perez Hilton and the deluge of paparazzi photos posted every minute of the day are Hollywood’s version of Facebook and Instagram. The conversation around celebrities mimics the conversations we’ve always had about people much closer to us.
All of this is also a function of rapidly changing social norms. Over the past 50 years, we started to marry less (if at all), have fewer children, and live far away from our parents. We no longer know the lady living down the street or the Homecoming Queen. In a globalized and increasingly anonymous society, celebrities replace earlier sources of gossip and social bonding. Social media lets us bond over Jessica Simpson’s baby, Kanye West’s antics, and the Jolie-Pitt love story as if we knew these people intimately. Celebrities act as a global water cooler.
Social media, the 24/7 celebrity news cycle, and the paparazzi who give us the real-time footage demonstrate that we view our stars as much more than just pretty people in ball gowns. When we’re given pictures of our A-listers leaving Target or putting groceries in their car, we just can’t get enough. Paradoxically, our interest in their daily lives rather than their iconic stature suggests that celebrity culture is less vapid than it might appear.
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett is associate professor at University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy and author of Starstruck: The Business of Celebrity.
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We’ve made celebrity ogling the new civic engagement
The distance between an adulatory public and the remote, glamorous star seems to be closing, and the reasons for this are complex. Reality TV has taken over, and social media have become dispersed. The social value of privacy has been lowered. There has been a transition to a “post-talent” fame environment in which a celebrity’s promotional work may be his or her only work. And tabloid culture has heightened our expectations for scandal by generating coverage according to a boilerplate program that drives boom and bust celebrity production cycles.
Such an atmosphere is marked by the attempt to energize banal discourse with terms like “speaking out.” A celebrity culture of commercialized “family values” has given rise to terms like “Momager.” Heightened self-interest and diminished social compassion have been going hand in hand with aspirational consumerism and intensified awareness of a world of branded goods and services.
The premiere function of our intense focus on the minutiae of celebrity existence may be as a compensatory form of civic engagement. It fills the space that should be taken up by the deliberations of democratic citizenship and the functions of a watchdog press. Celebrity watchfulness serves a politics of distraction. While we’re looking one way, powerful and increasingly inaccessible and unaccountable figures in U.S. political and economic life are going another.
Diane Negra is professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture at University College Dublin. She is the co-editor of In the Limelight and Under the Microscope: Forms and Functions of Female Celebrity.
*Photo courtesy of NVS_Inc.