It would be well to assume that you can't walk through the checkout in a grocery store without passing by a magazine with some celebrity on it. Typically, there are dozens of them. Gossip and scandals stare you in the face as you wait for the cashier to scan your twelve pack of soda. Overedited images printed on glossy paper, all offering an "inside scoop" on the hottest celebrities of the moment. Maybe you buy one and maybe you don't. But all those pretty images hide what is really beneath.
Being "famous" in our society can grant you privileges beyond anyone's wildest dreams. But at what cost? Being a celebrity means that some of your legal right to privacy is gone. Every day journalists make the decision on whether or not to reveal private information about people living in the public eye. If the answer is yes, it is because they see it as something the public has the right to know. Our right to know often outweighs a celebrity's right to privacy. So it should come as no surprise at how often what the gossip columns are saying is all negative. The culture we have created around celebrities is setting them up for failure, and it's honestly a wonder why anyone still has a desire to be famous.
The culture that we have developed around those in the public eye is one that is setting them up to fail. We assume that because someone is famous that they are role models who should be looked up to and who should be perfect. When we plaster them everywhere in the media we build them up in our minds and begin to hold them to standards that no one person can achieve. We dehumanize them. Instead of them being real people with real lives and feelings they are nothing more than dolls that we manipulate, mock, and control for our own entertainment. Some celebrities have even tried to speak out about the difficulties of fame. Taylor Swift's song Luckey One describes someone who left the struggles of fame turned away from it. The song Superman by Five For Fighting describes how the public has built up the idea of Superman and that perhaps he is not all that super, and mentions the struggles of people forcing him to seem perfect.
One place where we especially see this inevitable failure is in our feminist role models. Typically these are women who have fought back against sexism and have advocated for women in the media. However, if they say or do one thing that seems even remotely un-feminist, we crucify them. But how can someone living in a patriarchal society be expected to be immune to its prejudice? It's practically impossible. And yet, because we have decided that they are perfect in every way, there is no coming back from a slipup.
The public has the ability to change the way that celebrities are seen and treated. If we choose to perceive them as human individuals. We can grant them back some of their privacy that has been stolen and set them up to impress us rather than to fail us. If someone in their daily life makes a mistake they are able to learn from it and move one. But presently, when a celebrity makes a mistake, it changes how the entire world sees them and can even end careers. We can't continue to build them up as high as we can, or else we allow them to come crashing down, and suddenly, we are failing them.
