What hypocrites so many celebrities are these days, particularly those of the movie variety! I won’t mention their names, because that would be defeating the purpose of this commentary. But the reader will know immediately the names of the celebrities I’m referring to and who the main culprits are.
The painful factor in all this is that all the news media, including the print and broadcast media, must share the label of hypocrisy and stupidity, along with the celebrities. It pains me because I was not only a lifelong member of the newspaper and TV/radio industries but also a movie critic for close to 20 years at the Seattle Times.
Everyone reading this has seen or read the details: Actresses cavorting in dresses that leave nothing to the imagination and actors with week-old beards, overlong hair, and tattered clothing they should have consigned to the Goodwill collection long ago. And what are they all doing out in the open?
Why, not only trying hard to avoid the gaze of news reporters and photographers’ cameras, but also complaining bitterly that “these damned paparazzi are invaded my privacy!” Really?
Some of the males of the species have even resorted to violence to ward off a reporter or photographer with a camera. Some expensive photo equipment has been damaged by the actors protesting the flash of a camera or the intrusion of a reporter or columnist writing about Hollywood and its personalities.
I know they won’t take my advice, but I’m going to give it anyway to newspaper, magazine, TV, and radio reporters and photographers, as well as the editors who may have sent them to “get some revealing shots” of this or that actress or actor — often one or the other who may be sparking a young woman or man who is not his or her spouse!
The advice to all you media interlopers and their editors: Just quit following the celebrities around, wherever they may appear, and ignore them totally! Who do you think will be the first to complain and lament the fact that the news media are longer interested in them? Why, the celebrities themselves, of course.
Without publicity, these hypocrites would fade from the public mind. Without publicity, their value at the box office would vanish. I’ll bet that, if the media quit “invading their privacy,” they would soon come back begging for the reporters and photographers to hunt them down once more.
Wouldn’t it be a great lesson if all the news media gave my idea a try?