Are we responsible for the rise of the paparazzi or is it the celebs?
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I'm taking a chance that someone might reply to this thread. I am really curious to know what you guys think and feels about this phenomenon.
The worldwide obsession with celebrities spawns one of the most fascinating and feared by-products of pop culture -- paparazzi.
Paparazzi are photographers who tirelessly hunt celebrities, public figures and their families for the opportunity to photograph them in candid, unflattering and at times compromising moments. What began as simple "street photography" is now a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that plays out in the everyday lives of the paparazzi's celebrity prey.
As our cultures' voracious hunger for celebrity snapshots grows, so do the prices of these photos and the risks paparazzi take to get them. Many ethical, legal and privacy issues arise out of this questionable business.
But........
Are we, the public, responsible for this growth industry with our so called 'voracious hunger' for celeb photographs? Or do the celebs themselves have to take some responsibility for the rise of these paps?
How far do you think the celebs would go in their desire to achieve the publicity that leads to fame (or notoriety)?
Origin of the paparazzi
The word "paparazzi" is derived from a character in the Fellini film "La Dolce Vita." The character, a photographer named Paparazzo, reminded Fellini of "a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging."
Fellini's inspiration for the character was the famous Italian "street photographer" Tazio Secchiaroli. Fellini consulted Secchiaroli for research while developing the script for his classic film.
Secchiaroli became famous as a photographer when he captured candid photos of the former Egyptian King Farouk turning a table over at a restaurant in rage. On the same night, Secchiaroli also snapped photos of actor Anthony Steele in a public spat with actress Anita Ekberg. These photos started a trend in European publications, moving away from posed promotional shots of celebrities and toward surreptitiously captured candid photos. This was in the 1960's.
What do FMs think?
The worldwide obsession with celebrities spawns one of the most fascinating and feared by-products of pop culture -- paparazzi.
Paparazzi are photographers who tirelessly hunt celebrities, public figures and their families for the opportunity to photograph them in candid, unflattering and at times compromising moments. What began as simple "street photography" is now a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that plays out in the everyday lives of the paparazzi's celebrity prey.
As our cultures' voracious hunger for celebrity snapshots grows, so do the prices of these photos and the risks paparazzi take to get them. Many ethical, legal and privacy issues arise out of this questionable business.
But........
Are we, the public, responsible for this growth industry with our so called 'voracious hunger' for celeb photographs? Or do the celebs themselves have to take some responsibility for the rise of these paps?
How far do you think the celebs would go in their desire to achieve the publicity that leads to fame (or notoriety)?
Origin of the paparazzi
The word "paparazzi" is derived from a character in the Fellini film "La Dolce Vita." The character, a photographer named Paparazzo, reminded Fellini of "a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging."
Fellini's inspiration for the character was the famous Italian "street photographer" Tazio Secchiaroli. Fellini consulted Secchiaroli for research while developing the script for his classic film.
Secchiaroli became famous as a photographer when he captured candid photos of the former Egyptian King Farouk turning a table over at a restaurant in rage. On the same night, Secchiaroli also snapped photos of actor Anthony Steele in a public spat with actress Anita Ekberg. These photos started a trend in European publications, moving away from posed promotional shots of celebrities and toward surreptitiously captured candid photos. This was in the 1960's.
What do FMs think?
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Comments
It's a vicious circle isn't it really - paps wouldn't exist without a market to feed their products to and over the years they've become more and more merciless in their greed for the megabucks they get for that "exclusive" picture.
I hate the fact that lives can, literally, be ruined by these guys, as well as the low market magazine and newspaper editors who seem to make it their lives' work to dig up dirt on people and cause as much damage as possible. BUT - although I don't buy these publications, I still come on here gossiping about the latest scandal along with everyone else - these guys know that "normal" folk, by and large, seem to find it satisfying sometimes to feel that we are the good, normal people and "celebs" with all their wealth and fame, are either debauched, unhinged, or both! Like it or not, we do get hooked into it, and in return the paparazzi and the editors and journos get rich.
Quite simply, if we all stopped buying any so called Gossip Mags, or Red Tops, there'd be a lot of guys hanging up their cameras, I suspect.
We buy the papers, mags which sell more copies if certain photos are published.
Media want photos to sell their mags etc. so pay more money to get the photos they want.
Paps get paid more money for more intrusive photos, so of course go to great and sometimes unsavoury lengths to get these.
Celebs want the publicity, even going so far as to inform the paps where they will be (have seen and heard the evidence of this) and then complain that they are being hounded.
If the paps weren't around, the celebs wouldn't get the publicity and if the celebs didn't exist, the paps would be out of a job. As the saying goes:
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
IMO, if anything's contributed to the rise of celebrity, it's celeb rags like OK!, and reality programmes like BB and X Factor where nonentities go to get their mugs on TV and try to 'get famous'.
I agree because a lot of celebs these days are famous for being on BB or in fact for nothing.
Unfortunately I think papparazi and public alike have forgotten to make that distinction and seem to think that every famous person is fair game just because a few **** milk their private lives for column inches.
I think that's pretty much summed it up, there is a huge difference between the Posh's etc who tip off the paps with their movements and want to be photogaphed and those who do the publicity tours for movies/albums/etc and want to live privately away from this and don't court them.
I remember reading about Maggie Gyllenhall after she had little Ramona, she never gave one indication that she wanted to sell the photos, but the paps still hounded her, to the extent of ringing her doorbell for hours just after they got back from the hospital, trying to get her to come out and be photographed with the baby.
I think that is why so many celebs agree to sell the first pictures of their babes to stop being hounded to some extent.
Once they know you're not in the business of selling bits of your life to them, the media seem to leave you in peace.
Which supports the posts above saying celebs who court publicity are also partly to blame for the rise of the paps....but it still comes back to the fact that if people didn't want to see the pics, then the paps wouldn't shoot them.
I agree that it is a vicious circle, but I wonder if you have left a vital component out. The photographee themselves. I would have thought that the celebs themselves are an integral part of the merry go round. Without the celeb in the first place surely there can be no circle?
Your comment that the paps wouldn't exist without the market to feed the product to is absolutely spot on and I guess in this instance, we provide the market for their greed by buying magazines or even subscribing to a forum like this. Even by discussing them intelligently, i.e. without the over-emotional gush of the fan, we perpetuate the myth that celebs are worth all the trouble the paps go to to get the pictures in the first place.
Are they though? Worth the trouble I mean. I would say that at least a good 50% of FM's on here would say they weren't.
I have heard many comments over the years, both on the internet and in discussion with friends who defend the celebs by saying that our lives would be dull without the constant glitz and glamour of the beautiful people of the world being thrust at us via newspapers, magazines, movie and TV.
So this begs another question.
Would our culture and society dim if these people weren't a constant in our lives?
How much do people gaze upon these privileged folk and actually aspire to join them? The influx of reality shows where fame can be gained almost overnight would suggest that quite a few folk do and even that children are affected by it. To the extent that in a poll a few months ago among children, most cited that they wanted to be rich and famous, rather than enter any kind of profession.
Ever noticed "real stars" like, for example, Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Leona Lewis, don't get papped with their bits on display falling out of cars? It's only the wannabe types or troubled people (Lohan, BB contestants) that get papped in this way.
Sorry, but they don't, took a bit to find, and this isn't the entire interview but this is an extract of Maggie, who is not in the business of selling off her private life, her and Peter managed to wed in complete privacy last year, talking about the paps after the birth of Ramona.
But the paparazzi still know that we love to read about them though. Okay, this might be half and half, but they do realise that loads of people now do love a good gossip over what the latest celebrity is doing. More demand for what the people want = more paparazzi.
I think we're breeding a generation of kids who think you're nobody unless you're pictured in Heat or OK on a regular basis.....For that though, I'm more inclined to blame shows like Big Brother than the paps...its something that really annoys me - the fact that we can't get our kids to take on better role models than wannabe celebs:mad:
I've had this conversation so many times with friends about people wanting to be famous and most people i have spoken to would rather be famous for having talent that just for being locked in a house for however many weeks.
With regard to children, it saddens me that all they aspire to be is famous. If you ask them what they would like to be famous for the answer you are most llikely to get is "well anything, i don't mind really as long as i am famous". And i don't think their parents help the situation either. I have a friend who signed her 6 month old child up to a modelling agengy. In my eyes that's not right, you are putting your child to work even before they can walk and talk.
When i was a child (and it's not that long ago, i'm only 28) kids wanted to be policemen, doctors, lawyers now they want to be glamour models! Is this the sort of profession anyone would want their kids to pursue?
With regard to the papparazzi, i do believe it is a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other. I think all the factors are responsible, the celebs themselves, the media and the buying public.
So if we are the fundamental cause of the paparazzi phenomenon by our desire to read about them and have a good gossip, are the celebs taking advantage of this in order to further themselves in their 'careers'? Despite whether they are good at what they do or not?
Is it now fame at any price?
I do like to read celeb gossip, but I did not need to see pictures of Anna Nicole Smith in her body bag to know that she was dead, nor did I need to see pictures of Michelle Williams to know that she was devastated. If magazines stopped using these types of pictures would it really make a difference to the actual article itself?
It grew with Princess Diana and now she dead the media have to find something else however today most "celebs" act like most "normal" people (in fact even worse, like Chavs really).
The media decide what stories and photos to print. The Paparazzi simply capitalise on what the media (and public) want. If the media don't want a story printed then the picture won't get printed.
The paparazzi simply serve their masters,..the media, and more embarrassingly, us.
The paparazzi are just the middle men in a supply and demand situation, where they work inbetween the vicious cycle of the relationship between the media and the public.
The paparazzi themselves have hardly any power in this set-up. The power is more shared between the media and the public who feed off each other. The paparazzi are just there like vultures who feed off the symbiotic media/public relationship. The paparazzi just feed off the scraps thrown to them by the cynical greed of the media business and the shallow aspirational whims of society.
If the situation has become worse than it was, then it's not the paparazzi to blame. It's the media for promoting and propagating aspirational ideals in society, and we who are mainly to blame, for allowing ourselves to become more obsessed with celebrity culture than ever before. The media and society are a symbiotic relationship. All the paparazzi do is act as a middle man acting as a go between. Their power is about as powerful as a kind of pizza delivery boy on the streets doing the leg work for their boss by running between their boss and the customer, getting the junk food for us to consume.
We may place the blame on the paparazzi, but I think that's just us offsetting our guilt onto them for what we ourselves are responsible for.
The paparazzi are indirectly serving us and are supplying us with what we want.
It's we who are responsible for rejecting the temptation provided to us by the media. The paparazzi then have nothing to feed off.
You could probably place more blame on the writers of these articles rather than the paparazzi, because it's the article writers who create something out of a simple picture and by literally putting that picture into a certain sensationalist context.
It's the interpretation of these pictures with a story attached to them that creates a specific context for a picture.
Has anyone else noticed that you very rarely get to see celebs looking rough now. Most celebs are so aware of the papparazzi that they very rarely go out looking a mess. There was a time when you would see Victoria Beckham in jeans & trainers, now you never see in her in anything but heels and a nice outfit on. And this goes for a lot of celebs too. How often do you see Kylie in casual clothes looking less than immaculate? Same with the likes of Coleen Mcloughlin.
I think you have a point here and its something that has been gnawing at me for a long while.
I do believe that we are partly to blame for the whole mess, but this now begs another question. Why have we allowed ourselves to become so obsessed with celebrity culture?
I do not deny that as a society we are, but something must have been the catalyst. Is it that we feel powerless to alter our own lifepath and have latched on to the successes of others because we feel that we lack the ability to change things?
Or has society begun to divide itself into those who can, do and those who can't then live their lives vicariously through those who can?
Maybe it's because "Normal" people are now becoming celebs with the help of reality TV. I think it has made us believe that anyone can become famous. I don't believe that everyone wants to be famous but i think that now there are more opportunities for people to become famous, a lot more people desire the lifestyle that comes with it.
There are a lot of celebrities that sell themselves and those I don't feel sorry for at all. The ones who do "set up pictures" with the paparazzi and split the profits (yes it does happen a LOT and not just your z-listers from BB either you would be surprised to know) and the ones who do "at-homes" with Hello, or OK Magazines should have NO sympathy thrust upon them whatsoever. They can't sell their souls one minutes for £500,000 to the highest bidder, and then complain about paparazzi annoying them the next. It doesn't work like that. Even people like Christina Aguilera who yes, doesn't really sell herself per se but has done deals with OK! for her wedding and People magazine for her first baby pictures. She has no right to complain if paparazzi follow her on a shopping trip next week IMO because she has already sold herself. If she hates publicity that much she'd just make music, and do press to promote her music and nothing more.
There are people like for example Jack Nicholson who only really get bothered when they go to a premiere or for a meal etc. on a day to day basis when they are out buying clothes or whatever, the paparazzi don't really bother them. Because no one is really interested because they aren't in the nature of selling themselves to the highest bidder on a regular basis. For people like Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, etc etc - all those people who do their jobs, don't visit the latest celeb haunts and fall out drunk every week, don't do "at home" spreads with a magazine - those are the ones who the paparazzi hunt isn't fair on. The people who DO sell themselves like the BB stars, Britney, Christina, Girls Aloud - I could go on - those are the ones who should not be allowed to moan about it.
Of course though there are extremes. When Britney was being followed recently she is constantly surrounded by 30 paps sometimes more on a daily basis who make it dangerous for her to drive, walk, anything really. There are limits of course but generally the celebs don't have a right to complain. Hey if you are an actor you don't HAVE to make million dollar movies and **** yourself out to the world! You can always act in theatre, and dramas and things like that. You're still an actor. These people make their choices. It's part and parcel of the job.
Last thing I will say is the public are responsible for this. The demand over the last few years for celebrity and gossip has grown considerably, especially magazines and internet. So in turn we have more celebrities, more magazines and there is now a demand for more photographers. We have turned our culture into this celebrity obsessed thing, and the so called celebrites are, it seems, more than willing to keep it growing. I have to add, pap photos don't sell for as much as they once did so there is more of a need for more photos and more magazines. Selling a set of intrusive pictures sold for a lot more money 10 years ago than now, but nowadays we need another couple of sets to make up the same amount of money, because there are more magazines to fill up and less money to go around to pay for them.
It's like a snake devouring itself.
The only way it which it can be stopped, is by people refusing to buy magazines with these pictures in. With no demand, they'll look for other things. However, with the internet, there will always be an outlet for these photos. Both the media and the paparazzi are supplying a demand.
I did think there were the signs of a backlash when Heath Ledger died - the photos and video of him being wheeled out in his bodybag, of Michelle Williams grieving... If there had been any respect, this wouldn't have been shown. It made me feel sick that it was, as neither were the kind to court the press.
There are some stars who do seem to avoid it as much as possible - I believe Christian Bale has never released the name of his daughter, which is great.
But as long as there are stars who deliberately feed the press, then the press will feel they have a right to know what is going on there, and the public will also feel they have a right to see. So while there are some who need the photos of them falling out of taxis or whatever to maintain their fame, there are some who don't. But this then feeds across the spectrum - if you can get a photo of a BB 'star' being drunk, why not a photo of Judi Dench etc.?
Hi Jezebeth.:)
I think it's simply because we as humans are very easily to emotionally manipulate.
At the start of the 20th century American advertising found out that it's very easy to tap into human emotions and advertise products based on how they can make us 'feel', as opposed to what we 'need'.
I think that you speak a lot of sense when you suggest that maybe we latch onto the success of others based on how we feel about ourselves, or how we validate ourselves as people. I think that's definitely a part of it. I think that's a factor which is directly attached with this thing which the media does now of making celebrities out of people who are famous for being famous. I think that as you say, we may feel powerless, we see some of these pseudo celebrities as somehow representing us, and maybe feeling a degree of affinity with them.
It's as though they represent a kind of ideal, or the British version of the American Dream. I think a part of us is attracted to that because at the back of our minds we possibly think that could be us on the red carpet if we got a lucky break. It feeds into our dreams. We maybe aren't famous actors or rock stars, but we see Joe Shmoe up there and we probably feel a bit like them or can relate to them a bit more as they're more like us and don't feel as distant or removed from us as a big film star might do. You see somebody who's treated as a celeb just because they've been on telly, and you might think, "Hey if he can do that, then why can't I? Maybe, just maybe...".
It's a bit like a fairytale, which seems to be a current thing on television right now with these reality/talent shows. 'The Journey'.
So I think with a lot of people it taps into their emotions and they buy right into the idea.
I also think that there's a thing going on where certain celebrities are the subject of much anger where people try to knock them down a peg or two. Maybe this is another way of trying to see them as 'more like us' and make them feel even closer to us, and therefore empower us a little bit more.
Basic human emotion is our weakness, business knows how to tap into our psychology and tinker with our emotions that make us buy into ideas.
If things appear to have become worse than they used to be, then they're probably getting better at these marketing techniques, and at the same time we're probably becoming weaker and more susceptible to those techniques.
You can see people buying into the culture of celebrity every single day. The internet probably exasperates the situation ever further.
As long as corporate marketing can tap into human emotions we're all vulnerable, because it's so easy to fall victim to our own natural emotions, being emotionally driven, flawed human beings, who aspire to be better people who seek validation.