Bringing gossip back to the hometown people

I came across an amusing article in the Seattle Times recently. The title immediately grabbed my attention: "Celebrity worship serves a social and political function [HTML_REMOVED] for real." I scoffed inwardly as I imagined Paris Hilton or Britney Spears actually contributing to society in any positive way. Although we are hooked on the real life drama of the rich and the beautiful, with gossip magazines like UsWeekly selling like hotcakes and ET! Entertainment Television recording increases in viewers, it seemed ridiculous that what could be perceived as a shameful addiction could end up being a benefit to society.

The Celebrity Culture Reader by P. Da Marshall explores the idea that celebrity gossip is replacing the void left by diminishing community interactions. Socially acceptable behavior used to be defined through small town gossip, with elderly matriarchs warning their daughters against the perils of turning out like the tramp across the street who was supposedly seen with three different men in a week, which meant she was probably sleeping with all of them, maybe even at the same time!

With the loss of small towns, there was a loss in the source of "determining socially acceptable behavior," and that is where celebrity gossip comes in. By keeping tabs on Britney, Paris and Lindsay (all on a first name basis!), we are being unified by a national definition of what is and is not acceptable.

I say boo.

As with all gossip, it is debatable whether people actually care about the welfare of the people they are gossiping about. So you find out a distant neighbor is cheating on his wife. Do you stop to wonder about the feelings of the wife, or worry about the state of their marriage? More likely than not, you are going to just pass it on. In this sense, gossip is just an addiction to exciting news.

However, in the model set in a small town, the people you gossiped about were people actually living in your own world, and the likelihood of actually caring about the object of gossip is higher. Maybe the wife who was being cheated on used to go to high school with you, or maybe the husband used to be your tennis buddy.

But with celebrity gossip, real issues seem so far away, and this turns gossip into being even more cold-blooded than it was before. The lives of celebrities, while enchantingly glamorous and exciting, are totally different from the lives of average joes. To borrow from the ideas of late Columbia professor Edward Said, this emphasizes distinctions between "Us" and 'Them." So what if Lindsay Lohan was found passed out drunk in some alleyway? That's her life and she does not live like us.

Then, to top it off, there is the schadenfreude (pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune) that comes with watching these famous people self-destruct through drugs, alcohol and whatever else. The article in The Seattle Times brings this up, noting that society laps up the misfortune of celebrities because it is a reminder that all humans are equal and bad things happen to everyone.

Nevertheless, all of these factors feed the greater factor that is fueling an impersonal, individualistic community. If we were part of a caring society, we would not laugh at Britney's man troubles or mock Paris' escapades. I personally could not be bothered if either of them spontaneously burst into flames, but I do think there is something wrong with my feeling that way.

Reach columnist Sara Mamman at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.