Oops... I Did It Again... Do We Care?

As much as I hate it, it's hard to get away from the news story of the week which is that Britney Spears has been to rehab and left, shaved her head, gotten some tatoos and then went to rehab again before leaving again. If you've been following the news since this strange series of events began this past weekend, you probably have been seeing this news story popping up almost as often as stories regarding the fact that Britain is set to withdraw troops systematically from Iraq. One can almost wonder which is the news story that will be making the biggest headlines. For those of us in Washington, we are exposed to quite a bit of political news without having to turn to the cable news channels; it isn't quite so much so in other parts of the country.

I remember a few weeks back when Anna Nicole Smith died; it seemed that the world had stopped for everything else other than her death. While it was a tragic death to be sure, she wasn't the only one to have died that day, nor was she a person of tremendously great importance. She was a celebrity, so is Britney. This leads me to wonder why we are so obsessed with celebrity. When I was in India recently, the big news was that Amitabh Bachchan's son Abhishek was officially engaged to Aishwaryia Rai. For those of you who don't know who that is or why, let's just say it was like the furor that surrounded the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie getting together but in this case, Brad Pitt's father is someone on the scale of Robert DeNiro. It gives you a bit of an idea of just how big a deal this was. However, this news story dominated all the airwaves so much so that news channels carried unending coverage of Amitabh performing poojas and walking here and there.

I admire celebrities as much as the next person but this is all getting a bit out of hand. With people like Britney Spears who became famous even before they were old enough to vote, the sudden change from private life to public citizen can be jarring to be sure. But how the individual deals with it and deals with family can make a huge difference. Obviously people like Britney aren't going to be winning Nobel Prizes anytime soon but still, we probably will know more about her than we ever will about the latest Nobel Prize winner. If people can name even three and give a good description of why they won the Nobel Prize, I'll be mightily impressed. The unfortunate thing in our society is that we look to celebrities and famous personas for everything. They often represent things that many of us can only imagine or dream about. They have worked hard to achieve what they have and so they are definitely worthy of admiration.

But by elevating to them to such high levels of prestige can only result in bad things. A person like Britney can't go to the store without attracting a crowd. If she wants anonymity now it's a bit too late. Had she shaved her head in private as opposed to a public hair salon, it's very likely that she could have gotten away with it without anyone realizing it. Celebrity women have shaved their heads before. Sigourney Weaver, Demi Moore and Natalie Portman to name a few; yet the coverage they received is nowhere near the proportions that people like Britney seem to get. You come to realize then that the reason is because as much as we admire celebrities, we enjoy bringing them down just as much.

I'm not at all and advocate of celebrities like Britney, Christina, Lindsay or Paris. I may not get as much money as they have in this lifetime but that's okay. I won't bring them down either. I have been fortunate to have met some celebrities in my time and I have spent time with them. One thing I realized is that they are, for the most part, very normal people who enjoy being able to do normal things like go out with friends and family. Britney needs help and she's unwilling to take it from sources that are available. She seems as if she's going to continue down this path until perhaps we can leave her alone long enough to get the help she needs. I think it will be healthy for her and for the rest of us too.