Thursday, June 16, 2005

The Celeb Stunt Fabrication Craze

The Celeb Fabrication Craze

It looks to me as though celebrity has become a screaming game. Not so much about what is said but how loud you can do it or say it.

There is not a doubt in my mind that Paris Hilton’s cross over from joke girl to ‘it’ girl has everything to do with her becoming a star after she starred in the most widely circulated viral video in the history of the web (has to be!).

So, it got a lot of studios, agents, PR people and spindoctors thinking. They thought we can do this for our people as well. Create a spectacular and somewhat lude event and ride the scandalous ride because once you are famous everyone will forget about what actually happened.

Perhaps this sounds bad but every time I see Paris Hilton being interviewed I am thinking why aren’t they talking about why she is really famous? Why aren’t they deconstructing the cross over from home porn video to Fox reality star ?

Then I begin to tell myself people do not actually care.

People used to be a famous because they were a celebrity. They had a talent like singing, directing or acting. Now, you are a celebrity because you are famous. The people who “get it” now are the ones that know they have to do a quick burst at the start of the race – which could mean sleeping with someone famous or being crazy on a cattle call reality show.

But what it is doing is bringing down the house. Again, Paris Hilton used the home sex tapes to become the centre of scandal. Then her team packaged and sold that to anyone who would by. I am sure the central pitch was that she was in the spotlight already and that could be taken to the bank.

However, the entertainment business took Paris from home porn and then put her in a movie like House of Wax. It was a failure.

By putting her in a movie showed everyone that pretty much anyone can be in a movie. Thousands of takes, words given to you and your every move is directed by someone behind the camera. So easy, that even a girl who’s claim to fame is being a “socialite” can be in it.

This is not an attack on Paris Hilton. She saw an opportunity and took it. Most would. I am just very interested in how the mass market is eating it up and not judging. Lesson in it for all of us.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

New Wave of Creating Over Top Fake Situations. New York Times Calls It How It Is.

Staging Celebrity in Buzztown, U.S.A.

By CARYN JAMES
If you didn't know that there was some kind of off-screen chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, you wouldn't guess it from "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," the tepid action-romance in which they play married assassins out to kill each other. But we do know - from television, print and the Internet - all the speculation about a real-life affair, just as we know that Russell Crowe, in New York last week to promote his boxing movie, "Cinderella Man," was arrested for throwing a phone at a hotel clerk, and that Tom Cruise now behaves like a wind-up doll endlessly shouting to the public that he loves Katie Holmes. (Jumping on couches is optional.)

See whole article here. It is sensational.