The often controversial Jeremy Clarkson in London Photo: Daniel Gorecki
From the days of Marylin Monroe to more recent times with Jeremy Clarkson, the media has had a fascination with celebrities and controversy.
The evolution of technology and modern day marketing has made it easy for just about anyone to headline a story, provided that there is a common pay-off for those involved. Controversy is seen as an opportunity to capitalise on a situation where media hype and clever marketing can tamper and manipulate the public’s perception into accepting and even forgiving behaviour that would normally be seen as unacceptable.
We are now in an age where agents and publicists are no longer the secret behind the success of a talent. It’s an age where some publicists are as famous as their clients. Many celebrities are part of a marketing process that goes well beyond a simple promotion. Instead of being known for just their talents, too many celebrities play on their potential as a ‘personality’ and can become famous with clever marketing without relying on much, if any, talent.
Getting interviews with many modern day celebrities is near impossible without facing a list of demands.
The relationship between controversial celebrities and the media now depends on how people can advance their wealth and personal interests. But the level of interest that can be generated sometimes borders on overwhelming.
Invasion of privacy can be a negative factor at times, and these circumstances are usually met with caution. But many celebrities who are famous for being famous, such as Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, will put a positive spin on even the worst situations to capitalise on success that has come through smart marketing.
A major factor that has contributed to the profile of controversial celebrity behaviour is reality TV.
Professor Alan Knight, head of the Graduate School of Journalism at UTS, said most reality TV is a scripted process.
“People are doing PHD research on reality TV. Most people who watch reality TV don’t realise that many of the people that appear on most of the programs are actually subject to psychological tests,” Professor Knight said.
“So in actual fact they can find people that are unstable and are likely to fight with each other. People don’t realise that reality TV is anything but reality; it’s just entertainment for the feeble minded. They might shoot 10 hours but they might show only 10 minutes, and then they might stitch together the confrontations out of context therefore creating almost fictional characters.”
But Professor Knight agreed that both the media and celebrities get something out of the arrangement.
“It’s a mutually destructive relationship. The celebrities get to sell their products and the journalists get to sell the bull,” he said.
“In some ways it degrades the public by assuming that they have a very low intelligence. Poor quality entertainment based on confrontational exploitation has always been with us, from before Roman times. They used to feed people to lions, now they just put them on Big Brother.”
The media’s role in dumbing down the standard of public discourse is something that seems to have increased along with the evolution of technology and the ability to exploit situations where there is money to be made or egos to be stroked.
But things can go wrong and can sometimes have dire consequences. The hoax played by Australian DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig on British nurse Jacintha Saldanha is a dark reminder that lines are too often blurred when it comes to how far celebrities will go. The incident led to Ms Saldanha taking her own life after the DJs, who impersonated members of the British royal family, revealed information live on radio about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge who was receiving treatment at that hospital.
Lately there has been much hysteria in the press about how the government is trying to muzzle freedom of speech with its attempts to introduce new media regulation, but commercial radio and television have been subject to a regulator for more than half a century.
Professor Knight said: “People are still doing things on radio and getting away with it. The regulator is pretty toothless, but people are constrained by things like defamation. That’s part of the problem with this nasty entertainment, some of the actors start believing their roles. They’re everywhere; commercial radio was like this 30 years ago. Basically they know they will boost ratings by being obnoxious to particular people, so they do it.”
The most concerning issue of late has been the harassment and abuse of celebrities through social media. One such example is Charlotte Dawson who endured eight hours of abuse through comments on Twitter that led her to being hospitalised.
“It’s not just the nutters behind the microphone that you’ve got to contend with; there are nutters out there with computers as well. In that sense, the whole process of celebrity has become democratised,” Professor Knight said.
“What has changed is that the media, through new media, has become much more democratic and much more open so it has become a lot easier to express ideas. That’s the upside of free speech. The downside is that there are a lot of crazy and malicious people out there.”
One can only hope that a more positive and transparent approach will emerge, especially as the government has now weighed in on the debate. The media needs to reflect the moral and ethical values of society but it should also re-evaluate the necessary level of education and awareness required to avoid mere destructive controversy, dollar-driven agenda and the pure pursuit of ego.
