Celebrity
First of all, I am very sorry to hear that Caroline Flack has taken her own life.
Suicide is a terrible event. It affects the families and friends of the deceased for generations. In many cases, the grief, anger and guilt may fade into the background but they don't go away. The family and friends of Caroline Flack face a lifetime of asking: How could it have happened? Could they have done more to help her? How could she feel so alone and so isolated that death was the only way she thought was open to her? You'll all have your own ideas about those questions.
But that's not what I want to talk about here. My subject is hypocrisy.
Until she died, I'd no idea who Caroline Flack was. And I have to say the TV obituaries don't make her career any clearer to me.
I'm quite used to 'celebrity' now. I see TV programmes advertised on channels I don't watch and find myself asking: Who are these people? For example, there's a channel on Sky which belongs to MTV and features "celebrities' most fabulous cribs (houses)." Sometimes the person who writes the programme notes has to explain: 'visit the home of X, star of television's Y.' Same goes for these 'Celebrity Pointless' and 'Celebrity Mastermind' programmes.
That's fair enough. I don't expect the people who watch those 'celebrity' programmes to have any idea who the stars of my favourite films from the 1940s to the 2000s are. I don't even take offence if contestants in quiz shows tell the audience when they're asked a question about events in the 1970s: 'I wasn't even born then.' Although I do take exception to the ones who seem to regard asking them anything about history at all as some sort of trick question. Not to mention the ones who don't seem to have learned anything at all in school - including world-famous works of literature, historical events, or even politicians. All those years of expensive state education wasted.
That's just how life is: the media these days have introduced a whole group of people into TV programmes and newspapers who likely wouldn't have made it beyond the stage door in the past. Mostly they do no harm. Not that I would know, since I don't read tabloid newspapers and I avoid any TV programme with Celebrity + dancing, skating, cooking, baking, or even (heaven help us) pottery in the titles.
But then there are the parasites that these celebrities have attracted and they are a lot less acceptable: a whole generation of nasty, vicious, frankly inhuman, so-called 'journalists' has grown up in the UK. These people work for the S*n, the Mail, the Express and other tabloids. I'm convinced they don't see 'celebrities' as people at all, but as money-makers - headlines, in other words. TV channels like ITV and BBC encourage newspapers to print over-blown stories, because the stories sell advertising time for their programmes.
And, of course, their ability to project 'celebrities' onto the front page of the tabloids is backed up by the people celebrities feel they have to employ now: the PR people, the stylists, the agents, etc.
And every one of the people I've mentioned depends on 'celebrities' to make money for them.
It's been awful to watch ITV journalists this last week telling us how sad they and their bosses are at Caroline Flack's death, carefully avoiding the fact that several other young, beautiful but not very savvy people have also taken their lives because of the pressure and lack of support from their bosses at ITV.
I'm reminded of events in Hollywood way back in the 1970s, when it was carefully hidden by the studios that some of their biggest stars like Rock Hudson were dying of AIDS. The same thing happened when young stars like River Phoenix died of drugs overdoses. These events were all presented as 'just one of these things' when in fact the agents, studio bosses, and accountants knew perfectly well that they were facing an epidemic that was taking the lives of many talented people.
Is this what's happening in the UK with 'celebrities'?
The worst thing I've seen is the brass neck of tabloids like the S*n lamenting Caroline Flack's death. Just like ITV. Not to mention the attempts of the media to pass what blame there is on to the Crown Prosecution Service, a legal service that doesn't enjoy the protection of agents and journalists and in fact has no right of reply.
I would love to know who came up with the hashtag 'Be Kind'. And how fast it will be forgotten once the upset about Caroline Flack dies down. There's nothing surer: Caroline Flack will be forgotten. Nothing will change. Another celebrity will take her place. And the merry-go-round of celebrity and death will go on.
Suicide is a terrible event. It affects the families and friends of the deceased for generations. In many cases, the grief, anger and guilt may fade into the background but they don't go away. The family and friends of Caroline Flack face a lifetime of asking: How could it have happened? Could they have done more to help her? How could she feel so alone and so isolated that death was the only way she thought was open to her? You'll all have your own ideas about those questions.
But that's not what I want to talk about here. My subject is hypocrisy.
Until she died, I'd no idea who Caroline Flack was. And I have to say the TV obituaries don't make her career any clearer to me.
I'm quite used to 'celebrity' now. I see TV programmes advertised on channels I don't watch and find myself asking: Who are these people? For example, there's a channel on Sky which belongs to MTV and features "celebrities' most fabulous cribs (houses)." Sometimes the person who writes the programme notes has to explain: 'visit the home of X, star of television's Y.' Same goes for these 'Celebrity Pointless' and 'Celebrity Mastermind' programmes.
That's fair enough. I don't expect the people who watch those 'celebrity' programmes to have any idea who the stars of my favourite films from the 1940s to the 2000s are. I don't even take offence if contestants in quiz shows tell the audience when they're asked a question about events in the 1970s: 'I wasn't even born then.' Although I do take exception to the ones who seem to regard asking them anything about history at all as some sort of trick question. Not to mention the ones who don't seem to have learned anything at all in school - including world-famous works of literature, historical events, or even politicians. All those years of expensive state education wasted.
That's just how life is: the media these days have introduced a whole group of people into TV programmes and newspapers who likely wouldn't have made it beyond the stage door in the past. Mostly they do no harm. Not that I would know, since I don't read tabloid newspapers and I avoid any TV programme with Celebrity + dancing, skating, cooking, baking, or even (heaven help us) pottery in the titles.
But then there are the parasites that these celebrities have attracted and they are a lot less acceptable: a whole generation of nasty, vicious, frankly inhuman, so-called 'journalists' has grown up in the UK. These people work for the S*n, the Mail, the Express and other tabloids. I'm convinced they don't see 'celebrities' as people at all, but as money-makers - headlines, in other words. TV channels like ITV and BBC encourage newspapers to print over-blown stories, because the stories sell advertising time for their programmes.
And, of course, their ability to project 'celebrities' onto the front page of the tabloids is backed up by the people celebrities feel they have to employ now: the PR people, the stylists, the agents, etc.
And every one of the people I've mentioned depends on 'celebrities' to make money for them.
It's been awful to watch ITV journalists this last week telling us how sad they and their bosses are at Caroline Flack's death, carefully avoiding the fact that several other young, beautiful but not very savvy people have also taken their lives because of the pressure and lack of support from their bosses at ITV.
I'm reminded of events in Hollywood way back in the 1970s, when it was carefully hidden by the studios that some of their biggest stars like Rock Hudson were dying of AIDS. The same thing happened when young stars like River Phoenix died of drugs overdoses. These events were all presented as 'just one of these things' when in fact the agents, studio bosses, and accountants knew perfectly well that they were facing an epidemic that was taking the lives of many talented people.
Is this what's happening in the UK with 'celebrities'?
The worst thing I've seen is the brass neck of tabloids like the S*n lamenting Caroline Flack's death. Just like ITV. Not to mention the attempts of the media to pass what blame there is on to the Crown Prosecution Service, a legal service that doesn't enjoy the protection of agents and journalists and in fact has no right of reply.
I would love to know who came up with the hashtag 'Be Kind'. And how fast it will be forgotten once the upset about Caroline Flack dies down. There's nothing surer: Caroline Flack will be forgotten. Nothing will change. Another celebrity will take her place. And the merry-go-round of celebrity and death will go on.
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