ARE YOU INTERESTED IN CELEBRITY CULTURE?

Just 30 minutes. Yes, that is the time I require to read a news paper of 20 pages. Because I don’t have time to read all those silly things politicians say and strange stories – half of them untruths – about celebrities like movie, TV, Rock & Pop stars, sports persons and WAGS media wants us to believe as great ones. Recently one of my friends invited me to a party. She tried to woo me by saying a famous cricketer had agreed to attend it. “I am not coming”, I firmly told her. “Why you love cricket?!”, she was surprised. “Yes, I love what I see inside the circle, but I don’t have any interest outside of it”, I said. My friend found my words difficult to understand.
Yes, Shane Warne is a great cricketer. I love to see him bowl. But as soon as he leaves the cricket ground, he doesn’t exist for me! Christiano Ronaldo doesn’t exist for me outside a football stadium. I don’t care how many girls he slept with or what colour he dyed his hair with or how many times he sneezed today! Why should I care about these things? I am too busy and smart to fall into the trap media lays for me.
Tell me, does any scientist or a CEO of a multinational company or a doctor who knows the value of time and life have time for the stories on WAGs and other celebrities? Only people who don’t have any important work to do will go after these celebrities and read their personal stories. Media says – these celebrities live a great life (!) and everybody dreams to live such a life and that is why they are interested in their stories. Wouldn’t you want to live such a life?
No thanks! I don’t want to change my partners like I change my dresses. I don’t want to live my life off suitcases. I don’t want to be in the public eye always. I don’t want to blow a fortune on a dress that doesn’t suit me. I don’t want to live a stressful life all the time. (That is what the media says the celebrity life is all about!). Sorry, world, I have better things to do!
Greatness is thrust on some of these celebrities. Some are good in their fields but some are below average both on & off field. Although they don’t have any real talent, they are still made celebrities. Need I give examples here? I know some of these are heroes and demi-gods “created” by the media to cash on their popularity, to benefit from the TRP ratings due to their appearance and increased sales. Unfortunately, some of the largest circulating newspapers here are the ones that have more than half of the pages dedicated to celebrity culture. I wonder why the readers get hooked to them. I feel people fall prey to the tactics of the media. But smart Homo sapiens will see through the media plan and switch off the TV or throw the newspaper or the magazine away and go back to the book they are reading or the poem they are writing as soon as a mention is made about the private lives of the Beckhams or Brangelinas or Tiger Woods.
Some say – all work and no entertainment makes you dull. Then is this rubbish about celebrities entertainment? If you really love what you are doing, you will never get bored. Ask any adventurer, scientist or an explorer. He or she tells you – going to a place where no man has gone before – inventing or discovering new things and doing something nobody has done before are some of the most thrilling things on this planet. Only people who attempt them know the difference.
Some celebrities too don’t like public probing their personal lives. They want to be left alone and have a peaceful existence. Aren’t we disturbing them by subscribing to the media stories about them?
Yes, we are being mislead into believing that the stories about the celebrity life style are the best for us by the media. Isn’t it time we woke up to the realities, lived our lives in our thrilling ways and not in the dream world the media creates for us?

Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa
Copyright 2010