$ELLEBRITY: JUST WHOSE FAULT IS IT?

Having no clue what I was getting into with the exception of the description on the box I dove into the movie $ELLEBRITY waiting to see what goes on behind the scenes in the business of creating celebrities out of stars. Sure there had to be some mention of the paparazzi but by the end there was so much more to witness.

The movie offers a behind the scenes look at the process of making people famous. These days it seems as if you can't turn on a channel that doesn't have its own form of celebrity stalking/gossip magazine happening. While you would think that this only started recently it actually goes back further, back to the golden age of Hollywood when press agents did their best to get their stars noticed for things they wanted and kept out of the press for the bad behaviors they were involved in.

Most interesting when speaking of the past was in discovering where the term paparazzi came from. A famous photographer from Italy who helped director Frederico Fellini with his film 8 1/2 discusses how a scene in that film required photographers to be crawling over one another to get a photo of a star. When trying to come up with a name for them Fellini used paparazzi. But what was considered paparazzi then compared to what we have today was completely different. They knew their boundaries; they knew when to allow for some privacy. As depicted here they have changed considerably.

Today's paparazzi have become more like scavengers waiting to pick the bones of any and all bodies they can find. Even this photographer thinks poorly of them today. While many of them carry heavy duty cameras it seems that today anyone with a cell phone can become a member of their group. One goes so far as to consider himself a journalist but when watching him talk about stalking a star or using sources to find out where someone will be not to get a story but to get a picture, I had a hard time believing him.

With the phenomena that we have these days concerning celebrity status it's not just the fault of the paparazzi. The stars themselves have a part to play in this. While I certainly don't begrudge them having moments of privacy to themselves the fact of the matter is that when you choose to take on the mantle of stardom you should realize going in that this comes with it. To do any and all things to get noticed and then to complain when you're noticed but not in a context that you set up felt a bit hypocritical. The only thing I could sympathize with here was the fact that photographers were so set on getting a picture that they would put someone in jeopardy or not give them the chance to allow a few pics and then let them go felt a bit much. Another item that gets mentioned I agree with is the pressure by the photographers to get pictures of the children of the celebrities as well. These children never asked for this life and to me should be off limits. Photographers could care less.

But the one thing about this that got me more than anything else was the third component that is involved when it comes to creating celebrities. That third component is us, the viewers of these shows and the purchasers of the magazines that in turn pay top dollar for scandalous photos. One lady interviewed goes so far as to say she'd never let her children read those sorts of magazines and yet she talks about how she buys and reads most of them. If there wasn't a market for magazines like this, if no one bought them, then perhaps the dangerous attitudes of the paparazzi would lessen.

As for a documentary on the subject this one is really well done. It attempts to cover all sides of the issue rather than focus on just one. Breaking it down into the various categories of what causes celebrity and the desire to get as much information or as many photos as possible draws you in and lets you know favorites have not been chosen. Instead as objective a look at the business is presented and in the end perhaps the guiltiest party in the mix is us. Don't take my word for it though, pick this one up and give it a watch. It's worth the time involved. 

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