Two Related Op-Ed Articles on Celebrity and Paparazzi

Leonard Pitts, Jr. and Betsy Hart each have an article over at Jewish World Review today that touch on fame. Leonard Pitts talks about how WE are to blame for celebrity culture. In many ways he is correct (as he usually is). People buy the magazines and watch the shows that use the pictures and stories that the paparazzi sneak and/or bother people to get. The example Mr. Pitts uses is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have gone to Namibia for the birth of their baby. I didn't even know they were together, much less that they were expecting. I am guessing they have been together at least a year? Anyway, photographers have followed the couple to nowhere Africa and won't give them a moments peace. WHO REALLY CARES? That is my question. Leave the couple alone. They will show pictures when and if they are ready. As a side question, Namibia? How will this affect the kids status as a citizen? Does that matter the parents? Can they bathe the kid in the water?

The other article by Betsy Hart discusses the 1953 movie Roman Holiday. Audrey Hepburn is a princess who escapes from her duties for a day in Rome and meets a reporter (Gregory Peck) and his photographer friend (Eddie Albert). They spend the day being bad (by 1953 royalty standards) doing things like smoking and riding a motorcycle. Eddie Albert gets some great photos that could make him and Peck rich. In the end, they all do their duty, and the movie is really a tragedy of sorts about star-crossed lovers. If only photographers and reporters and us, the buying public, were willing to put duty above prurient leering into people's private lives. As Christians, doesn't this kind of stuff count as gossip? Romans 1:28-30 (New International Version) 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;... Looks like sin to me.



Tags:
Paparazzi, Celebrity, Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie