Cult of Celebrity : Does Your Celebrity Obsession Dangerous to Your Health ?

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    America’s fast-growing religion is—let’s face it—celebrity worship. From gossip magazines to entertainment TV, from blogs to ads featuring famous faces, the stars are our new gods and goddesses. But why are we so obsessed with their successes and failures, their relationships? Why do they impact our spending habits, our self-image, our own lives? The psychology behind the behavior of the stars and the millions who follow their every move is explored in “The Cult of Celebrity.” In this excerpt, author and fame expert Cooper Lawrence looks at reality TV marriages, K-Fed and Britney and the downfall of stardom.

    Reality TV marriages
    One type of celebrity couple the tabloids have trouble speculating about are married celebrities with their own reality TV shows. These couples want to show us everything. It’s less a case of “Will you take this man . . .” and more a case of TV producers rubbing their hands together and saying, “This’ll make a great reality show.”

    Inevitably the relationship ends soon after the ratings tank. Who can forget Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey as the Newlyweds? Or Britney Spears and Kevin Federline in the aptly named “Chaotic,” which lasted a whole five episodes. Then there’s Hulk Hogan and his ex-wife Linda, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, and Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro. Even Liza Minnelli and David Gest reportedly had a reality TV show in the works, but I guess the marriage didn’t last long enough to get a camera crew together. And let’s take a moment to remember those reality TV relationship pioneers, the Bachelors and Bachelorettes, whose relationships have mostly ended up on the scrapheap. (Trista and Ryan Sutter, who not only managed to get wed but also started a family, are notable exceptions.)

    Psychologist James Houran, Ph.D., is a relationship expert, co-author of “Celebrity Worshippers: Inside the Minds of Stargazers,” and noted authority on celebrity worship. He says that while the impact of reality TV programming on celebrity relationships hasn’t really been studied, celebrity couples live their lives as if they are in “a daily reality TV show” anyway.

    I interviewed Kevin Federline on my radio show on Halloween of 2006, when he came on to talk about the release of his CD “Playing with Fire.” It was at a significant time in the entertainer’s life, not long after “Chaotic” and just days before his acrimonious breakup with Britney. It seemed that his attitude to the intrusion of the media into the couple’s life had changed since he’d agreed to share his home movies with the world in a reality TV show. It had certainly made him aware of how much disruption media exposure can cause to family life.

    By this point, Britney had given birth to their second baby, Jayden James, and Federline had had time to get used to living in the media bubble that was Britney’s universe. The stories in the media about the couple were getting so outlandish that I wondered whether Britney and K-Fed might have started some of them as a joke. “We don’t do any of that,” he replied. “It’s crazy. That’s how much attention the media gives us. They make up all this stuff; we don’t have to do anything.”

    He went on to talk of his concerns about having the media following his children’s lives. “It’s overwhelming and kind of a curse, and as a father and a parent I really don’t like my children being out there the way that they are, but at the same time there’s nothing you can really do about it. [And] you don’t want to make the fans feel like you are jaded; you want to give them what they want. But I mean, it’s a fine line when you are dealing with family and private life.”

    Be thankful you aren’t a celebrity
    You and your significant other do not have the paparazzi following your every move; you do not live with the threat of your TV show being canceled; you don’t wake in the morning worrying if today is your day for a tabloid scandal. Living a normal life is a gift to a marriage. You get to define your relationship, no one else. Problems arise for a celebrity couple when they don’t have enough real couple time. “Without privacy and psychological space, a couple has little chance to build a strong, loving and enduring couple identity,” says psychologist James Houran. “That is, the couple no longer has that relationship as a retreat or a sanctuary from business and other pressures.” Make the most of your non-celebrity status and find private time as a couple so you can create the relationship that you both want.

    It’s unlikely that a TV producer is going to call tomorrow asking you and your family to star in a new reality show, but this archetype can still apply to real life. There are couples whose relationships suffer because there are too many eyes watching their every move, and they receive too many brutally honest reviews of their performance. There are new parents who need a bit of support but instead have in-laws who watch and criticize their every parenting choice. There are couples who have friends and family over their shoulders the whole time, trying to steer the relationship.

    While you may be judged by your small circle, celebrities are watched through a lens and edited down to their darkest and most embarrassing moments, for the judgment of the entire world. The tragedy is when through celeb-reality television we get to watch someone completely deteriorate, such as Anna Nicole Smith, whose reality TV show was a harbinger of things to come.

    Excerpted from “The Cult of Celebrity: What Our Fascination with the Stars Reveals About Us.”  Copyright (c) 2009 by by Cooper Lawrence. Reprinted with permission from Skirt, a division of Globe Pequot Press.

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