A short history of celebrity today

Watch A short history of celebrity today
It's all about tearing them down. And they eat it up!
By Jessa Crispin

Would you rather be rich or famous?” It’s one of those meaningless questions you ask when you’re trying to crack open the person you’re all smitten and warm and stupid over, when you’re trying to figure out their capacity. And maybe he has the capability to be both, but you want a value system. You want to know who he is and who he will be in 10 years because you maybe want to saddle up next to him.

A Short History of Celebrity by Fred Inglis. 322 pages. Princeton University Press. $29.95.
“Famous.” That was an answer I had to deal with. He thinks Cary Grant when he thinks famous. I think of Jensen Ackles, a heartthrobbish TV actor from Supernatural who is being stalked by a seriously unhinged 19-year-old girl. She has gone online and posted fake interviews by Ackles in which he claims the two are married and deeply in love. I think of the bizarre, sinister, and letterless package I received recently. It made me feel as if I were being watched through a pair of binoculars. I figure fame would be like that feeling I got opening the package, only happening every second of the day.

I also think of Jessica Slaughter, another unhinged teenage girl who tells YouTube audiences to “suck my non-existing dick and die.” She became the object of a harassment campaign by one website, which caused a second website to come to her defense, only to have the second website’s commenters declare the young girl needed to be put in her place.

Celebrity is a weird gig. It used to be the place of well scrubbed, heavily managed stars. Now the barriers are down, anyone can be famous for a little while if they are OK with being outrageously idiotic, and people confuse notoriety with fame, or at the very least, are happy with either. This is quite a change from the moment celebrity was born, at least according to Fred Inglis in his new book A Short History of Celebrity, with the construction of Elizabeth I as the Virgin Queen, the untouchable monarch who was as much a metaphor as a human. Celebrity used to be performance. Now if you’re found out to be performing, if any insincerity is sensed, the knives come out.

There’s a difference between renown, fame, and celebrity. Renown requires you to do something, and do it well, and we don’t really have much place for that anymore. Who won the Nobel Prize for Economics three years ago? Exactly. Fame has more to do with wealth and power, a long-term strategy. Madonna is famous, an icon flexible enough to hold the public’s eye through decades of transformation. Celebrity, though, is cheap. Inglis declares celebrity is “either won or conferred by the mere fact of a person’s being popularly acknowledged, familiarly recognised, attended to, selected as a topic for gossip, speculation, emulation, envy, groundless affection, or dislike.” If you can judge an era by its celebrities, then you can say ours is a spiteful, bitter, cynical age in which intelligence and fortitude are poorly valued, but filling a house with an inappropriate number of children is celebrated.

We no longer even allow our celebrities to present a flattering thigh angle. Now we want cellulite, we want frailty and despair, we want her husband to leave her for a crazy Nazi porn star so that we can feign sympathy while we pour over the lurid details. We don’t even bother to smooth out contradictions — we will rail against the dangers and sickness of modern paparazzi while simultaneously, sometimes in the same sentence, reference a picture of Julia Roberts leaving a Starbucks without any makeup.

Yet it’s still a game everyone wants in on. People are desperate to be torn to shreds by the masses. If they don’t have it in themselves, they’ll turn the spotlight on their own children. Take the freak show that is TLC’s reality show about the child beauty pageant world, Toddlers and Tiaras. I would love for a former beauty pageant pawn to stand up, turn around to her overbearing stage mom, and recite the speech in Dickens’s Dombey and Son, given by a woman paraded around in the hopes of changing their family’s fortunes:

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Watches this enjoy French Connection A/W party - lets have a look at the pretty dresses

Saw this French Connection A/W party - lets have a look at the pretty dresses

French Connection had a party in LA last night to celebrate the launch of their A/W 2010 collection. The OC’s Samaire Armstrong sang for her supper wearing a very small outfit consisting of white knee sock, gold sequin shorts and a revealing top. She soon changed into a much lovelier backless white dress only to change into yet another frock later, this time a floor length black gown with a sweeping white fishtail. Lo Bosworth spent the night snogging the face off her boyf all the while looking gorgeous in a wine red beaded number with black peep toes. We love her huge hair bun, very chic. Goodfellas star Jamie Lynn Sigler flaunted her fab bod in a strapless midnight blue mini dress and Louise Roe covered up with dark trousers, a metallic top and a graphic printed jacket.

Glee’s Mark Salling was given a birthday cake with his face on to celebrate his recent 28th birthday. He basically ate himself. We bet he tasted good.
Coppied by http://www.heatworld.com/Star-Style/2010/08/french-connection-aw-party---lets-have-a-look-at-the-pretty-dresses/

Enjoy saw this The 9 0'Clock News - Brittany Murphy's husband shared a bed with her mum

We are the enjoy The 9 0'Clock News - Brittany Murphy's husband shared a bed with her mum
Brittany Murphy's husband shared a bed with her mum
The late husband of actress Brittany Murphy shared a bed with her mum after she died, it has been reported today. Simon Monjack was heartbroken when his beloved wife Brittany died of pneumonia in December last year, and shortly afterwards her mum Sharon moved into the couple's home to help him cope with the grief. However, it's been reported that their mutual comfort went a step further and they began sharing a bed. Sharon accidentally admitted to the arrangement while showing a coroner around the house in the wake of Simon's death a few months after Brittany's. Pointing to his bed, she said, "That's my side." Simon Monjack died in May this year. It has been suggested that mould in the property could be to blame for both deaths.

Snooki charged with "being annoying". Yes, really!
Jeresy Shore's pint-sized star Snooki is officially criminally annoying. She has been charged with disorderly conduct, creating a public nuisance and the crime of annoying people on the beach following a boozy night out in New Jersey. Her lawyer has entered a not guilty plea on her behalf, but she's still expected to face a hefty fine for her naughty behaviour. Tut tut indeed. Keep the lid screwed on next time, Snooki.

Justin Bieber wants footie lessons from Becks
Justin Bieber has offered the Backhams a free private gig at their home in exchange for some footie lessons from David. The singer told The Sun that he'd happily perform for Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz after hearing they were big fans, and that all he'd want in return would be an hour out in the back yard with David Beckham. Sounds like an OK deal to us, that's if Becks could face spending a solid hour with The Bieb...

EastEnders star dropped by her record label
Former EastEnders actress Preeya Kalidas, who played Syed's unfortunate wife Amira, has been dropped by her record label after her debut single failed to even reach the Top 40. Preeya's single Shimmy didn't get much radio play despite a huge promotional campaign and limped into the charts at Number 85. Preeya's album Constant Cravings has already been recorded but she'll now have to find another label to release it. Did you hear her single Shimmy? If so, what did you think?
Coppied by http://www.heatworld.com/Celeb-News/2010/08/the-9-0clock-news---brittany-murphys-husband-shared-a-bed-with-her-mum/

One child in every class hurt in a road accident

We are saw this One child in every class hurt in a road accident
One child in every class is killed or injured in a road accident by the time they are 16, new figures show.
Children in poorer areas are more likely to be hurt in road accidents Photo: ALAMY
During their childhood one in every 27 children – fewer than the average class size – will be reported as killed or injured in a road accident, the report said.
Children in more deprived areas are up to five times more likely to be hurt in a road collision than those living in more affluent postcodes, researchers found.

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Of the ten areas with the highest rates of traffic incidents involving children, eight were located in the north west.
In Preston one in every 206 children was killed or injured in a road accident between 2004 and 2008, compared with the national average of one in 427.
Kensington and Chelsea in London had the lowest figures in the country, with just one in 1158 children living in the area hurt in a collision each year.
The report, carried out by Road Safety Analysis, a not-for-profit organisation, added that the under-reporting of road accidents could mean the figures across the country are significantly higher.
It said: "The Department for Transport acknowledges that [the under-reporting of casualties] could mean that up to five times more casualties occur on the roads than are reported to the police."
The risk of children being involved in a road collision increases every year as they grow older, the report found, while boys in every age group were more likely to be injured than girls.
May saw the highest number of recorded child casualties, while the risk of incidents decreased by 25 per cent in the winter months compared with the peak in the summer months.
The month with the lowest number of child pedestrian accidents was August, which the report said "could be due to fewer children being in the country at this time of year".
Dan Campsall, director of Road Safety Analysis, said: “The results of this study show a worrying discrepancy between different parts of the country. Children in some areas experience considerably higher risk from road traffic crashes than others who might be living just over the border."
Coppied by http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/7948167/One-child-in-every-class-hurt-in-a-road-accident.html