The Nation's Fixation with Celebrity

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Laura D’Anzieri

11HD

September 2004

The Nation’s Fixation with Celebrity

In today’s society the word celebrity is everywhere. Whether you are reading a magazine, listening to the radio or watching the television you can find out all you want to know and more about your favourite celebrity.

The word celebrity used to define people such as Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly – people with talent, whose lives were far removed from the general public. Nowadays people such as Jade Goody, a runner up in a reality television programme, are splashed across the front pages of magazines and newspapers daily for their lives to be dissected by a ‘celebrity’ obsessed nation.

However I believe we have to ask ourselves, how did our country become so fixated with celebrities. Yet it is not just the famous that fascinates us but the thought of fame itself this is partly due to reality television programmes such as ‘Pop Idol’ and the infamous ’Big Brother’.

Whereas the generations before us saw the stars on their screens as gods and goddesses who were always made up to perfection, dressed impeccably and behaved discreetly and graciously, we see the likes of the Big Brother contestants demeaning themselves half naked and swearing at one another. These are the people we call celebrities! It is not surprising that such a large percentage of the population want to be famous, when you look at talent shows, such as Pop Idol, and watch some of the contestants it is very easy for one to think that they could do it too. It is this mentality that makes people so obsessed with fame; they will read articles on how to dress like their favourite star, they will try and live like the stars by watching programmes that show you every inch of how the celebrities live and they will in general try an imitate the lives of the rich and famous in their everyday existences. This whole culture, where so much of the media is celebrity based, makes the stars seem so much more accessible to the general public and this is why it has become so easy for the nation to become infatuated with fame! A drastic case of celebrity obsession is the story of two teenage twin brothers Matt and Mike

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Schlepp who spent over £15,000 on cosmetic surgery in the hope of making them look like their ultimate hero Brad Pitt! Their transformations were complete after three months of agony where they underwent serious intensive cosmetic surgery. I believe that it is a truly sad world we live in when people undergo such extreme measures in order to resemble their celebrity idols. The Schlepp brothers were the first to appear on a MTV show called ‘I want a Famous Face’. The series included a nineteen year old modelling hopeful who had breast implants, lip implants and liposuction to look like ...

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