Surely, celebrity is just a bit of fun? We all have our favourite actors or musicians. It's natural to admire them for their talent. I'm sure it is but talent is not at all that celebrity is about.
There is an industry dedicated to celebrity. Celebrity is manufactured, primarily through images of celebrities. It is easy to make an idol of a living person. The earliest Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire because they refused to worship the emperor. There have always been personality cults of one type or another.
Celebrity images are lovingly reproduced in full colour magazines and television programmes. These pictures are touched up in various ways to reflect an ideal of what a celebrity should look like. These images are false representations of the person depicted. Indeed, celebrities have little control of their images; the images are in the control of the media. When a celebrity fails to meet this ideal, that too is exploited. People will pay to see celebrities who are drunk or misbehaving in some way.
Part of the false images of the celebrities are the stories told about them. Often these stories are made up to sell media. Or else they are manufactured on reality TV shows. The lives of celebrities are similar to the lives depicted on soaps. For some soap stars, it is difficult to tell what is happening to the actor from what is happening to their character.
Of course, everyone knows the world of celebrities is manufactured. Perhaps. But here's the point. How do we know that Old Testament idolaters did not know their idols were manufactured?
These images work at a subliminal level. We are not conscious of their power precisely because we know they are manufactured. We may tell ourselves this person has talent, whilst another has none and has just been hyped. It doesn't matter what we think. The message that we receive under the radar is about the way to live in a consumer society.
Comments