THEME: Relationships and CommunityBuilding
Lesson: Why do we watch ‘crash and burn’ stars? A minus 20 article from Regina Leader Post, October 20, 2008
Learning Outcomes:
- Students will examine and discuss societies obsession with the rich and famous.
Essential Question: Why are we so fascinated and engrossed in celebrities lives? Why do we enjoy watching them falter?
Grades
- Grades 9-12
Time:
- 1 x 15
Materials:
- Minus 20 article: Why do we love to watch “crash and burn’ stars? (article on next page)
Procedures
- Write the essential questions on the board.
- Read the minus 20 article, Why do we love to watch ‘crash and burn’ stars to the class.
- Do you agree with the author that our propensity to idolize stars is growing leaps and bounds because we are now ‘bombarded with constant advertisements persuading us that what we have is not enough”?
- Do we like to watch stars fail because we feel insecure and it makes us feel better?
- When Britney's lawyer visits the pop singer's home, we know within the hour. When a celebrity power couple splits, we cry as we read the unpleasant details in the checkout line. We become excited over silly celebrity fights about meaningless things. We support causes because Bono tells us to. Why are we so fascinated and engrossed in celebrities' personal lives?
- Candid shots of actresses in their bikinis, glimpses of the stars without their makeup, and questionable opinions on who is the best dressed and who missed the mark at the latest red-carpet event. Why do we watch this?
- Why are we fixated with gossip magazines and television programs devoted to the rich and famous? Do we vicariously live through them?
- Do shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and Insider sustain our borderline-obsessive desires for useless information?
Why do we watch ‘crash and burn’ stars?
A Minus 21 article by Talon Regent, October 20, 2008
Paparazzi go to great and sometimes terrible lengths to get what are called “money shots”, the pictures of actresses and actors at their worst. The general public looks shamefully upon them for their avarice, but who is it who buys the photographers’ money shots?
It is not, ultimately, the magazine companies that pay them, but those of us who buy those magazines. Why do we, as a public, force our ‘employees’ to go to such extremes?
There are no beneficial results in regard to the obsessions some of us share pertaining to the ‘idols’ we worship so faithfully. Many people try to believe that the stars can be positive role models for today’s youth.
However, this cannot be the case when the only stories that attract our attention are those of failure. Why does such a large portion of the population only enjoy the circumstances in which an innocent icon falters?
Insecurity is an emotion that plagues even the greatest of people. Though we may have all the necessities that life demands, our culture demands more of us.
As we are bombarded with constant advertisements persuading us that what we have is not enough, we glance around the room in which we sit and begin to make a mental list of each of the material possessions that might be improved or upgraded and realize that pretty much everything we own could be ameliorated.
With so much pressure on us to change, where could we possibly vent our feelings of stress and vulnerability? The stars who we imagine to have perfect lives with perfectly sculpted bodies and perfectly free spirits are the greatest outlets of all. Like childhood bullies, the fearful and insecure feel the need to instill those emotions in somebody else. Those who have the ever watchful public eye on them at all times are perfect candidates for humiliation and degradation. Seeing the rich and famous crash and burn gives the antagonist a small sense of satisfaction and redemption.
A small addiction begins to accumulate at that moment and they crave that small sense of delight more and more until an entire magazine changes from current events to star news to that once famous person who broke up with that other once famous overdoser.
The paparazzi fill our need to boost our self-esteem and we perpetuate the cycle by buying the magazines and photos with enthusiasm. Society has created a massive money making industry to facilitate its need to feel better.