Why Does Anyone Care When Celebrities Die?

The recent heroin death of noted actor Philip Seymour  Hoffman was covered widely in the media with stories highlighting his losing battle with addiction and the loss to the entertainment world.

 

Of course, the actor’s demise was tragic in the sense that it was largely self-inflicted and hence avoidable.  But people suffer every day tragic ends similar to Hoffman’s and only family and friends notice.

Ah, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was a celebrity!

What does that mean?  The term certainly means more – and less – than that he was celebrated.

There is something about publicity that makes people view the object as larger than life, as more important than they are in their largely anonymous lives.  “As seen on TV” used to be a common phrase in printed advertisements as if electronic images provided a stamp of approval, denoting excellence or superiority.

Reading about someone (even seeing a still image) may generate emotions and interests in the subject but seeing an individual in movement on television, computer monitor or screen does much more.  The person comes to life, and we are inclined to think that we know them.

 

For some, that acquaintance becomes a friend to be admired, maybe even worshipped.  Emotionally, the distinction between virtual and reality blurs.

Think of the plainly genuine outpouring of grief displayed years ago when Princess Diana died in a car crash.  Few of those mourning her passing had met her in the flesh.  But thanks to mountains to publicity and her visual exposure to the public, many must have felt a level of grief commensurate with that if they had actually lost a beloved, close family member.

Thus, for those who follow the lives of celebrities, there is an emotional connection.  They join in the highs and share the lows.  A life may be a life in an intellectual sense, and hence of equal value, but we relate to those we know with feelings that are not present for those seen as strangers.

It’s easy to say that such people are out of touch with reality and thus unworthy of respect.

But then humankind are wont to do or things their better natures would discourage.

People do what they do for reasons.  Do celebrities fill a void in the lives of many?  Why is there a void?  What’s missing?  Has emptiness always been a condition humans seek to remedy?

 

Most likely.

Long before the electronic era, truly ancient times, the Greeks had their Homeric myths of Helen of Troy and the gods of Mount Olympus.  Weren’t they celebrities in their time whose perceived travails were closely followed by many people?

 

Bewailing human nature doesn’t change it.