Celebrities giving back

Jessica Alba just went to Africa to shed light on her campaign to educate all children. When celebrities do human humanitarian work it draws attention to what they are working on and therefore causes viewers and fans to maybe become engaged in helping out for a good cause. I think that this is a really good was for celebrities to use their celebrity status in a positive way. A lot of celebrities including Oprah and Angelina Jolie do humanitarian work for different people around the world. Since they are high profile celebrities the activities they do are generally covered by the media and therefore read and heard about by many people.

plastic surgery

Now days it is almost normal for celebrities to get plastic surgery. One article that I was looking at caught my eye. It was one of Heidi Montag from the hit show The Hills. I'm not sure how true it is that she got all ten of these procedures done, however she definitely got a boob job and a nose job. She was already gorgeous before and I think that getting plastic surgery was unnecessary. I think that celebrities are obsessed with being "perfect". But what is perfect? I feel like some celebrities don't know where to stop and just keep getting more and more surgical procedures done in hope of reaching "perfection."

Oprah- unauthorized biography

Kitty Kelley wrote a biography about Oprah revealing some of Oprah's deepest secrets. In a people article it summarized this "In her latest unauthorized celebrity biography, Kitty Kelley takes on Oprah Winfrey, and aims to shed some light on a woman who is hugely famous and powerful but who Kelley says keeps much of her real self hidden from view." Among other personal issues Kitty talked about Oprah's sexuality and the extent to which she was abused as a child. Oprah then had to address this biography on her show. And deny/ admit a lot of the rumors. This is one thing that is hard about being a celebrity is people can just say whatever they want about you and it is up to the viewers what they do and do not believe. I feel like an unauthorized biography is taking it to another extreme and people should not be able to write a whole book about someone without their permission.

Media culture

An old TV show that used to play on HBO called Wired is being used to study American subculture at many different universities.
Ben Meader at Middleburry college said the following about the show in an article and how it can be used to study our own culture:
"Film and media and television, they have to be regarded as important as literature in how we understand our own culture," says Meader. "I could watch the show on my own and be like, 'Oh, OK, this is an interesting show.' But in order to kind of understand why it was made, when it was made, and how it was made, is something that is really complex and something worth studying."

Film, media and television are very important aspects of our culture. This article was talking about the importance

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Gosselins

In a recent story, it said that Jon Gosselin just filed legal papers asking for primary custody and child support of his eight children. Jon says he will continue to press on with the case unless Kate gives up her "global commitments." He is probably referring to Kate's participation in dancing with the stars. "Jon feels Kate can't have it both ways -- being both a star and an attentive parent." Jon also feels Kate is "addicted to the paparazzi." He says even if Kate is booted from "Dancing with the Stars" on Tuesday, he won't drop his custody case because Kate is "caught up in the glamour of Hollywood" and will take other jobs.

In my opinion both Kate and Jon are too fixated on being celebrities and need to focus more on their children.
I also think that being celebrities is what tore their relationship apart. Everyone relationship has issues but when you have private issues that become public you have millions of people commenting and making the situation worse. I think this is a prime example of the negative effects being a celebrity can have on people.

Scandal helps ratings

Although Tiger Woods has admitted to being unfaithful to his wife and causing a huge scandal he is trying to continue his career in golf. Woods participated in the Master's tournament, which was his first event after 5 months. At first I thought that his scandal would affect his golf career and cause less people to support him. However it did quite the opposite; there were 5 million viewers that tuned in to watch Tiger Woods at the Masters Tournament! According to ESPN Wood's thursday night appearance had double the number of viewers who watched the opening round last year! The article compared this to a car crash and how people pull over to look at the car crash. "People want to see how he holds up, they want to see the reaction to him and if he can still play golf."

I feel like this is just one example of a situation that happens to a lot of celebrities. When a celebrity does something bad, everyone (the public) wants to hear about it, so their media coverage increases. Therefore instead of being punished the celebrities are almost rewarded for it their bad behavior.

Rehab for celebrities?

After writing my last blog I was interested in the whole celebrities going to rehab topic so I was looking articles up and I am amazed by how prevalent rehab is. I found this site that has a summary of some of the celebrities that have been to rehab. It's crazy how many celebrities have gone to rehab! Recently there is Jesse James, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Robert Downey Jr. just to name a few. The reasons listed vary from alcoholism, cocaine and heroine usage, prescription drug addiction, eating disorders, and sex.

I wonder how much rehab actually helps. There were many who went back to rehab multiple times and some who have had success with it the first time. I guess it just depends on the person. Do celebrities end up in rehab more often than regular people? Or is it just that because they are celebrities we hear about it more?