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ARTICLE: Some People Take Following The Stars Entirely Too Far By Jessica Wehrman - SCRIPPS HOWARD Article Last Updated: Saturday, May 08, 2004 - 7:38:07 AM PST ADMIT it: You know far too much about Jennifer Lopez's love life. You know how quickly Reese Witherspoon lost weight after giving birth and you know about Ben Affleck's political aspirations. You know about Courteney Cox Arquette's quest for motherhood. You've got help, thanks to People Magazine and Us Weekly and the two latest entrees into the world of celebrity voyeurism, In Touch and the formerly tabloid Star. Or if you haven't picked up one of those, there's always the E! channel, as well as "Entertainment Tonight," "Access Hollywood" and a deluge of touchy-feely celebrity sit-downs with the likes of Barbara Walters and Katie Couric. This is a nation where the obscure seem increasingly outnumbered, where the discreet are an endangered species. It's a land where we know far too much about our celebrities -- right down to a recent In Touch magazine article about celebrity cellulite. But we keep on reading and watching. "We've confused having a lot of information about some people with intimacy," said psychologist James Houran, who has studied society's fascination with celebrities. He said, based on his research, at least one-third of the population feels "intimately connected" with a celebrity. Houran and a team of other psychologists have studied the degree to which people are fascinated with celebrities. At the most elemental level, fans are vaguely interested in celebrities, gossiping about them and enjoying reading about them. At a more serious level, they will buy celebrity memorabilia or write to the stars. At the most troubling level, he said, fans feel closer to celebrities than they feel to their own family and friends. Those fans, he said, include the extreme -- celebrity stalkers. Everyone, Houran said, is interested in celebrities to some degree. But some fans take their interest to the clinical level. Stars, he said, can be viewed as modern-day religious icons. And the interest can range from normal -- think preteens hanging posters of Justin Timberlake in their room -- to clinical -- feeling like Timberlake is a soul mate. The fascination with celebrity makes money: According to Ad Age's semiannual ranking of magazines by paid circulation, People was 11th in December 2003, with 3.6 million readers. Us Weekly ranked 64th with 1.3 million readers, and newbie In Touch was 144th, with 569,294 readers. But Houran said fandom is not necessarily detrimental. "Celebrity worship is not necessarily a bad thing," he said. "Having role models and idols is an important part of adolescent development, when we are looking to establish who we are and what we believe in." Certainly, celebrities have long had influence over what we wear, what we eat and what causes we support. Jennifer Aniston and actor George Clooney have set hairstyle trends. Mandy Moore, rapper Nelly and actress Kim Cattrall have all been part of the nearly decade-old "Got Milk?" ad campaign. Celebrities are frequent visitors to Capitol Hill, lobbying on behalf of causes ranging from research for Parkinson's disease to stopping mountaintop coal mining. In some cases, the behavior goes further. MTV recently ran a series of documentaries about mostly 20-somethings who emulated their favorite celebrity by having plastic surgery to resemble the star. Arizona twins got nose jobs, chin implants and porcelain veneers to resemble Brad Pitt. A Texas model had breast implants, lip implants and chin liposuction to resemble Pamela Anderson. A Chicago pre- op transsexual received breast implants, cheek implants, an eyebrow lift and had her eyebrow bone shaved and hairline lowered to better resemble Lopez. SOURCE: Scripps Howard / Alameda Times-Star, CA - May 8, 2004 http://www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125~1549~2135899,00.html * * * ARTICLE: Cause They Have The Spotlight Daily Telegraph, Australia May 8, 2004 Well-meaning stars don't always help their side, writes JULIETTA JAMESON Australian actress Rachel Griffiths has worn some red carpet outfits of dubious sartorial merit but nothing beats her getup for the 1997 opening of Melbourne's Crown Casino. Her body smeared unevenly with white make-up, she wore nothing but a loin cloth and a crown of thorns. Asked why, she told the assembled media: "If I didn't flash my tits, you wouldn't have put me in the paper." It got her in the paper all right; as the Oscar winner for outrageousness. Her cause, however, was relegated to the cutting-room floor of life. No one really remembers why she did it. Everyone just remembers seeing her topless. (she did it because she wholesalely objected to the facility.) Celebrities and their causes; they're as compatible a couple as Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. But there are fine lines to be walked. Griffiths has a point. A cause has more – much more – of a chance of getting column space if there's a celebrity name involved. But when an identity hitches themselves to a bandwagon, where does selflessness end and self-promotion begin? How many causes does it take for a concerned global citizen to become rent-a-protester? And when does innocent outspokenness become sheer naive destructiveness? Few would doubt English-born actress and director Rachel Ward's heart was in the right place this week. As a couple, Ward and her iconically Australian performer/director/producer husband Bryan Brown are at the forefront of Australian actor activists. Like Sydney's other middle-aged celebrity duo of seriousness, Judy Davis and Colin Friels, Ward and Brown turn up regularly for a cause. The four are the royalty of Australian celebs with a conscience, much the same way as Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins reign over Hollywood's liberals. But Ward's profile mixed with a highly sensitive criminal appeal produced a classic case of a celebrity cause becoming cause celebre. Ward and Brown are part of a program called Big hArt through which underprivileged youth are mentored. The couple had been paying fortnightly visits to a 16-year-old inmate of the Reiby Juvenile Detention Centre who at age 13, attacked a nine-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 10 and late last year was sentenced to three years' detention with a non-parole period of one year. On Monday, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal released the troubled youth who had been sexually assaulted himself. Ward was at the court and outside, spoke positively of the decision, saying the boy would be better off outside the prison system. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the actual matter, Ward's comments garnered more attention than experts in the fields of juvenile justice and welfare. And regardless of the rights and wrongs of that, for charities, that command of column space is what it's all about. Says United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) Australia's spokesperson, Pam Garcia: "Celebrities bring attention to a charity. They raise our profile. Without them, we would have a more difficult time raising funds." Unicef considers itself the original celebrity-affiliated charity, with its Goodwill ambassador program dating back 50 years to its first: US actor, Danny Kaye. Today, Australian ambassadors include Geoffrey Rush, Roy and H.G. and Nicole Kidman. Kidman puts money where her mouth is, in the case of Unicef, Paul Newman's money – a $200,000 gift to the Australian arm of the charity after Newman, who works tirelessly for charity told Kidman to bestow the amount on a charity of her choice. She also, admirably, keeps her mouth out of it, preferring her donations and visits to Sydney's Royal Children's Hospital to be kept out of the press. Others, such as Claudia Karvan, choose their barrows carefully. In 2000, Karvan spoke out about refugees, spurred on by her emotional connection to her immigrant roots. This week, she made representation to the Senate Select Committee into the proposed Australia/US Free Trade Agreement on behalf of the Australian acting community. And tomorrow, she will be one of many celebrities at Under the Gums, a family day to promote awareness of the implications of the agreement at Parramatta Park. "I always want to be a part of the community and be up on issues and exactly what's going on," says Karvan. "I feel nervous about how much American culture influences Australian culture. We need to tell our own stories and not be dominated by larger market forces like America." Meanwhile, across the Pacific, Robbins took the opportunity of the Golden Globes to push protection of the US film industry from Aussie production. Others who use celebrity to push causes are Ted Danson who brings attention to ocean pollution and Woody Harrelson who champions the legalisation of marijuana. George Clooney and Barbra Streisand are both high profile Democrat supporters. However, it's not all smooth sailing for them. While charities accentuate the positive of celeb involvement, backlash can occur, such as when the Dixie Chicks announced they were ashamed to be Texans after fellow Lone Star statesman George W Bush declared war on Iraq. Radio stations burned their CDs, fans turned on them and the band members were forced to explain. Celebrity sufferers of debilitating conditions have taken on their causes: Christopher Reeve and his Paralysis Foundation, Michael J Fox and his support for Parkinson's research. Buddhist Richard Gere campaigns for a free Tibet, as does Uma Thurman and, inexplicably, action star Steven Seagal who claims to be the incarnation of some great spiritual figure or another. Australia's roster of celebs with a cause includes Toni Collette, Geoffrey Rush, Joel Edgerton, Barry Humphries, Naomi Watts, Heath Ledger and of course, Peter Garrett whose political career has been as high profile as his musical one. U2 lead singer Bono cuts straight to the chase. He has been involved in many issues, including Greenpeace and Amnesty International and has, of late, taken third world debt on to his stocky Irish shoulders. No gimic CDs for him. He got his people to call their people and directly lobbied world leaders, face-to-face for third world debt retirement. Bono convinced the US Congress to approve $500 million in debt relief for 33 countries. Not bad for an uneducated pop singer. You have to wonder if the leader of a small African nation would have had such an impact. But such is the power of celebrity these days. SOURCE: Daily Telegraph, Australia - May 7, 2004 http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1266&storyid=1306975 * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn