On Wednesday we discussed obsession with celebrity culture, and how this links to the idea of catharsis (we watch people's lives who are worse/better than ours, identify with their plight a bit, but enough distance to psychologically remove ourselves from the situation.)
Cue, the Chilean Miners. It seems that even in the face of complete devastation and crisis, we as a culture find it important to make famous the ordinary people who have gone through hardship. This week, after emerging from the mine, 33 ordinary people were catapulted into fame- something they didn't ask for. In some cases, the media exposed their private misdemeanours (such as the miner who's affair was publicised after both his wife and mistress arrived.) So, this article poses the question that we asked on wednesday- has our obsession with celebrity gone too far? Should we be making ordinary people face the gruelling, cruel world of the media?
Ordinary people are fascinating, and much more 'real' than red carpet walking celebrities. Perhaps that is why we 'need' to know about people who have come through tragedy: their lives are infinitely more identifiable to us than Angelina Jolie's (for example). They are real- what happened to them could happen to any of us, and we have much more respect for their stories. We can identify with them from a distance, but because they are 'real' people it makes it that much more human- we feel like we have been through their story with them. This article discusses the effects the media may have on the Chilean Miners ascent to fame:
Chilean Miner Celebrity Status
Suzanne x
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