h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I believe that for the most part, celebrities should receive the same right to privacy as the rest of us. However high their profile in public life, they haven't - in general - invited people to pry into their private lives.

On the other hand, celebrities of all stripes have a platform from which to speak, and I think that if they choose to exploit this, then there _is_ a public interest in private activities that constitute a hypocritical departure from their publically stated principals.

This is particularly true of politicians, who are to an extent elected on their stated principles, and thus should be expected to hue to the standards that they set for others. If a minister says people should be faithful to their spouse, then there's interest if they have an affair. If the same minister's big soapbox was the environment, then the affair would be a private matter, but it would be big news if he owned three Jags and an SUV.

The same should hold for any celebrity who chooses to increase their profile by soapboxing on an issue. If they espouse their genuinely held principles, then that's fine, but if their proselytising (sp?) is a publicity stunt, then they can be deemed to have invited the exposure of private behaviour contrary to the stated ideals. If you decide to speak out against the evils of drug use, then the public should know you for a fraud if you spend your weekends all coked up on joints of heroin. Equally, if you come out in favour of responsible drug use, it can be considered newsworthy if your own chemical habits are less than responsible.

What I'm trying to suggest is that celebrities' private lives fall into the public domain, to the extent that they put them forward.

Then the question is, should celebrities have people going through their rubbish in the hope that evidence will be found that they don't practice what they preach? And how is it ever right for a photographer to take a long range shot of a female celebrity sunbathing topless on a private beach?

IMHO the defining line is between information and sensationalism.

Charlie

Well, the telephoto shots of sunbathing celebs would never really count as exposing hypocrisy (unless they spoke out about the evils of sunbathing), so that's your crass sensationalism right there. And in general, I don't think people should go through theri rubbish on the off-chance.

The argument is rendered useless because you cannot have a group of people you can call 'celebrities'. There's no such thing; we only invent and label these groups ourselves.

Was Douglas Adams-- to take a famous person we all know-- a celebrity? Even though most people wouldn't recognise him in the street? When does someone start becoming a celebrity? It's not a system or definition that works.

I believe that the people who we define as 'celebrities' are just doing another thing with their lives, just as all of us are. The only difference is that their actions place them in direct view of the public eye. I do not, therefore, think that the public eye has any 'right' to follow the person in question anywhere other than the spotlight the celebrity creates for themselves. The public have no more right to know of the activities of these so-called 'celebrities' than any other person on the planet.

What I'm trying to say is that these celebrities should only be viewed in the forms they create for themselves, and not outside them. Celebrities should be seen on TV, not photographed topless on beaches. It disgusts me that the majority of the people in Britain are obsessed with knowing the fine details of famous peoples' personal lives, as if they're of any more worth or interest than anyone else alive right now.

Firstly, _all_ signifiers and labels are arbitrary: Celebrity, Dark Ages, British. It's part of the miracle of language that any word acquires a definite meaning. No group exists except that we give it a label, so what other qualification can there be for such a group existing?

As to what is a celebrity: A celebrity is one who is celebrated in the public eye; someone extolled for a specific achievement, attained status or accident of birth.

Was Douglas Adams a celebrity? Yes he was, because he was celebrated for his achievments as an author. He also used his celebrity - limited though it was in comparison to a Hollywood star -to promote environmental causes. If Douglas Adams had possessed a habit of snacking on Komodo Dragon eggs, that would have been a hypocrisy that might warrant exposure. Obviously he did not - I say again, to void any suggestion that I am bad-mouthing Mr Adams, whom I greatly admire as an author and respect as a person, Douglas Adams did not hypocritically scarf down on endangered species - thus valid public interest in his private life was nil.

The reason that celebrity hypocricy is in the public interest is because the celebrity in questuion has used their public profile to lie to people; to us, if we happen to be a part of the audience.

Finally, at no stage in this thread has anyone suggested that celebrities _should_ be photographed topless on private beaches. Moreover, in the main I do not care what celebrities get up to in their private lives. However, if a political celebrity has been lying in his manifesto, or acting in a manner contrary to his policies, I think that is newsworthy. Likewise, if a film star tries to gain approval, or endorsement, or an elevated profile, by voluntarily fronting a political or charitable cause, I think they should reap the whirlwind if their concerned face proves to be less than sincere.