In this rant about how newspapers are firing film critics and replacing them with celebrity gossip columnists, Roger Ebert complains about the celeb obsession that’s gripped our culture:
The Associated Press… has been hit with some cancellations lately, and no doubt has been informed what its customers want: Affairs, divorces, addiction, disease, success, failure, death watches, tirades, arrests, hissy fits, scandals, who has been “seen with” somebody, who has been “spotted with” somebody, and “top ten” lists of the above. (Celebs “seen with” desire to be seen, celebs “spotted with” do not desire to be seen.)
The CelebCult virus is eating our culture alive, and newspapers voluntarily expose themselves to it. It teaches shabby values to young people, festers unwholesome curiosity, violates privacy, and is indifferent to meaningful achievement. One of the TV celeb shows has announced it will cover the Obama family as “a Hollywood story.” I want to smash something against a wall.
There’s a strange mix of desires that drives us to consume more and more celebrity news. We’re fascinated by the rich and famous and infamous. We love to imagine ourselves in their $5000 shoes and $20 million cribs. But we’re also jealous of the pampered lives they lead and the undue attention they receive (especially the celebrities who aren’t famous for their acting ability or sports skills, they’re just famous for being famous), so we love to see them suffer and make fools of themselves.
So is this really the kind of stuff we want to be thinking about all the time? The well-known verse from Philippians 4 is relevant here: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
No, I don’t think this is a command to float through life like Kenneth the NBC Page, blissfully ignorant of all the ugly sin that happens outside the church walls (“I don’t drink hot liquids of any kind – that’s the Devil’s temperature”). I think it’s a reminder of the way God progressively replaces the ugly sin in our own hearts with truth, honor, justice, purity, and so on.
How does he do that? By helping us find satisfaction in Christ alone. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” it says earlier in Philippians 4. When we fully experience that, then the hollow thrills of things like celebrity obsession seem boring by comparison.
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