I could tell you things about Harry Styles that I don’t even know about my work colleagues: relationship history, tattoos, number of nipples … you name it, someone’s written an overly invested article about it. The media machine is thrifty. It grinds every aspect of a celebrity’s life into bland, powdery portions, which it cuts with speculation, moralising and outright fiction in order to addict the public. But celebrities face another obstacle: the paparazzi.
Hungover, makeup free, drowning: we’ve all had moments when the last thing we want someone to be doing is taking our photo. Styles was recently lucky enough to win an injunction against the paparazzi, but for everyone else, it’s business as usual – and it’s arguably worse for women.
Paps are a hassle to all celebrities, but society has been policing women’s bodies and choices for years. If you’re a famous female, you’ll experience ultimate exposure and censure in the space of one pithily captioned picture. I don’t think anyone, even Paul Dacre himself, would have the gall to argue that bikini snaps of a C-list celebrity are “in the public interest,” but there appears to be no denying that certain sections of the public find it very interesting indeed: the website of the Daily Mail, the paper over which Dacre reigns, is officially the most popular news website in the world. One only has to glance at the site’s sidebar to see that its success is founded on the fruits of the paparazzi: articles range from sleazy long-lens bikini pictures to the creepy “all grown up”/”dressed beyond her years” snaps (most of which are shots of a celebrity’s relative – not of an actual celeb).
This is the same Daily Mail who, eight days after photographers hounded Princess Diana on the day she died, proclaimed it would not purchase paparazzi photos without Viscount Rothermere’s express consent. However, the Daily Mail is not known for sticking to its guns; one assumes that, like its “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” cover and support of Mandela’s imprisonment, this is a statement it is content to forget it made.
In the past couple of years, there have been vast changes in the British press. Phone-hacking revelations snowballed into an inquiry regarding press ethics, which has itself led to a new press regulation system and a number of criminal trials. Several celebrities gave testimonies, discussing what it was like to be hounded by the press. Among the most moving of these was that of Charlotte Church, who was thrust into the media spotlight at the age of 11. “I was not allowed the time to learn and make mistakes in private as most children and teenagers do,” she stated. “Whilst I have been determined to not let the media change me, the coverage has been utterly horrifying at times and devastating to those around me.”
As the tagline of popular content aggregate service ONTD states, “the celebrities are disposable. The gossip is priceless.” Despite the changes prompted by the Leveson Inquiry, it’s unclear if there will be any impact on the press, let alone the paparazzi. Scandals spread in seconds, so adopting “publish first; reflect later” attitude is a direct route toward increased hits and greater ad revenue.
With the press unapologetic in its gleeful scrutiny of the rich and famous, and attempts at regulation patchy and ineffective, can this intrusion ever be curbed? Must we rely on the readership to change its behaviour? The Leveson Inquiry stirred up the public’s emotions, but did little to change its habits.
Day in, day out, photographers lie in wait of celebrities and focus their lenses with sniper-like intensity. But a backlash is gaining momentum, and it comes via the Internet itself. The web has made dissecting a celebrity’s life frighteningly easy, but it has also given celebrities a voice they might not have otherwise had.
Anne Hathaway, for example, was faced with the unenviable situation of having an upskirt photo taken by a paparazzo. This was compounded by a sneering comment from an interviewer, who noted that we’d “seen a lot of you lately.” Her reply was intelligent, laudable and went viral in a matter of hours: “It was obviously an unfortunate incident. It kind of made me sad, on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and, rather than delete it and do the decent thing, sells it. I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants.”
Public interest has been disregarded in favour of public entitlement. It’s unclear how these boundaries can be reasserted, or even where they should be drawn, but our current relationship with the stars is unhealthy at best.