Assignment 4-1 Weekly Written Analysis 4

            In our society, the majority of people want to become famous, whether it is in acting, business or sports. Celebrity status is deemed by popular culture to be one of the highest statuses you can achieve. What constitutes as a celebrity though? As our other assignment is dealing with celebrities and heroes, I felt it necessary to voice my concern with the obsession of celebrity status. Most view celebrities as people who are always in the spotlight, star in movies, or have the game winning play in sports. While this is not totally off based, we need to look at what a celebrity use to represent and what celebrities are becoming in our culture today.

            When I think of a celebrity, I am just like everyone else and think of movie stars, actors on television series, and athletes in professional sports. The idea of kids wanting to become celebrities has always been common, but what are they looking at in these celebrities? In the past 10 years or so, celebrities have been hit hard by media on their mishaps and their faults. The media is a whore when it comes to a celebrity in trouble for DUI, drugs or other offenses. Can we really define celebrities in today’s society as we did in the 90’s and earlier? I don’t think we can. Some of these so called celebrities are becoming famous for the wrong things. Celebrities today are not based on their talents, their good deals, the positive impact they have on people and most important, children. They are now, “assessed by breast size, amount of marriages/divorces, and the number of tabloid covers appeared on (Dunshster, 2008)”. The media no longer is giving the viewers newsworthy information, but it is all smut.

            The idea of celebrity status has changed so much; it is hard to find a celebrity that has not been in the news for something illegal, an affair or anything that is damaging to their reputations. It is sad that our society is so obsessed with the flaws in the people who entertain us. Popular culture in our society just feed into this and skew the whole image of what a real celebrity is. Everyone wants to see people at the top come falling down, and it has always been that way, but in our society it is at its peak. We need to get over it and realize that they are just like us, and just because they are on TV, or play sports, and have millions of dollars, they still do the same stupid things we do. Let them live their lives with their problems outside the media, just as we do. Let real newsworthy information be reported to the public again, please. 

Bibliography

Dunshster. (2008, September 20). Associated Content. Retrieved October 24, 2010, from What Defines a Hero and Heroism in Today's Society: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1029742/what_defines_a_hero_and_heroism_in.html?cat=19