I'll be the first to admit my shameful addiction to crapulous gossip rags like People and Us. They do serve a kind of purpose, if you think about it.
Who among us hasn't been stuck in some backwater town with no real bookstore in sight which leaves us no alternative other than to slink into a Wal-Mart and stock up on research reading material that we'd like to think is going to help us in some way. I call it the "As If" affliction and by this I simply mean that I'm purchasing most of this junk out of pure boredom AS IF I'm really ever going to apply anything I glean from it to my own life.
Southern Living ("As If" my garden is ever going to look this good), Runner Magazine ("As If" I'll ever complete another 10k or marathon), In Style ("As If" I'll ever have the money to buy this darling $400 bracelet or afford MAC cosmetics). See what a I mean?
But that's not why I buy People or Us and I don't think it's why anyone else does either. None of us thinks we'll be this famous and--truthfully--I'm pretty sure all of us will agree that we take for granted the freedom to show up at the store looking our worst without being photographed buying tampons, Motrin and wine. I buy magazines like this because I'm nosy curious about what goes on in the world of the perpetually beautiful. I like reading about the stuff that I can't afford to do...not the stuff that I can. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that the magazine sections depicting celebrities doing the every day tasks that only a moron would express real shock over are what bug me the most.
I mean...sure...these people are rich and they can afford to have someone come to their house to teach private yoga lessons or whip up fabulous meals that keep their South Beach/Zone bodies photo-ready. But....sometimes they still have to walk out to get the paper. Or walk the dog. Or take their kid to the park. Or (*gasp*) take out the recycling. (*yawn*) Photographing these people doing the stuff we do is supposed to reassure us that famous people are actual humans and not just good-looking robots. That they're...you know...like us and that I...we... somehow need to shell out $4.95 in order to have proof.
The thing about celebrity is that all the money in the world can do just so much. It can help the rich live well and even enviably. It can--if done right--help them appear to age more slowly than your average non-famous person, but it can't keep them from winding up like the rest of us. Because they will...eventually. We think about stars of yesteryear...like Jimmy Stewart or Katherine Hepburn... and most likely the images we call up are those from when they were young. They started out no differently than Jeniffer Aniston or Tom Hanks...but eventually...they got old. Spotted. Weak and shaky. Their hair got thin and gray and they were no longer sexually alluring. It wasn't a stretch for them to play elderly people when the odd role came around. No prosthetics were needed to make the ravages of aging look more realistic.
Then were the others for whom wealth and opportunity could not keep disease at bay. Alzheimers, alcoholism, suicide, cancer, heart attack...accident. I know it sounds maudlin and even simplistic, but--hey-- EVERYBODY DIES. Even the famous. Even the young and famous. One day you're dodging the media while leaving a Starbucks and the next...you're part of the "In Memoriam" segment at the Oscars or Emmys. Buried at Forest Lawn or Forever Hollywood...or reduced to a handful of ashes scattered from a beloved mountain. If you don't believe me, check out the Find-A-Grave website. Everybody's there. Lucille Ball, John Candy, The Three Stooges, Judy Garland, Natasha Richardson, Harry Houdini, Heath Ledger, John Belushi, Marilyn Monroe.
We know death's reality in our own little lives and--intellectually speaking--we're aware when famous people exit the planet. Stars are celebrated and mourned and memorialized over and over. We can't forget the famous because we're really not allowed to and because we keep seeing them on TVLand or Turner Classic Movies...it's as if they've never really gone. We're not really used to it. Until you see proof that life comes to a sudden stop for everyone...not just the next door neighbor or your grandparents. At the end all that's left is a metal plaque or a marble cenotaph...often worn or tarnished and weedy...and way too lacking in words to do justice to everything that was accomplished while they were here. Just like us.