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Why do We Love to Hate Celebrities
Why do We Love to Hate CelebritiesBy Sam VakninAuthor of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"Q.
Fame and TV shows about celebrities usually have a huge audience.This is understandable: people like to see other successful people.But why people like to see celebrities being humiliated?A. As far as their fans are concerned, celebrities fulfil twoemotional functions: they provide a mythical narrative (a story thatthe fan can follow and identify with) and they function as blankscreens onto which the fans project their dreams, hopes, fears,plans, values, and desires (wish fulfilment).
The slightestdeviation from these prescribed roles provokes enormous rage andmakes us want to punish (humiliate) the "deviant" celebrities.But why?When the human foibles, vulnerabilities, and frailties of acelebrity are revealed, the fan feels humiliated, "cheated",hopeless, and "empty". To reassert his self-worth, the fan mustestablish his or her moral superiority over the erring and "sinful"celebrity. The fan must "teach the celebrity a lesson" and show thecelebrity "who's boss".
It is a primitive defense mechanism -narcissistic grandiosity. It puts the fan on equal footing with theexposed and "naked" celebrity.Q. This taste for watching a person being humiliated has somethingto do with the attraction to catastrophes and tragedies?A.
There is always a sadistic pleasure and a morbid fascination invicarious suffering. Being spared the pains and tribulations othersgo through makes the observer feel "chosen", secure, and virtuous.The higher celebrities rise, the harder they fall. There issomething gratifying in hubris defied and punished.
Q. Do you believe the audience put themselves in the place of thereporter (when he asks something embarrassing to a celebrity) andbecome in some way revenged?A. The reporter "represents" the "bloodthirsty" public. Belittlingcelebrities or watching their comeuppance is the modern equivalentof the gladiator rink.
Gossip used to fulfil the same function andnow the mass media broadcast live the slaughtering of fallen gods.There is no question of revenge here - just Schadenfreude, theguilty joy of witnessing your superiors penalized and "cut down tosize".Q. In your country, who are the celebrities people love to hate?A.
Israelis like to watch politicians and wealthy businessmenreduced, demeaned, and slighted. In Macedonia, where I live, allfamous people, regardless of their vocation, are subject to intense,proactive, and destructive envy. This love-hate relationship withtheir idols, this ambivalence, is attributed by psychodynamictheories of personal development to the child's emotions towards hisparents. Indeed, we transfer and displace many negative emotions weharbor onto celebrities.
Q. I would never dare asking some questions the reporters fromPanico ask the celebrities. What are the characteristics of peoplelike these reporters?A. Sadistic, ambitious, narcissistic, lacking empathy, self-righteous, pathologically and destructively envious, with afluctuating sense of self-worth (possibly an inferiority complex).
6. Do you believe the actors and reporters want themselves to be asfamous as the celebrities they tease? Because I think this is almosthappening...
A. The line is very thin. Newsmakers and newsmen and women arecelebrities merely because they are public figures and regardless oftheir true accomplishments. A celebrity is famous for being famous.
Of course, such journalists will likely to fall prey to up andcoming colleagues in an endless and self-perpetuating food chain...7.
I think that the fan-celebrity relationship gratifies both sides.What are the advantages the fans get and what are the advantages thecelebrities get?A. There is an implicit contract between a celebrity and his fans.The celebrity is obliged to "act the part", to fulfil theexpectations of his admirers, not to deviate from the roles thatthey impose and he or she accepts.
In return the fans shower thecelebrity with adulation. They idolize him or her and make him orher feel omnipotent, immortal, "larger than life", omniscient,superior, and sui generis (unique).What are the fans getting for their trouble?Above all, the ability to vicariously share the celebrity's fabulous(and, usually, partly confabulated) existence. The celebrity becomestheir "representative" in fantasyland, their extension and proxy,the reification and embodiment of their deepest desires and mostsecret and guilty dreams.
Many celebrities are also role models orfather/mother figures. Celebrities are proof that there is more tolife than drab and routine. That beautiful - nay, perfect - peopledo exist and that they do lead charmed lives. There's hope yet -this is the celebrity's message to his fans.
The celebrity's inevitable downfall and corruption is the modern-dayequivalent of the medieval morality play. This trajectory - fromrags to riches and fame and back to rags or worse - proves thatorder and justice do prevail, that hubris invariably gets punished,and that the celebrity is no better, neither is he superior, to hisfans.8. Why are celebrities narcissists? How is this disorder born?No one knows if pathological narcissism is the outcome of inheritedtraits, the sad result of abusive and traumatizing upbringing, orthe confluence of both.
Often, in the same family, with the same setof parents and an identical emotional environment - some siblingsgrow to be malignant narcissists, while others areperfectly "normal". Surely, this indicates a genetic predispositionof some people to develop narcissism.It would seem reasonable to assume - though, at this stage, there isnot a shred of proof - that the narcissist is born with a propensityto develop narcissistic defenses. These are triggered by abuse ortrauma during the formative years in infancy or during earlyadolescence.
By "abuse" I am referring to a spectrum of behaviorswhich objectify the child and treat it as an extension of thecaregiver (parent) or as a mere instrument of gratification. Dottingand smothering are as abusive as beating and starving. And abuse canbe dished out by peers as well as by parents, or by adult rolemodels.Not all celebrities are narcissists.
Still, some of them surely are.We all search for positive cues from people around us. These cuesreinforce in us certain behaviour patterns. There is nothing specialin the fact that the narcissist-celebrity does the same.
Howeverthere are two major differences between the narcissistic and thenormal personality.The first is quantitative. The normal person is likely to welcome amoderate amount of attention - verbal and non-verbal - in the formof affirmation, approval, or admiration. Too much attention, though,is perceived as onerous and is avoided.
Destructive and negativecriticism is avoided altogether.The narcissist, in contrast, is the mental equivalent of analcoholic. He is insatiable. He directs his whole behaviour, in facthis life, to obtain these pleasurable titbits of attention.
Heembeds them in a coherent, completely biased, picture of himself. Heuses them to regulates his labile (fluctuating) sense of self-worthand self-esteem.To elicit constant interest, the narcissist projects on to others aconfabulated, fictitious version of himself, known as the FalseSelf. The False Self is everything the narcissist is not:omniscient, omnipotent, charming, intelligent, rich, or well-connected.
The narcissist then proceeds to harvest reactions to this projectedimage from family members, friends, co-workers, neighbours, businesspartners and from colleagues. If these - the adulation, admiration,attention, fear, respect, applause, affirmation - are notforthcoming, the narcissist demands them, or extorts them. Money,compliments, a favourable critique, an appearance in the media, asexual conquest are all converted into the same currency in thenarcissist's mind, into "narcissistic supply".So, the narcissist is not really interested in publicity per se orin being famous.
Truly he is concerned with the REACTIONS to hisfame: how people watch him, notice him, talk about him, debate hisactions. It "proves" to him that he exists.The narcissist goes around "hunting and collecting" the way theexpressions on people's faces change when they notice him. He placeshimself at the centre of attention, or even as a figure ofcontroversy.
He constantly and recurrently pesters those nearest anddearest to him in a bid to reassure himself that he is not losinghis fame, his magic touch, the attention of his social milieu.==============================================================AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)Sam Vaknin ( .tripod.com ) is the author of MalignantSelf Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the WestLost the East.
He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental healthand Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory andSuite101.Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Governmentof Macedonia.Visit Sam's Web site at .tripod.
comSam Vaknin ( .tripod.com ) is the author of MalignantSelf Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the WestLost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental healthand Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory andSuite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Governmentof Macedonia.Visit Sam's Web site at .tripod.comContact him at .
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