Perception is one thing, all us as conscious beings cannot escape. Not to say that some people haven't tried.
To us normal blimps of existence, the famous are there for one gastronomical reason, for us to judge, prod and poke them until they don't look like us anymore but a group of plastic aliens that descend to earth for a while until we get bored of them.
I've been intrigued by the personality created around Jim Morrison, in fact I'm not at all sure that such a person ever existed. It's like every fan, critic or friend own a small piece of a jigsaw and squeeze them all together to make the paradoxical Frankenstein that is Morrison. He's either a sex symbol or a melancholic poet, a menace to society or an icon of revolution, a philandering bastard or a vulnerable young man. Morrison himself created an enigma around his past life, declaring his parents dead and that he was traumatised by a horrific car accident witnessed at the age of four. It turned out that his parents were very much alive (but estranged from their son and his bohemian lifstyle) and that alledgedly the accident involved no fatalities, just an old Pueblo man crying on the side of the road. But why do people care if these stories were true or not? why do I care? It's the strange insatiable desire we all have to figure out these percieved gods.
Another perception gripped strongly by the public is that of Sylvia Plath and her husband Ted Hughes. Plath remains an enigma too, a young talented and beautiful woman who is bizarrely obsessed with death. Hughes adultery was blamed for Plath's suicide, although it is forgotton that Plath was suicidal from her early years as a teenager. We like paint a picture of the shy, vulnerable women being abused and abandoned by the tyranneous Hughes, it's easy for us to understand, easy to create a victim and a bully. During her lifetime Plath fought against perceptions placed on her. In 1954 after intensive electroshock treatments, Plath bleached her hair blonde and made a name for herself at Harvard, winning poetry prizes and exceeding in her studies. Plath said she wanted to make a 'new persona' for herself, although clearly she did not rid herself of all her demons.
Modern celebrities, as we all know are created entirely on perception than any recognition of their art. A pop star is not just a singer, they are an image perfectly honed (and sometimes destroyed) for the viewing pleasure of the public. It's interesting to see how the tide turns for some celebrities. Seven years ago Cheryl Cole was the arrogant foul mouthed member of a girl band who racially attacked a black woman in a restuarant. But after her husband's adultery in 2008 Cole was thrust into tv shows, adverts, her own successful solo career because she was now a 'nice northern lass' Her public image took a U-turn so much so that she won 'Most Inspirational Woman of the Decade.' Heck. The same couldn't be said for pop road-kill Britney Spears who continues to grapple to the top of her failed career but slides back down again. It's inevitable that once Spears pops her clogs she won't be the pot bellied red-neck mad woman but a poor desolate girl who was pushed to become the best by all those around her then laughed at on her way downwards like a circus freak show by all of you, you bastards!
I could go into the whole 'celebrity culture compensating for structural religion debate' but it's obvious to everyone. Let's just say that judgement is what we all do best, as soon as we learn to speak we are saying what we like and don't like, we love examining others, doing a bit of pop psychology on them because we all know somewhere in the world someone is doing that to us as well.
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