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Tell them to leave Britney Spears alone already!
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Yes. According to law, public figures have less protection from defamation and invasion of privacy. That is the price you pay for being famous.
In the case of people who are unwillingly thrust into the public eye, it is a bit objectionable. When they're earning millions of dollars a year due to that fame? Cry me a river.
Laws do not prescribe morality.
Use the example of Spears upskirt shot (or really pick any panty/vaginal shot of her this year): does your loss of privacy extend to that point where people are ACTIVELY going for photograph or your private parts - not some accidental shot that you got lucky with? There has got to be a line, because if there isn't then you are giving these stalkerazzi carte blanche to do anything. You wonder why they're LA club scene living and partying - where else are they going to party with a committment from the owners of having their privacy secured? You (and this is a general you) are basically saying "Want a normal life - give up all your business contacts and what you love doing and move to a remote location!".
I'm not a Spears fan, but man cmon - can anyone actually watch what has happened here and think for a minute that this is ok? We are watching (or hearing about) a person spiral mentally into oblivion, and a large part of that is because of the media.
Laws do dictate rights.
Britney isn't going to get that opportunity. Pictures of her at her worst, her most manic, are plastered all over the Internet. They're going to end up in VH1 "I love the 00s" documentaries from two years from now to thirty years from now. The paparazzi are taking out high-interest loans and Britney's future dignity is the collateral.
Whatever psychological illness she has, it's life threatening. The risk of suicide, drug overdose, car accident, contracting HIV, or ending up the victim of abuse are significantly higher for her than for the general population. And the paparazzi, the reporters, the star fuckers, the entire cult of celebrity are interfering with her ability to recover. They're interfering with her chances of survival and for that every last one of them can rot in Hell.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Which really just underscores the idea that she needs to go live on a ranch for a couple years.
Yeah, she really does. But she's not capable of making that decision for herself right now. Why her manager or her own damn mother hasn't grabbed her by the ear and dragged her into a long-term rehab resort somewhere on a Mexico beachfront is beyond me.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I imagine the reason she hasn't left is the reason why all of this has happened - KFed and the kids. I doubt shes going anywhere until her visitation rights are restored - which is a shame since if she did get treatment and a good facility, she'd have some damn good leverage.
Doesn't surprise me.
Wait, What?
You, you owe me a new keyboard, unless you have something that can remove the smell of vomit.
Why do celebrities exist in the first place? Because we put them on that pedestal.
If we treated entertainment as just that, entertainment, and didn't hold the delusion that somehow these fictional characters are a integral part of our lives. We wouldn't have this problem. I'm no psychologist, but I think the standard argument applies that these people must really have something lacking in their lives which causes them to care so much about people they will very likely never meet or characters who don't actually exist
That concept really shouldn't be lost on anyone. We're all a bunch of nerds here really. We've all heard cautionary tales of, or know someone who took their love of a certain form of entertainment too far. Even if it's just a harmless crush on a celebrity. We're talking about people most of us will never know, who play a fictional character, or entertain on stage.
I just finished watching Atlantis and they're showing off their little "get in the gate" contest again where the winner gets to hang out with the cast and play a role. Almost every time its some supernerd who loves the show just a little too much. Part of me wishes I could win that contest and just treat the whole damn thing like the actors treat it, like a job. Oh sure, have fun, but don't engage in the whole starstruck bullshit and treat everyone normal-like instead of like idols. I'd just like to prove that it is possible to be a fan, but not a fanatic. I'd love to see the look on the actors' faces, expecting another gushing fan to shower them with affection, and instead, getting someone who treats them in a professional/businesslike fashion, maybe even acts like they're bored.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
Yeah, but in this thread we're not talking about rights. I mean, whether paparazzi have the right to ruin the lives of these celebrities is not a question of legality. It's a question of morality.
The argument that celebrities are rich, famous public figures and therefore deserve the intrusion into every corner of their private lives is a very poor one and it fails to stand up to critical scrutiny. The argument that intrusion of privacy is something that inevitably comes with being famous is also weak; there is a huge difference between being recognized in public and asked for an autograph or two, and being actively pursued by people with cameras no matter where you go. The former is the definition of being famous. The latter is not.
Going to a known "celebrity club" isn't usually motivated with a desire for attention, more often it's the exact opposite: celebrities stick to those places to avoid being put under a spotlight. If an extremely famous person walked into a "normal" disco, bar or whatever, he/she would be the focus point of everybody there all night, dealing with people that're too caught up on his/her work and public image to realise that he/she's there to have a fun night out, not to do "interviews" about his/her latest work or personal tragedy.
Also, more often than not, Hollywood agents persuade their clients to do red carpet events and the like that doesn't have anything to do with their work. They usually want the extra exposure for extra cash much more than the client does.
Even if the victim IS partly to blame for the attention, is it ever acceptable to kick a man/woman when he/she's down? Absolutely not. Famous or not, nobody deserves to get their every flaw, mistake or heartbreak published for the world to gossip about.
She asked for this kind of attention when she
a)became a "pop star".
b) became a bad "pop star" mom.
Her personality reminds me of every immature teenage girl I've ever met. Even my sister.
I think paparazzi are dicks, but if your going to make a career of getting half naked and dancing on t.v.,making out with an old lady has been, and showing off your awesome bad parenting skills, then I think it's ok for dicks to make a career out of taking pictures of you when you do bad things.
Gotta have some kind of evidence to prove these people are not good role models.
Also there are tons of people more famous than her who don't have their lives in the tabloids every day.
Ya know, That guy was real popular to all all the scene girls and that is far as I though he was ever going to get.
Then he comes out of no where a year later and is on some bad 300 spoof.
I hope that's the last we see of him.
Ever.
Because for some reason he makes me want to punch him.
What makes me angry is that he claims it is all real and he fakes none of it and I just can't believe that.
I've met his type before. They're few and far between, but they exist.
Dude in an earlier video he showed his room which was filled with pictures, magazines, wall to wall Britney shit.
Yeah, I know. I mean, I go to alot of shows and see that alot. But everything about him seems so incredibly forced. If he is faking it, then he is really good at it. I will admit I think his little skit about sneezing and saying bless you is great.
Yeah, she should have known that this shit was bound to happen when she was eight years old and auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Show.
The woman is not in her right mind, and I would argue that she's never had a 'right mind' to begin with. I don't think that she's ever had the mental faculties to make moral decisions for herself at any point during her music career. So the attitude that "she deserves it because of the choices she's made" assumes that she's a rational moral actor. Otherwise it's just exploitation of a person's psychiatric condition for profit.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
why do people find this shit interesting? I don't get it. Why do they pay money to read/see about this?
[EDIT] Is it curiosity? Jealousy? Utter boredom? A combination?
Because their lives are simple and or boring. Or they think that they're boring. They get a kick out of living vicariously when their favorite star does well (like wins a grammy or emmy) and I guess they get the same kick when he/she lives dangerously too.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
Whats wrong with Dairy Queen? I honestly think she is more like Taco Bell material. And not the ones that have a KFC in the same building, I mean straight up burritos and chalupas Taco Bell.
Horrible? Really?
If Britney wasn't a rich celebrity, she'd have lost custody of her kids a long time ago. There's a long history of famous people getting away with things that average schmucks wind up doing jail time for.
Also, "leave Britney alone!" is just as much of a symptom of the culture of celebrity worship as "Hah-hah, Britney's gone crazy!". Did you complain about the evil paparazzi and the value of Britney's privacy when the incessant media exposure was helping her career?
I think your analogies are really crappy. Last time I checked people weren't throwing garbage at garbage men because "working with garbage is what they get paid for," or pouring grease over fry cooks because, hey, smelling like grease is part of their job!
So why is it that two wrongs make a right, exactly? Or one wrong justifies the other?
Yeah, that's not going to happen. Britney's name has gone on celebrity history books. Even if she quits her career right at this moment and goes and buys that ranch in Wyoming, people will be talking about her mental failures and mistakes - which, like Feral said, are quite likely not rational decisions on her part - for decades.
Holy shit, you mean people complain about actions that result in harm but don't complain about actions that result in help?
So that explains the difference between "good" and "bad." Damn, I'd been grappling with those concepts for years.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well if she gets to help ruin society. Then someone should get to ruin her life.
O_o
Britney ruins society?
Even then, like I said earlier, two wrongs don't make a right. You have to be a little child to think that way.
well, goo gah then.
Bad parents and bad role models deserve to have their faces of tv when they are being bad parents or bad role models.
If people are going to crusade for the privacy rights of celebrities, they have to be consistent about it. Saying that the media spotlight is somehow only a bad thing when it records the negative actions of your favorite popstar isn't a criticism of the media, it's a way for starstruck fans to deflect blame.
Britney can't blame the media for being a shitty parent who's unwilling to commit to getting help. Lindsay Lohan can't blame the media for being a drunk driver. If anything, their fame has allowed them to dodge the consequences of their actions.
It's also hilarious to see people use the same "the media is so harmful" logic that is always used to demonize videogames against magazines and T.V. shows they dislike.
Yeah but... the exact opposite is happening!
First you're saying that she deserves to have her life ruined by paparazzi, then you go and say she deserves to have her face off TV.
You don't make any fucking sense.
"Media is bad when it has bad repercussions" is a perfectly consistent position. Consequentalism must confuse the hell out of you, huh?
Stop talking about the "media" as a big monolithic thing that is either on or off. The "media spotlight" isn't a computer system that thinks in binary; it's not an inanimate thing; it's a group of people. We're talking about reporters, paparazzi, agents, magazine editors, and so forth, who have the choice whether or not to take a photo when they see a drunken starlet stumble out of a limo or run that photo on their magazine cover. When a photographer gets a hot tip that Britney might be drunkenly wandering around a club without her panties and thinks, "Wow! I better get down there, this might be a chance for a $25,000 photo!" instead of thinking, "Damn, that would be in incredibly poor taste. I wonder how much the magazines will pay for a shot of Angelina Jolie feeding soup to homeless people instead," he's demonstrating that he's a scumbag who values money over humanity.
And all the way down the chain, from the bouncer who undoubtedly got a nice tip for sending the paparazzi a hot text message to the photographer's lens to the magazine editors; at every step of the way from the nightclub to the magazine cover; everybody involved had to look at that image with dollar signs in their eyes for it to get to you. Those people are parasites.
Blame is not zero-sum. Britney can be a shitty parent and her mom can be a shitty parent and the photographers who stalk them can be shitty human beings, all at the same time.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.