The perils of blind idolization

The birth and idolization of a celebrities are not just reliant on their talents alone, but for their entire personae, which are sometimes much more influential than the talents for which they own a share of the limelight. Although it’s our innate tendency to look up to such people with much respect, for all that makes them continue to hog the limelight and fascinate us with their multifarious talents, many a times we are much vulnerable to the poignant impact of their life outside spotlight, which unknowingly changes our healthy worship to a dangerously blind adoration of their extravert personalities that can be on the wilder side many times. I happened to ponder over this thought when I bumped in to a news story about an (in) famous teen star who has taken the world by storm with his completely erratic and crazy deeds. Be it his lust for marijuana or women, as he continues to hit the headlines for drunken driving or sex filled wild parties, and yet remain the idol for many people across the globe. This brings in apprehension about the yardstick that we have set to choose and adore a celebrity. This doesn’t mean that a celebrity has to be completely flawless at every step and keep himself miles away from mistakes. Yet I cannot help but think about the profound influence of his persona, which makes his staunch supporters desperately go on defending his actions, even when the cat is out of the bag.

Parents are unconditionally revered during childhood, but within a short time span, the focus shifts and people switch gears and start idolizing the hotter stars that fill in the gossip columns with their profligate and preposterous personal lives that hit the headlines every day. This isn’t a phenomenon that we got to witness recently. This has been happening since decades and dates back to the legends like Merlin Monroe. While most of us blatantly criticize them for their despicable personal life, we never leave any stones unturned to rush to hear about their recent ‘disasters’. We love to hate them but at the same time we blindly idolize them with the knowledge that there are endless critical issues sit on the back burner.

Irrespective of utmost urge for perfectionism, flaws are true to happen in one’s professional and personal life, at some point or the other, and that’s precisely the reason why we all are humans, no matter whether we are celebrities or commoners. But, an intense adoration and strong sense of reverence always drives to the sense of neuroticism which is something that I strongly oppose. If we choose to ignore the personal life and focus on the professional achievements of these stars, we can always set an evident space that separates us from blind idolization, but unfortunately a very few of us are aware of this possible thin line that can be made possible very easily. To spot an example, the one who has unfortunately crossed the borderline of adoration and have fallen ‘head over heels in love’ with an upcoming movie star, that she so crazily idolize him that her actions sometimes cross the possibility of getting justified. While her so called idol continues to be irritatingly vocal about his opinions and cross the borderline of decency most of the times, she is still awestruck by his supposedly enticing looks physique alone.

So what exactly makes people idolize someone and seat him or her as a role model is something that always give fruits for some intense thoughts. Because, if one ask me whom I adore the most in life, I can tell only about people I know, and if one goes further, I would tell about the writers who have fascinated me with their unmatched works. Yet, they never reach up to the level of being idolized, as I strongly believe one can definitely be a fan of a person’s exceptional talents and qualities, but should never idolize him to the level of sheer eccentricity that’s unjustifiable and unacceptable.

What sets the space for an acceptable idolization is the true respect for talents that are worth respecting. A movie star, a writer, a recording artist or a singer is obviously exceptional in his/her talent and skill, apparently the reason why he/she rises up to the zenith of fame and affluence. But the failing of an admirer starts when he/she tends to place someone just next to almighty and idolize in every respect. This blindfolds him from getting a glimpse of reality and makes him unaware of who exactly is so called idol. Going back to the teen pop start mentioned before, it was absolutely shocking to see him as young as 18 or 19, indulging in sexual acts very openly in pubs. Surely there would be a large number of kids and teens who are die heart fans of this star, and follow uncritically. Such contemptible behaviors are potent enough to give his young fans a very wrong concept of what an enjoyable and pleasurable life is, which in turn would give birth to thousands copycats who may live under the false notion that alcohol, marijuana, reckless spending, and women, or better still, a seducer, are the must haves to celebrate their teen age.

Perceptions are yet to change about the gauge to seat someone on throne of an idol with immediacy. If not the world will open its eyes to see the reality behind the skyrocketing fame and stardom of their so called idols, such philistine celebrities who live their double faced life will continue to make their own headlines with reckless and shameful living that are sure to create more and more juicier and spicier news reports in days to come. Some of us may continue to laugh over such stories, whereas many others who are the self-confessed fans of these tainted stars will continue to justify and idolize them for many more days and years to come.

Having a reasonable liking for a person’s talent is completely acceptable, but what makes people take the wrong road is the soaring level of liking and admiration, where a blind idolization steps in.

Unethical, unprofessional and pitiable

With all the imperfections that we are born with, many of us forget to spare time for a second thought before jumping in and blurting out our judgement about someone whom we haven’t even met. This is very evident in the endless number of news channels that serve us with supposedly news stories of supreme relevance. A nation with an array of endless visual and print media, we’re never short of newsworthy incidents that should be brought to light and should be made evident before our multicultural and multilingual society. Yet, both the big names and start-ups in media never bother to pan their eyes and camera on such issues of social relevance, instead run desperate for bytes that never fail to splash enormous deadly venom on the personal and familial life of people unknown to most of them, be it commoners, celebrities, politicians, or sports personnel. This is nothing but a pitiful degradation of the much revered media ethics that our country upholds, and this constant dwindling, tagged along with the grave fall of basic decency was seen much evident when our media firmly fixed their ‘hawk like’ eyes on the death of a socialite who unfortunately had some momentary tiff with her writer husband a few days before her death. Her death and subsequent events were blow too much out of proportion that I even saw some wacky journos barging in to her house, breaking all the tight security, just to get the ‘glimpse’ of her mortal remains. Isn’t that pitiful and downright berserk? The entire news channels continue to flash her home and the grieving family members, shamelessly intruding their privacy even when she was laid to a peaceful rest. I couldn’t help but wonder why these much celebrated news channels and self-confessed big-time journos do lack the basic decorum to have some compassion towards the family of the deceased, no matter rich or poor, and leave them to peacefully mourn the passing of their dear one.

Poking their camera and mikes in to every wanted and unwanted situation, devoid of looking at it from a humanitarian and ethical perspective, has now become the part and parcel of media, and this is too shameful and contemptible. Yet, there are no strict laws to curb this much offensive media intrusions and unwanted advances to document things that are often too personal to reveal, and sometimes despicable exaggerations that are meant only to boost their TRPs. Having said that, we should never ignore the number of relevant issues that media tend to ignore, just to fill in the space with filthy gossips and meaningless news stories. Moreover, if someone is keen on washing their dirty laundry in public, our media never fails to reach out and get ample potion of the filth that’s being vomited there. To put it shortly, they go around digging everyone’s life, blow-up everything that they get to see and hear unproportionately , make a mountain out of a mole hill and earn heaps of money from selling the personal lives of other people.

An actor who gets injured during a shoot becomes more newsworthy than a woman who gets brutally gang raped in public, the bikini clad picture of a fading actress is reported with prominence while a woman continues to go on hunger strike for years together to safeguard the womenfolk in their state, sadly this is what are forced to call journalism nowadays. Some molestations do get reported to their desks, but sadly, they continue ‘molest’ such women with their uncouth words and kill their self-respect with unending news room discussions on all the possibilities of how the girl was raped.

This sickening and nauseating downfall of media culture that we live in is only going on getting worse in the coming days, as most of the media houses have shockingly fixed their eyes only on those ‘ticklish’ news stories that are served with a pinch of eroticism and spice, to get hold of the innate human weakness to fall for quintessential juicy, spicy stories of no value. As the channels and newspapers are the only means to get our share of knowledge about what’s happening around, and we’re forced to live with the filth that comes along, these media moguls will continue to earn much more selling more and more worthless and downright despicable news stories.