Webster defines celebrity as a famous or “celebrated” person. Now compare this definition to some of the newest cast of “Dancing With the Stars.”
“Dancing with the Stars” must have a different definition because to call people like Bristol Palin and Audrina Partridge celebrities is like calling Lindsay Lohan a saint or Eliot Spitzer a politician.
Let’s remember the term celebrity means “celebrated.” Bristol Palin is the eldest daughter of former presidential candidate Sarah Palin and if you watched her interview on “The Tonight Show” you would learn that she is a dental assistant. A dental assistant! Last time I checked, that didn’t make someone a celebrity.
Actor and comedian Chris Rock said it best when he was on “Regis and Kelly.” When asked why he won’t do “Dancing with the Stars,” Rock replied with the fact that he just hasn’t gone that broke yet to do the show and in the end, that is what it seems to come down to for reality shows.
Reality shows can’t seem to land real celebrities, so if they can’t get an A-lister, they end up with Vanilla Ice or Bristol Palin. The point seems to be that while it’s understandable that to stay in the spotlight celebrities of yesteryear will do whatever they can to remain relevant, the media is going too far.
We got Vanilla Ice building homes, Bristol dancing with “stars” and Brett Michaels took “every rose has its thorn” too seriously because he has been looking for love on “Rock of Love” for far too long. It’s time that we stop throwing around the term “star” or “celebrity” so loosely.
The point is the media is slumming out the word “celebrity” to just about anybody. In a recent Los Angeles Times article, Mary McNamara wrote that people like Bristol Palin create a lot of buzzability for who they are and believes that we surrender to what she calls “socio-politainment or that culture is obsessed with celebrity.”
Where did the shift come from? We could point fingers toward the explosion of tabloid and gossip magazines from “Us Weekly” to “People,” a celebrity-centric news culture created because they feel like we care about the lives of people we may never be.
TMZ is probably the king of all the entertainment news pollutants, drawing in an estimated 21 million people per month worldwide, according to a New York Times article last year. The faux-journalists of the program dish out celebrity scoop, stalking and harassing stars like Hugh Jackman or Angelina Jolie while filming them just trying to live regular lives.
From “Real Housewives,” “The Bachelor” and “Jersey Shore,” reality television is as much a culprit in all this. They force these so-called celebrities. Though part of the problem also belongs to viewers who allow this media to take hold. As much as viewers try to ignore it, there is something about watching people, even sort of not really famous people make fools of themselves.
So while it’s cool Michael Bolton will be strutting his stuff on the dance floor, he at least deserves some accolades, but that Bristol Palin woman should get no love for being a so-called celebrity.