The Thin Line of Celebrity

I tend to write a lot of my posts late at night, when I'm somewhat tired, pushing myself to post something. It's not the best system, but I find it hard to do it any other way. This results in rushed pieces, distractions, and laziness, all terrible habits. It also is why I don't post more often. Here's some stuff I wrote last night--and I'm amazed at the tone of it. Man, was I fired up.

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Those who read People and US Weekly and watch Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood are generally thought of as people who don’t care about politics. They are middle America; their news filters through them. They are the girls on the beach in bikinis, lounging around getting a tan and getting trash, but trash usually what they read. At least, this is how I categorize these people.

But a funny thing has happened the past few months. All of a sudden, the presidential candidates are considered actual celebrities, worthy of a People cover or an exclusive interview on a syndicated entertainment show. Granted, these are soft interviews, meant to show how normal, yet beautiful and caring, the candidates and their families are. While this isn’t totally new—newsworthy, non-celebrity events have made the cover of People before, from September 11 to previous presidential issues—it has certainly racheted up.

It’s funny that McCain was the one to deride his opponent as being the “celebrity”, but it’s his campaign that has been thrust into the tabloid trail, and not because everyone's all so enamored of his wife. Sarah Palin’s background, fueled by the explosive news that her 17 year-old daughter is pregnant (with rumors circulating that Palin’s 5 month-old disabled boy is actually hers), has caused a feeding frenzy, with ET actually camped out the St. Paul convention headquarters, eagerly awaiting the latest news.

A casual viewer, changing channels, would wonder why on Earth Entertainment Tonight actually cares about the convention. Isn’t that the province of actual journalists, not entertainment ones? And why would a regular viewer of these types of shows actually care? Sure, it’s fun to speculate about a pregnancy—way more than trying to decipher who said what about earmarks—but nobody knew who Bristol Palin was Saturday, and she has nothing to do with anything, except being related to the new nominee. Her boyfriend’s MySpace is just another unfortunate example of a private citizen’s “public” property suddenly thrust into the spotlight because of tangential relations. Now, he’s a dumb teenager who allegedly hadn’t updated the site in over a year (shame on him—delete or update!), but he presents himself as a guy that’s not going to win too many friends, bringing down Alaskan boys to boot. Guys, learn to be smart. There’s always a chance your blog/MySpace/Facebook will be publicized if you somehow find yourself in the news, and knowingly dating the daughter of the governor who then finds herself picked as the Vice Presidential nominee should be a sign that you should clean up your act, but hey, maybe I'm just too cautious. (I’m guessing the Palins, especially Bristol, don’t have accounts, because I haven’t heard of them yet, though I also haven’t looked.)

Very few mainstream media outlets, to my knowledge, have picked up this story, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal and noted in the bottom of this Time article, itself a fluff piece. But it’s perceptions that often matter more than the issues (Sarah Palin being this year’s Case Study); after all, it’s widely believed that Gore’s characterization on Saturday Night Live undermined his candidacy.

The blurring of pop and politics, of the trivial and the important, is only going to continue, as media outlets need all the angles they can get to feed a ravishing public. It’s a requisite now that everyone needs to reveal as much as possible to the public; we demand it. Soft news sells the soft vote—you never know if a People spread is going to add another check mark next to a name on the ballot.

The WSJ points it out the best:

The most popular celebrity newsmagazines on TV reach between two million and six million viewers a night. People and US Weekly reach 29.5 million and 8.2 million women, respectively, every week, according to Mediamark Research & Intelligence Inc. Those figures include "pass-along" readers who don't buy the magazines but take a look at someone else's copy.

These magazines strive to bring celebrities down to earth so readers can relate to them, and this is fast becoming a political preoccupation. President Bush successfully cast Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election as an elitist. "So much came down to, 'Who would you rather have a beer with?'" says US Weekly editor Janice Min.

[…]

Ms. Min says most of the candidates have thrown open the doors to her reporters. "In working with Barack and Hillary [Clinton], their press people put no restrictions on us," Ms. Min said. Their handlers were more accommodating than "even publicists for D-list actors," she added.

US Weekly's June 30 issue, which featured Barack and Michelle Obama on the cover with the heading "Michelle Obama: Why Barack Loves Her," sold over 886,000 copies on the newsstand, an increase of 18% over the previous three issues, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Cover stories on noncelebrities also have the effect of gathering attention from people who don’t traditionally read the magazines.

Note: As further proof of the mixing of news today, look at who runs the Pop and Politics blog: students at the well-known Annenberg Center at USC, one of the top communications programs in the country.

Is Chelsea Clinton a public figure?

With the recent controversy of MSNBC commentator David Shuster asking if Chelsea Clinton is being pimped out on the campaign trail by her parents, the question becomes—ignoring whether or not Shuster's comments are acceptable, drawing the line on good taste, slang and political correctness, an issue we'll return to time and again--if that's really true. After all, Chelsea is an adult, she makes her own decisions.

Chelsea's been in the news lately because all of sudden she's in the spotlight, campaigning for her mom, but she frustratingly won't give reporters what they want. She refuses to speak to all media, even declining an interview request by an eight-year old boy for Scholastic News, that little paper we got in elementary school as an introduction to the far-off world of current events. I’m sure many people thought it was silly, but she was sticking to her guns.

Chelsea is now 27, a hedge fund manager in New York City. While she has always been private—and opposite of those “hard-partying” Bush twins, she has been profiled in Talk magazine back in 2002, and even wrote a piece on her Sept. 11 experience. Since she was young, she was shy, yet the media tried to bring her into focus, as they are naturally inclined to do just as we are naturally inclined to be interested in the only child of one of the most powerful families in the world.

Despite going to Stanford and getting a degree at Oxford, like her father, she has managed to keep most of her life private. Good for her. Although the Clintons say that she isn’t a public figure, she’s put herself in that role, and knowing that by being their daughter, she runs certain risks. As the daughter of a presidential candidate, there will be some media attention. Any time you are a relative of a public official you run the risk of getting some media attention; it comes with the territory. Yes, it’s unfair, but that’s life. Heck, even President Truman’s daughter Margaret had her own obituary recently, and I bet not many people knew anything about her.

But once you thrust yourself in a role where you are talking to large groups of people to change their minds on a topic—actively campaigning—you lose your right to say you are completely a private figure.

The definition of a public figure differs by state, but generally, according to the AP Style Handbook, in New York "a public figure is one who has thrust himself or herself into the vortex of a public issue or controversy or has taken affirmative steps to attract public attention." In Texas, it's "one who has assumed a role of prominence in the affairs of society; California, "one who has voluntarily and actively sought in connection with any matter of public interest, to influence resolution of the issues involved."

That's exactly what Chelsea Clinton is doing. She's thrust herself in the limelight, so to speak, in a prominent role to influence a huge matter in society for the public interest.

While the notion that the Clintons and their machine are using their daughter for political game has some merit, it’s largely discredited by the fact that Chelsea is…their daughter. Children campaign for their parents. Did anyone mock all the hands-on effort any of the Romney sons did for dear ol’ dad? While Meghan McCain has gotten the most press because she writes a blog detailing all the wacky antics of going on the campaign trail, McCain has seven other children, ranging in age from 48 to 16. Other than the fact that all these kids are incredibly lucky in terms of the opportunities offered them (seriously, those are all the people getting all the internships at top-tier magazines…and Chelsea makes a six-figure salary), it's up to them if they're old enough if they want to campaign for their parents, and many of them take the opportunity. I would--what an experience! Remember when Giuliani’s kids made news because they refused to back up their dad—and his daughter listed that she supported Obama instead? That’s controversial.

Some might question why haven’t other presidential children gotten so much scrutiny. Meghan McCain, despite her blog, talks less about issues and more about what’s on her iPod. She also is much more behind-the-scenes than Chelsea is, and most people have never heard of her. McCain’s other children do not have an active role. Kerry’s children, when they were in the spotlight, were criticized. Obama’s children are too little. The Bush twins have had their fair share of media attention, the majority of it negative, with the exception of Jenna’s wedding announcement. And frankly, Chelsea’s been in the public eye for so long that she’d garner attention even if her mom wasn’t running for president.

Once Chelsea decided that she was going to actively make speeches on behalf of her mother, write articles, or otherwise make herself a visual, audible presence in her mother’s campaign she is seen as a public figure. She can, for the most part, continue what she’s doing. She’ll still lead a relatively quiet life compared to most other notable public figures, especially if her mother doesn’t get the nomination, and if she does—she’s an adult. She has her own apartment, her own, separate life.

If I was Chelsea, I’d speak to the press, because I believe that usually speaking is better than not saying anything. You can try to correct the record. Not speaking often just parlays into suspiciousness on behalf of those waiting for an answer: What are you hiding? While I don’t think Chelsea is hiding anything—she’s just private, and there is a difference, talking to the press might get them off her back.