A couple of years ago, I read an interview with a photographer wherein he said that the desire for celebrity photographs is entirely driven by women. I stopped reading all the trashy gossip magazines. In-flight fodder became slightly more worthy. I still look at the headlines in the shops but I do not buy.
It is distressing. The way Brittney Spears had a nervous breakdown in public was horrific. Kerry Katona’s widely publicised problems shouldn’t be widely publicised. I don’t care whether these women courted the press at any stage in their careers. They shouldn’t be hounded. I can see no public interest in it and a great deal that is disturbing.  And, loath though I am to admit it, the photographer was right. The phenomenon is driven by women, women like me.
I read a very cool review of the work of Annie Leibovitz in one of the Sunday papers. Her work had no humanity. But what is wrong with a little glamour? Surely this is what we pay film stars for. Why are we so obsessed with their feet of clay?
I never buy gossip magazines any more and, you know, you shouldn’t either.
This preaching thing? I should warn you, I may get worse before I get better, it’s hard to stop once you start.
OK, tomorrow, definitely tomorrow, my next house.
I’m completely with you on this one. I prefer my vicious gossip to be about people I actually know.
Totally agree. I don’t buy anymore (also includes women magazines full of ads) but I like to read those my mother buys and leaves on her coffee table.
Hey, you can only criticize what you know… Then there is always the hairdresser’s for the really trash gossips magazines.
I don’t see anything reactionary in loathing those things. I picked up a couple in the doctor’s waiting room a while back – of all places – and came away feeling slightly soiled. They are vile, especially the weekly ones. That’s not gossip, it’s bullying.
I used to babysit for a woman years ago and read all her Hello magazines, this was before the whole industry was quite what it is now. I used to feel like I’d binged on junk food by the end of the evening.
I always think the French ones seem particularly morbidly obsessed with suffering…
I’m saving up your house posts for later.