Another Tedious Celebrity Spat

My decision to focus on the Tory Party Conference last week meant that I missed the really important news story of last week: Sinead O'Connor and Miley Cyrus.  It must have been important as it seemed to be unavoidable, splashed across every newspaper and news web site.  Now, a cynic like me might try to dismiss it all as another tedious celebrity spat between two equally obnoxious individuals, one a has-been whose brief fame was based on being 'shocking', desperate for the limelight and jealous of the other, a young upstart stealing her reputation for 'shocking' behaviour, but apparently there's more to it than that.  Oh yes.  It raises all kinds of issues about attitudes to mental health, the sexualisation and objectification of young women and the exploitation of young performers in today's entertainment industry.  Being an old cynic, I think that's all bollocks dreamed up by journalists to justify their reporting of the 'issue' and publication of semi-naked former child stars.

Take the 'mental health' angle: Cyrus' apparent mocking of O'Connor's former mental health problems was clearly opportunistically seized upon by the media as the way the mentally ill are portrayed in popular culture was in the headlines due to the 'outrage' over those supermarket 'loony bin'-type Hallowe'en costumes.  One over paid, over rated celebrity waste of space calling another a 'looney' tells us nothing about mental health or public attitudes toward it.  Celebrities are not 'normal' people - just because they are famous doesn't mean that their 'opinions' have more weight than those of 'normal' people.  As for the sexualisation and objectification of women, if the tabloids really are worried about that, then they should take a long hard look at their page threes, not to mention a large proportion of the adverts they carry.  Exploitation?  The only people being 'exploited' are those foolish enough to be fans of the likes of Miley Cyrus.  I would ask the question as to why they persist in printing stories about these tedious people and their boring antics, but the answer to that seems obvious: the media clearly thinks that it sells papers.  There are enough 'fans' out there, it seems, who await every celebrity 'development' with baited breath.  And, even if, like me, you find it all tedious beyond belief, you still end up wasting time denouncing it all...