Every time a certain gossip column writes about Shannon Noll they have a go. Subtly, but if you look you’ll notice. Usually they describe him as an ‘Australian Idol product’ or perhaps an ‘Australian Idol reject’ or sometimes as ‘Channel Ten trash’. With one nasty word choice he goes from being a singer, an entertainer, a human being, to an inanimate object.
But it’s not just him. It’s anyone who gossip columnists deem worthy to write about, but not to suck up to.
It’s kind of a weird oxymoron. People know who Shannon Noll is. They’ll read about what he’s doing. And gossip columnists will write about him because they know punters will read it. But they have to have a go as well. If celebrities, politicians and public figures have a symbiotic relationship with the media – isn’t this kind of welshing on the deal?
Is it simply that gossip columnists hate their audience? Do they resent reporting on the goings on in the messy lives of plastic pubic figures? Do they hate scribbling for a mass audience of westies when they themselves are closet elitists who live in Darlinghurst or St Kilda? Would they rather be reporting on the indiscretions and relationship landscapes of gritty pub bands no-one has every heard of? Would they rather be attending edgy fringe theatre performances and going to trendy gallery openings in Surry Hills and Brunswick?
Perhaps.
Or perhaps they’d say the famous people they’re nasty about don’t deserve their celebrity. That it’s a false celebrity, the cubic zirconia of showbiz. The bands whose last big single was years ago or reality TV stars or actors who are prettier than they are talented. People who don’t deserve attention.
But if they don’t deserve it why do they keep giving it to them?
Anyway if that is what they think, it doesn’t really bear itself out. Because they refuse to take the stick to other people whose fame would seem to be just as foundationless. Models for example. They love models and print big fat photos of them every day. But apart from being beautiful and, I suppose, turning oxygen into CO2, what do they do that makes them worthy of celebrity? Why do we have to hear about the minutiae of their lives?
And look at someone like Kylie Minogue. How does she deserve her fame? She might have a great rig, but has she ever said or sung a word she wrote herself?
And as for reality TV types, where I concede I have to declare a bit of a conflict of interest, isn’t there a certain betrayal involved?
Yes these people signed up for cheap easy fame. But it’s not just them that benefit. Gossip columnists, when reality TV stars are still on the box, fill their pages with titbits about their lives. But now they refer to them with scorn. The nasty truth is the very magazines, newspapers and radio hosts who sold ads while building them up will now sell just as many ads while tearing them down. Is that not a bit sick? Who’s the ultimate winner? And whose motives are worse?
Or perhaps it’s just jealousy. Perhaps gossip columnists are desperate to be celebrities themselves, after all, there’s not a single one in the country that doesn’t have a big fat photo of their mug on top of their column.
But really it’s all a lot more simple than that. Basically, they pick on Shannon Noll and others because they’re weak. They’re small enough to be picked on. And this is not lost on their audience. Which is why people hate gossip columnists.
