Trashy Tabloids 101

Since when were the lives of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan scholastic? Um, never? This absolutely blows my mind. Apparently, they are having a symposium at the University of East Anglia to discuss these people's lives and the media attention (which creates public attention) that they invoke. This is a serious, legitimate event that includes papers such as “Britney’s Tears: the Abject Female Celebrity in Postemotional Society” and “Hooker, Victim and/or Doormat: Lindsay Lohan and the Culture of Celebrity Notoriety”. They are supposedly trying to figure out why we like to see women brought down. Um, let's see, it's like a train wreck. You can't help but look. We all (for some sick, twisted reason) like to see other people fail or make a fool of themselves in some way, shape, or form. This is no different. It doesn't take a scholar to figure that out. And, by the way, it isn't just the women we like to see impel themselves with the sharp end of stupidity. We like reading about men in tabloids, too. (That wasn't an admission of guilt, really, it wasn't...)