Media Frenzy!

I think the really amazing thing is that we don't have scenes like Mel Gibson's recent DUI arrest even more often. Watch Britney Spears for a day or so and she's bound to do something completely inappropriate. It's the nature of the beast. Once you become so insulated from the world the rest of us call home it must be difficult to remember the rules. Ironically, we have a phalanx of celebrities who will whine and moan about their privacy all the while as they seek to insert their image into our living rooms through E! News or People magazine.
Wait. Maybe they really don't want to be famous after all. Maybe they're victims of a vicious and manipulative media. Trapped in their ivory towers, afraid to venture out for the simplest pleasures. One imagines poor Michael Jackson having to rent out all of Disneyland for his own private amusement - or maybe that's the wrong path again.
People acting like idiots really shouldn't be news. Tom Cruise jumping up and down on a couch isn't' any sort of revelation. Britney Spears appearing on television looking like a three dollar hooker is just bad handling. News starts happening when the famous people start to believe their own clippings. Changing your baby's diaper on the floor of a department store, or Victoria Secret is just tacky. Picking a fight with Matt Lauer is like kicking a puppy. To this end, Mel Gibson's latest statement said he must take responsibility for making anti-Semitic remarks because as a public person, "when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena."
Okay, but what can we expect as retribution? If he keeps his nose clean for a month or two, does ABC go ahead and let him produce his miniseries on the Holocaust? When will he be really done? Robert Downey Jr. is still working. Pee-Wee Herman is making a comeback (pardon the pun). When do we call it quits? When do we pull the plug? Barbara Walters says she's done watching Mel Gibson movies. Fair enough. Maybe the difference is who you choose to mess with. If you want to destroy yourself, go right ahead, we'll keep the cameras rolling. Start stomping around in somebody else's backyard or tormenting children and it's time to pull up the stakes and move the circus to another town.