Celebrities: Between Fiction & Reality

Araceli Munoz

On occasions, people are famous because being a celebrity is a goal per se and fame is their final purpose. On other occasions, their fame is a consequence of their achievements which have made them well-known. But other times, people become famous not only without wanting it, but also without doing anything. Sometimes, fame is desired but other times it arrives without being wanted or even without being known.

Some celebrities like the fame and working and living for this, but others don’t want to be famous and they try to pass unnoticed in a crowd. Being famous implies a double aspect, a positive and a negative side, but, at times, people only want the positive part of being famous but don’t accept the negative consequences.

Even if you like fame and you live on it, it isn’t always easy being famous. It isn’t pleasant to have hundreds of paparazzi at the door of your home everyday waiting to know what you are going to do or to take a photo to you in pyjamas or a bikini. Celebrities’ lives can become very stressful without hardly any privacy.

I understand that the life of these famous people can be amusing and enjoyable to a lot of people who feel lonely (from elderly or ill people to housewives), people who live in hard social conditions, or, simply, romantic people who feel that their lives are more empty, boring or monotonous than celebrities’ lives. It’s good to have something to talk about or just to think about or imagine about. If you can’t achieve your dreams, you can always find some consolation in imagining or thinking about them.

This idea makes me think of the Woody Allen’s film “The Purple Rose of Cairo”, where a woman, who lives a hard life between a cheerless marriage and a sad job, escapes from her life by going to the cinema to watch the wonderful and amazing life of her preferred film’s characters. She is so close to the world of these characters and so far from her own everyday reality that the principal character of the film leaves the screen and they begin a romance.

In the same way, some people enjoy or take comfort in the experiences of famous people so they can escape from a life which they don’t like or they can reflect on their unfulfilled dreams. At times, our idols are people who we admire for their talent or skills, but some people also see in them what they would have wanted to be if they had been able to.