Why do we create idols?  Only to destroy them?  Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, Elvis, they all literally died for fame… and the list goes on. Some would say they paid the ultimate price for climbing too high, but are they really the only ones to blame for their tragic fate?

After watching Michael Jackson’s superstar status devolve into a media circus focused almost entirely on his bizarre behavior, his trials and subsequent death, I have to ask whether the whole world has gone insane?  I can’t shake this sneaking suspicion that somehow we are all responsible for the death of the “King of Pop.”

When I shared my suspicions with a friend, she insisted I watch the South Park episode “Britney’s New Look,” which depicts the American public ritually sacrificing Britney Spears.  [watch episode] [read synopsis]

When Kyle, one of the main characters, asks why Britney has to die, various members of the crowd explain that “nobody wants her to die, young man, we all just simply need her to…. Throughout history humans have found it necessary to engage in human sacrifice…  But since Americans no longer like to do the killing themselves, we rely on the celebrity to kill itself… Britney was chosen a long time ago, built up and adored, then sacrificed for the harvest.”  [watch clip]

In a brilliant scene by South Park’s writers, the crowd surrounds Britney as if ready to stone her, but in the very moment you expect some anonymous member of the crowd to throw the first stone, one by one they begin to kill her with camera shots [watch clip].  Members of the crowd explain that Britney was to supposed to kill herself a while ago, so now she has to be sacrificed in time for the corn harvest.  And indeed that is a fairly accurate portrayal of how sacrifice functions in primitive cultures.  My favorite French thinker, René Girard, explains: the sacrificial victim “is a substitute for all the members of the community… The purpose of the sacrifice is to restore harmony to the community, to reinforce the social fabric,” by redirecting the violence and discord that arises from conflicting desires and the competition over resources (Violence and the Sacred, 8).

Thus in South Park, the members of the crowd explain “its not just the press, everyone agrees she has to die… It’s all America, we’re all apart of this together.”  However, we are more civilized than our primitive ancestors. We have economic and government institutions which insure the peaceful distribution of the “harvest,” so that we don’t have to compete over goods, but we still have the fundamental problem of desire.   As Girard says, we no longer offer human sacrifices to appease the gods, but our need for idols does not disappear.

 Another master of irony, Chuck Palahniuk, offers us a further clue in his novel, Choke. The main character, Victor, who’s convinced he’s the latest incarnation of Jesus, thinks he’s about to be stoned to death by the crowd.  Victor, as much as he might want to be, is not a celebrity.  He is however the momentary object of everyone’s fascination.   When they discover that he’s been misleading them, the crowd quickly turns into a murderous mob.  But instead of killing Victor, they tear down the edifice of his self-delusions, all his attempts to get attention, to be other than what he really is. For an actual celebrity the loss of their inflated image is probably more than they can bear, but for Victor it provides a rare opportunity to discover his identity for himself.  But ironically, in a society which claims that we can be who ever we want, that we can have whatever we want, few people have the courage to really pursue this.

Instead, we prefer to worship celebrities.  All the media hype magically grants them an irresistible allure, allowing the public to focus all their desire on the star.  What would we do without them?  We’d have to find satisfaction and fulfillment in our day to day lives, in our actual relationships.  By channeling all our desire through the godlike images the media creates for us, we don’t have to confront our reality, our mediocrity, our flaws, all our shortcomings. We don’t have to face that secret fear that no one could possibly be attracted to us as we truly are?  We don’t have to risk rejection.

We leave all the risk to the celebrities.  But since they’re only human, they can’t keep up the show indefinitely.  In South Park both the media and the public constantly criticize Britney: “she’s gained weight,” she’s “chubbed up,” has zits, scars from plastic surgery and “is obviously lip-synching.” Once the celebrity’s image has cracked, its just a matter of time before she’s gotten rid of and quickly replaced.  As long as our appetite is fed without interruption, we won’t have to notice the human flaws in each other.  But what really seals their fate: is the fact that all the love and admiration we initially lavish on them inevitably turns to hidden hate and resentment, because we all know in the back of our minds that we, like Victor, will never be the center of so much attention and desire.  Obviously, we never admit this to ourselves, but instead find plenty of reasons to blame the celebrity.

[Link to example: Celebrities We Love to Hate]

It reminds me of one of those frenzied scenes in Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed (also translated Demons), in which the entire town consumed with envy, is caught up in a murderous spree.  In the novel Nicholas Stavrogin, who has an extraordinary mix of intelligence, good looks and aristocratic breeding, achieves a sort of celebrity status.  As a young man, he is admired by all and quickly rises to the height of society.  However all the attention and success thrown his way leads him not as one would expect to a long and brilliant career as a social or political leader,  but to a series of bizarre and offensive acts.   Like Britney Spears and Michael Jackson the constant media attention eventually turns our idols into freaks.

Once this happens, there is no turning back.  The gossip surrounding Nicholas spreads like wildfire, but instead of ruining his popularity, it actually increases it exponentially, with the result that his admirers and even his close friends begin to treat him as a god.  But this leaves him no way of knowing whether his exalted status is based on anything concrete in his own person, or whether its a vicious game in which he is the ultimate victim.  Once he achieves this status, he can not conceive of returning to normal life.  Instead he dreams of escaping to a remote mountain hideaway, to live out his life in isolation, but never does so. Wishing to be free of his admirers, he remains dependent on them for his very being, but that being doesn’t really exist.

As we know Michael Jackson was from a very young age deprived of a normal life; a painful reality from which even his music could not protect him.  Indeed, the public fascination with Jackson’s eccentricities completely overshadowed his incredible talent.  And despite the fact that he worked tirelessly for the comeback which would restore him in the public eye, tragically it was not until his death that suddenly everyone, everywhere began to play his songs again.

Even Jesus struggled with celebrity status.  Aware of the dangers, he consistently deflected the crowd’s attention.  Even so, he was followed everywhere he went. For instance, in Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 [link to text] Jesus tries to escape the crowds, but is quickly outmaneuvered.  Mark says he took compassion on the crowd and healed them of their sicknesses.  Maintaining his distance and refusing to be an idol is the only way he can continue to care for them, it is the only way to escape the love-hate relationship.

The moment celebrities seek isolation they are hounded and criticized for it.  In South Park Britney tries to escape the paparazzi by going on a camping trip in the Colorado Rockies, but is quickly discovered.  In fact the possibility of escape creates its own problems.  Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, publicly admits he hates his celebrity status.  He writes in his blog, that the moment he gets a break, he quickly loses his sense of identity and purpose and sinks into deep depression.  As Girard warns, “the affirmation of the self ends in the negation of the self.”  To allow oneself to be raised to the status of a god inevitably brings about self-destruction, because the celebrity’s identity is only ever a projection of the public’s desire.  Few stars discover this reality before its too late.

Girard says, “it is Stavrogin,” not his followers, “who bears the heaviest cross.” As with Michael Jackson, Dostoyevski’s reader is unable to decide just how human Nicholas really is, whether he feels desire, or whether he is completely cut off from his own humanity, being denied as he is, any real intimacy in his life.  In Michael Jackson’s case, we watched him, over the course of his career, become sexless, even featureless, losing the distinct features of any palpable personality.  Isn’t it incredibly sad that the more closely Jackson was imitated, the more slowly, but surely he destroyed his own appearance?

In a similar way Nicholas Stavrogin sets out on a path of self-destruction, possibly in a desperate attempt to free himself.  Girard explains that Nicholas “is beyond desire.  It is not whether he no longer desires because Others desire him or whether Others desire him because he no longer desires.  Thus is formed a vicious circle from which [he] cannot escape… he becomes the magnetic pole of desire and hatred” (Deceit, Desire and the Novel, 163).  Unfortunately, public demand for an idol is insatiable and those stars who chose to go this route, are inevitably consumed by it.

In Choke, Victor and Paige, his equally self-deluded partner, survive the crowd’s destructive furor, and are able for the first time “to see each other for real.”  Freed not only from their own delusions, but also from allowing the world to define them as flawed and less than desirable, they have the chance not only to create some other reality, they are able to detect just a silhouette of their being in each other’s eyes.

So maybe folks shouldn’t be so quick to criticize Thom Yorke, for his coldness (he’s notorious for just walking away from admirers without response) [link to criticism].  Maybe he’s aware of the precarious position he’s in.  It comes from time to time in Radiohead’s songs.  “Life in a Glasshouse” is just one example [video] [lyrics], in which Yorke sings: “Of course, I’d like to sit around and talk, but someone’s always listening in,” and once again the crowd “is hungry for a lynching.”

For some reason Yorke’s resistance makes people furious, including other celebrity wanna-bees like 15 yr. old Miley Cyrus, who drummed up lots of publicity in 2009 by complaining about Yorke’s rudeness [link]. Sadly, she has no clue that she’s playing right into the public’s obsession. I truly hope that someone warns her that at the end of the South Park episode, she’s identified as the next one on the way to becoming a major superstar [watch clip].

The good news is, if South Park can make an episode exposing the true nature of the public’s fascination with celebrities, we, like Victor and Paige, may chose to give up this obsession with attention and fame, maybe then fewer childhood pop stars will have to self-destruct before our eyes.

-Sue Wright