Celebrity tales

HOT columnist Sean O’ Shea reflects on the recent controversy surrounding the lives of two famous celebrities, Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi. He discusses the roles of the media, the public and the celebrities themselves in this somewhat unseemly spectacle.

 Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want…
Sorry, my dear! And where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don’t bother, they’re here.

Send in the Clowns, Judy Collins

 

Summer had finally arrived and Charles Saatchi, advertising director and art mogul extraordinaire, was photographed in the front patio of one of his favourite London restaurants with his hands around his soon to be ex-wife’s throat apparently trying to choke her. He claimed at one point that this was “a playful tiff” and at another that he was really only attempting to tweak or remove some mucus from her nose. In what followed the oral, olfactory, visual, tactile, gustatory and emotional aspects of the celebrities’ relationship was described and picked over with forensic detail.

It was variously referred to as a scoop, a media fest and a spectacle, and dominated the headlines for much of the summer. It was a spectacle in the sense that the participants involved, particularly Charles Saatchi, made a spectacle of themselves.  It was also a titillating, profitable and spectacular commercial product which was sold to a mass of consumers/spectators who presumably wanted and were stimulated by such entertainment.

It might also be characterised as a pseudo-event, i.e. an event that exists or was created for the sole purpose of media publicity and commercial gain. But created by whom: the cameraman lurking in the bushes, his paymasters, or the story writers? Or was it the subjects themselves unconsciously, but very publicly, acting out a family drama which hitherto would have been considered as belonging to the realm of the private?

The dramatis personae included the tabloids, the subjects themselves and associated family members whose responses ranged from an angry silence to carefully prepared announcements. It also included their “friends” who couldn’t possibly comment but…if you must know, you can quote me as saying that etc.

There were also the professional commentators, the readers who eagerly availed themselves of the invitation to pass comment on the commentators and act as informal jurors, and the self-appointed judges in the tabloid press who nowadays seem to occupy the seats vacated by the gods.

So, we had  generous helpings of psychological analysis, advice from agony aunts, literary allusions, frenzied speculations and judgement in plenty as this salty dish was served up to us, plateful by juicy plateful, over the weeks – buon appetito! Apri il vino.

This prolonged spell of midsummer madness provided some light relief from the more normal media fare of horrors and disasters, in near and faraway places, repeated 24/7,  until our moral sensibilities and capacity for empathy were almost deadened and we drifted into a dreamless sleep.

Private lives lived in public

The public image of the main protagonists was that of persons who, though living in the public eye, guarded their privacy carefully. Suddenly this protective seal was dissolved and a flood of information, which really was no one’s business but their own, was streaming across the internet and popular press.

Nigella had no comments to make, but she didn’t have to make any comments because her alleged “friends” were unrestrained in their commentaries. Charles, who made part of his fortune manipulating media images, began to look as if he had distinctly lost his touch and seemed himself in need of a public relations adviser.

A female commentator, writing in the Have Your Say section of one of the tabloids alluded to Jonathan Swift’s poem The Painted Dressing Room. Strephon the main character in this tale had difficulty reconciling his idealised image of women with the reality that they, just like him, have to perform normal bodily functions in the toilet. When exploring his lover’s dressing room he discovers grimy towels, snot-encrusted handkerchiefs and horror of horrors – Celia’s chamber pot, leading him to proclaim “Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!”

The commentator acknowledged that, at first sight at least, Charles didn’t seem to share Strephon’s misogynistic leanings and phobia about bodily excretions. He was not “horrified” at seeing Nigella’s bogies, and indeed seemed to have a fetish for removing them from her nose. But, according to her, these appearances were deceptive.

She went on to enquire as to why Charles felt the need to remind the entire nation that even domestic goddesses sometimes have mucus in their noses. Her verdict – Charles was awarded a misogyny rating of 7/10 and denounced for demeaning, as well as attempting to throttle, his wife.

 

Family life

It was reported that Charles didn’t eat the food prepared by Nigella, but apparently adhered instead to his own austere diet, examples of which were steamed fish or eggs which, we were told, he chose to eat for months on end.

Her son Bruno by contrast was described as enjoying eating his mother’s food, indeed couldn’t get enough of it, and even made the occasional appearance on Nigella Kitchen to sample her creations.

Though they lived in a commodious Belgravian mansion Bruno was reportedly “getting in the way” and Charles wanted him out. Much speculation ensued as to the significance of the Oedipal dynamics in the marital conflict. However, one Daily Mail reader pointed out that if Saatchi had bothered to read journalist and agony aunt Bel Mooney’s column in the aforementioned paper, he would have known better than to threaten the primal bond between mother and son.

Nigella’s son and daughter maintained an appropriate detachment from the storm, and didn’t succumb to media pressure to comment on events, though Saatchi’s daughter Phoebe eventually broke her silence and denounced her step-mother for behaving in a “cold-hearted way” and leaving her father “hang out to dry”.

The perceived eccentricity of the couple’s communication style was analysed, and many commentators found it sad that she had to hear of her imminent divorce in an open letter to her from her husband published in the Daily Mail.

According to Charles they hadn’t seen a lot of each other in the last year, and both had to resort to rather radical means of communication, such as for example sometimes gripping each other around the throat, or some other parts of their anatomies, in order to gain each other’s attention.

We were told that Charles was a “physical” man who needed to ease his frustrations by letting off steam and throwing things around from time to time. Nigella’s role was apparently to remain calm during such outbursts, to act as container for her husband’s foul moods and suppress her own feelings of anger and sadness. She was acclaimed for her stiff upper lip, and for the fact that even when desperately unhappy and exhausted to the point of tears, she was much too proud to allow herself to weep.

Call to order

By the end of June the celebrated journalist Carol Sarler took on the role of school mistress and called everyone to order by announcing that this must stop right now! We have been disgracefully enjoying ourselves gossiping about Charles and Nigella. He is not a monster and she is not a victim or a battered wife. Enough is really enough. We all need to grow up!

This injunction struck some tabloid readers as a bit rich coming from the paper which created and promoted this entire media fest in the first place, and seemed to remain determined that it would run on and on.

And with regard to monsters, one dissenting Daily Mail reader retorted that if the label were to be applied to anyone in this unseemly psychodrama, it should be attached to the tabloids, who once again disgraced themselves by acting like vultures, exploiting and feeding upon the marital difficulties of a much loved and respected public figure, literally hounding her out of the country.

 Need for limits

The invasion of privacy and symbolic attacks perpetrated by parts of the media in relation to public figures has equally affected ordinary members of the public and has become a matter of growing concern. This along with the monopolization of media ownership in the hands of large corporations, and the consolidation of political and ideological power and influence that goes with this, has raised serious questions about, objectivity, accountability and regulation.

Suffering, socially-induced or otherwise, is universal and remains the great leveller. The wealthy in their follies and vulnerabilities are just like ourselves, and when their masks are finally peeled away, and their makeup runs down their cheeks, what we see is not that far removed from the changing images we behold in our own hall of mirrors.

In his 1891 essay *The Soul of Man under Socialism, Oscar Wilde – who, because of his homosexuality and left wing beliefs, didn’t benefit from a sympathetic press – wrote, “In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an improvement certainly. But it is still very bad, and wrong and demoralizing. Somebody – was it Burke? – called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it.”

Regretfully, though there is a ground swell of opinion in favour of granting a greater degree of respect for the privacy of public figures as well as private individuals, this has yet to have much impact on the increasingly disreputable behaviour of the tabloids and other sections of the media.

Note:

• The full text of Oscar Wilde’s famous though controversial essay, The Soul of Man under Socialism, is available to read free at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/

SOS Sept 2013-08-23

Also in: SOS

« Spotlight on Kat Lee-Ryan
Bluegrass night »