I was standing in the checkout line at Stop & Shop today, which happened to be quite long, and as I waited, I glanced over at the racks containing magazines. All it took was one minute for me to know who is divorcing, who is splitting up, who is saying what, and who is going where. In that one minute, I was filled in on all the things going on in the celebrity world -- all of their personal matters, all of the details of their daily lives, and all of the things I am sure they would rather not have the public know.
In one of my recent posts, "It's Personal," I started writing about how we tend to intrude a lot on other people's privacy. Things that should remain personal end up being public, and the details of an individual's life become a topic of interest for everyone else.
Not one of us experiences this to the same degree that celebrities and other public figures do. The media loves to analyze their every move, their every choice, their every word. Although their job is to act, to sing, to dance, to perform, or do whatever else it is they have a talent for, the media and the public assume that it is perfectly fine to invade their privacy when they are trying to live their lives. There should be a separation between a person's career and talent and the person's private life. Paparazzi hanging out in bushes and on front lawns is just wrong on so many levels, and yet the public appreciates it. A celebrity goes out in the morning to buy a coffee or goes to the gym in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and all of a sudden, there is a full-page picture of it in a magazine, just in case anyone was wondering what he or she was doing. Their families can barely go outside without being swarmed by paparazzi and reporters too. Some of their children are unable to live normal lives because the media does not know its boundaries and does not know how to respect people's privacy.
And then there is the speculation.... If there is anything worse than paparazzi shots and personal details glaring out at you from the cover of a magazine, it is the tabloid magazines everywhere.
Here is what one website said about tabloids:
Traditionally, certain tabloids are distinguished by sensationalism of approach and content rather than by straightforward reportage of newsworthy events.
If you were to count the amount of complete lies in those rags, you would probably not only have to use all your fingers and toes, but you would have to borrow someone else's fingers too.
So this goes beyond just the invasion of privacy -- this goes into the malicious lying territory.
Reality television is another issue. When people allow cameras into their daily private lives, it is bound to have a negative effect -- especially when these people are married. I can think of three celebrity couples who have split up after having their lives shown to millions of viewers on their reality shoes. I suppose that even without the reality shows, they would eventually split up and divorce, but the shows definitely did nothing to help their relationships and marriages.
Posthumous publishing is another example of an invasion of privacy. When an individual writes something, be it a private journal or a work of fiction, and specifically chooses not to release it to the public, what right do others have to publish them after the person's death? If these writers did not want their thoughts and ideas to be published, is it really right to go against that and reveal them to the entire world, for all future generations?
But although posthumous publishing is a breach of privacy, it is also a great addition to the literary world. We have so many great, classic works of literature that would have never seen the light of day if someone had not decided to publish them after the writer's death. There are many people we would not have even heard of if their wishes were respected, and that would have been a great loss. For instance, most of what we know of Emily Dickinson today is because her family found her poems after her death and released them to the public.
Time actually has an interesting article about this, which lists some posthumously published works of literature.
Also, after Beethoven became deaf, he used conversation books to communicate with people. After his death, most of those books were destroyed, which prevented us from getting a personal glimpse into this famed composer's life. Only imagine how much we could have known about him! Dozens of books filled with things he wanted to say, in his own handwriting. And all that information has been deliberately destroyed to protect his privacy.
So should it be 'all for the sake of literature' or should individual privacy be more important when it comes to writings?
I sometimes wonder what I will do with my all my writing. I cannot begin to count the amount of notebooks, binders, and papers I have, full of accounts of my personal life, fictional stories, poems, and so on. I would not want anyone reading it unless I felt I wanted to share some things.
You never know what will happen after your lifetime. Anything you create or record can take on a life of its own.
