In all fairness, I recently watched a TV show (on station AXN) which begins to explain why certain celebrities might want to shuck this planet in the first place. It was called The Price of Fame, but since its voyeuristic subject and content was just like other AXN shows featuring fleeing criminals, wild animals and mother nature on the warpath, it might as well have been called When Celebrities Attack.
Where else can you witness celebrities like Cher, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Alec Baldwin and Björk going ballistic on camera, turning the tables on their paparazzi stalkers in grainy video clips laced with obscenities? Indeed, where else on planet earth?
The Price of Fame features videotape shot by that ever-multiplying Hollywood species, the professional jerk with a minicam, in a wide variety of locations – airport terminals, city streets, outside clubs and bars and residential neighborhoods. Since footage of Michael Jackson, Sharon Stone, Madonna and others sells for a pretty penny in the US, these "journalists" can often be found tracking celebrities to their natural habitats.
Care to see Cher done up in biker gear, dismount from her Harley Chopper and approach the camera with a non-stop stream of curses, pointing her bony finger at the "f***ing asshole" behind the lens? "This is where I live!" the diva adds for emphasis, before stomping away from the camera.
Or how about a majorly-pissed-off Alec Baldwin, caught in his front yard with Kim Basinger, suddenly advancing on a camera crew like a disturbed grizzly bear at Yellowstone National Park? The bearded Baldwin, famously impatient with the press (he’s decked a few photographers in his time) quietly seethes: "This is an invasion of our privacy" before covering the paparazzi’s windshield with shaving cream. It’s all great television, and more than just a little creepy.
And how creepy is it to see Pierce Brosnan – a.k.a. James Bond – striding stoically down a sidewalk, even as an unwelcome cameraman lurks by his side? Without even looking at the lens, Brosnan swats the camera sideways like an annoying insect: interview over.
Or how about an octogenarian Frank Sinatra, caught entering a private club with his usual goon squad, only to be swarmed by videographers? "I’d like to break all o’ your f**kin’ heads" snarls Frank, perhaps recalling his glory days, before he lurches inside.
Provocation is the main engine driving The Price of Fame. In each segment, the cameraman (and it’s always a male behind the camera) can be clearly heard taunting celebrities, baiting them, hitting below the belt. When Pamela Anderson Lee starts shrieking as her husband is hauled away by police for slugging a cameraman, she gets no sympathy from the press. "Get the hell out of here! Leave us alone!" yells the blonde goddess as the harsh lights focus on her. "You’re drunk, honey," comes the cameraman’s jeering reply.
David Schwimmer and his Friends pals are caught leaving a restaurant. When a cameraman pushes his lens a little too close to Schwimmer’s face, Schwimmer gently pushes back. "He hit you, man," pipes up another helpful cameraman. "I–I never touched you," counters Schwimmer, clearly fearing a lawsuit.
Why on earth – even in the wake of Princess Di and the paparazzi backlash surrounding her death – are freelance cameramen allowed to harass celebrities in public places? I believe it falls under the wide journalistic umbrella of "public interest." Being in the public eye professionally, celebrities are denied the usual "right to privacy" allowed non-celebrities, at least in public places. As long as they’re not touching or harming the celebrities, the press is allowed to ply its trade. "This is my job! I’m just trying to make a living!" yelps more than one celebrity stalker with a camera in their defense.
Some celebrities – comedians, usually – have a more philosophical approach to the ever-present videocam. Erstwhile talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell succeeds in shaking off her stalker inside an airport terminal, dispassionately dissecting his lifestyle. "How do you live with yourself? How do you sleep at night?" she calmly asks. Clearly bored by the lecture, the cameraman lets Rosie escape down an escalator.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld demonstrates his best trick for putting out the lights on a video stalker: talking to the camera all the while, he whips out a Chapstick, uncaps it, and proceeds to smear it across the lens. "Now you can’t see me," he crows in triumph.
Most celebs on The Price of Fame are not so lucky. Shannen Doherty seems to attract paparazzi like flies on a cow flop, probably because the lensmen know she is bound to have an on-camera meltdown, at some point. Another segment shows former Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman, now employed as a security guard for Pamela Anderson, pounce on the hood of a car to prevent a camera crew from trailing her. "Let’s use him as a hood ornament!" cracks one of the cameramen.
At times, the celebrities on The Price of Fame vent their anger disproportionately. You can’t help thinking that it’s probably unwise to tease a cornered animal. In one segment, pop singer Sugar Ray loses it when a cameraman labels him "Sugar Gay." King of Pop Michael Jackson, disguised in head-to-foot bandages but still spotted by a sharp lensman, raises his crutch in a threatening gesture.
And then there’s Icelandic singer Björk, seen in the final segment of the show, arriving at Bangkok’s international airport in a 1996 footage. Crouched over her baggage cart, head hung low, you can’t help thinking: something bad’s gonna happen. It does, as soon as a local TV reporter utters the innocuous phrase: "Welcome to Bangkok!" Quirky Björk immediately attacks, taking the woman down with a series of slaps and punches. The hapless reporter beats her about the head with her microphone.
To its lack of credit, AXN is the station that has raised the benchmark of "reality TV" to some kind of frightening new level. Before, it was wild animals and pets acting up and attacking the camera (When Animals Attack, When Pets Attack). Then it was horrible disasters captured on video (The World’s Worst Disasters). Then police chases caught live (The World’s Scariest Police Chases). Wisely gauging that there is no violent activity that should go unviewed by the American public, AXN started buying up this embarrassing footage of celebrities caught being themselves – drunk, cranky, pissed-off, shockingly human.
More than once while watching this hour-long show, you find yourself agreeing wholeheartedly: there really is a price to fame. Forced to mingle in the real world, surrounded by professional image hounds who see your every move as fodder for tabloid newspapers or E! True Hollywood Stories. Realizing that every human reaction to almost inhuman taunting is more fuel for the fire. Trapped by people who are paid to never see you as a human being, allowing the video camera to perform its own deconstructive work.
Is there another world out there whose inhabitants don’t take voyeuristic pleasure in other beings’ discomfort? That place sure ain’t planet earth. The Price of Fame is an ugly reminder of just how far we’ve come, and how infinitely far we have yet to go. But it does perform the nearly-impossible: it makes you sympathize with overpaid, overpampered celebrities.
"We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars," the infamous Oscar Wilde once wrote. No wonder certain celebrities are willing to trade the price of fame for the price of a ticket to outer space.