 "Photo: The Siskiyou")
Paparazzi have been around for decades. Before it became the celebrity menace that it is in America today, it was a more sensational way of making a living, and a good one at that. In Italy during the early to mid 1900s, the paparazzi would snap and sell photos of celebrities to Italian magazines or even to the Associated Press. There then became small fraternities of these celebrity ambushers. One member who became very famous was Felice Quinto, who was later dubbed as the “grand old man” of the paparazzi craft.
Federico Fellini memorialized the emerging profession dedicated to documenting decadent nightlife in his1960 film “La Dolce Vita,” which featured a celebrity photographer named Paparazzo. For this role, he positioned Felice Quinto, furthering his status as a celebrity menace and coined the term paparazzo that we in the U.S. would all later know through the media as the paparazzi.
I just thought that providing a little background to the origin of the paparazzi would help some of us decipher the difference between a journalist and a paparazzo. There are arguments and suggestions that the paparazzi are a new wave of media and should be considered a legitimate form of journalism. Well to dispute this argument on a small scale, the paparazzi are not journalists and in no way should be considered legitimate sources of anything but entertainment. Are they a new wave of media? Of course, but not all forms of media are reliable, credible, or legitimate.
They take pictures of celebrities because we all want to know what our favorite celebrities are up to. I know that if I didn’t get my gossip mag fix or blog updates I would be wondering what was up with the Gosselin’s, the infamous Brangelina, and now, the Bachelor! You all know that you read the same stuff. This is why we have the paparazzi to begin with. They are like the neighborhood watch for society. There is an old woman on the corner of my street who knows the ins and outs of everyone’s life within a two-block radius. She’s remarkable. The paparazzi are like that old nosy lady, but on a much larger scale. And I do want to know what my neighbors were up to last night. Thank you, very much.
As a society, we thrive on gossip and other people’s business. It may be wrong and completely sordid, but its reality. I like knowing that they are looking out for those of us that live vicariously through these celeb’s via the paparazzi. I promise I’m not one of them, I have my own life believe it or not. I’m just honest, and it’s about time others were too. I enjoy the paparazzi purely for entertainment value. I’m not threatened by there existence even though I am an aspiring journalist. I appreciate them for what they are and what they do.
As for the celebrity’s take on the paparazzi? Well, get the hell out of Hollywood. If you don’t like your life being interrogated photographically, you may have chosen the wrong business. You wanted to be a star, be famous, and be an artist? Well with that, in this society, come the paparazzi. They should take the advice of Johnny Depp who pulled his family out of the limelight and moved to another part of the world. The paparazzi won’t follow you to the ends of the earth, even though that’s what they say. If you choose to be a celebrity in southern California, you will be haunted by the paparazzi.
As for some, they even pay the paparazzi to take their pictures and sell their own pictures to magazines to gain popularity. They go to places where floods of paparazzi will be and revel in the flashing lights. No one should feel sorry for celebrities and the lifestyle in which they choose to live. I’m not opposed to snapping my own pictures of celebrities if I see them. Wouldn’t you?
