Princess Diana: Blood on the Paparazzi’s Hands?
While my previous post was a light-hearted account of the newest “Queen of Gossip” Perez Hilton, our culture’s celebrity obsession does have its dark side, and the darkest and most deprave was the premature death of Princess Diana. The car crash that killed Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed occurred after several paparazzi trailed the couple in order to take pictures for big money. It was her death that inflamed the war on the paparazzi.
Princess Diana was used to being the most photographed woman in the world, but her linking to new lover Dodi al Fayed had thrown the scavengers into a heightened state of alert. (This has not ended; hot “celebrity couples” are still the highest grossing paparazzi pictures). Freelance paparazzi were chasing the couple on motorcycles, and the result was a car crash the caused the death of every person in the vehicle. While it is obvious that the actions of these photographers were extreme and unjustified, I can’t help but think that some people who were clearly also to blame got away clean; the people who purchased the photos of the paparazzi who chased her. One figure sated that after Diana’s death, 95% of the world knew; it was front cover news in every continent. And photographs of the crash fetched millions of dollars. So obviously, part of the blame has to be placed squarely on the lunacy of publications paying exorbitant amounts for photographs of celebrities. While the photographers in hot pursuit of Diana were immediately apprehended, none of the publications that bought their pictures were punished.
But lets not forget that it is the public who creates the market for these photos of intimacy stolen from people’s private lives. As long as a market exists for these photos, there will be photographers who take them, no matter how ruthlessly they must pursue their victims. The public has a voracious appetite for scandal, and people are willing to pay millions for photographs of a hot celebrity couple. And yet we don’t want to see photos of people starving or dying in some far off land.
Photographers who cover social injustice, risk their lives in harsh battlefields, or go to the ends of the earth to capture magnificent images through their lenses are starving to death, because no one will pay these artists for their work. Now try to sell some graphic photos of Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears emerging from a car without underwear, and you will have the mass media chasing after you with their checkbooks open.
We live in a world dominated not by ethic and values, but by the marketplace. While it is so easy for us to blame the paparazzi, it is not too far-fetched to imagine that some talented photojournalists out there who was struggling for years had to become a paparazzi in order to put bread on the table. We long for gossip and glimpses of how the other half lives. Why don’t great photographers who reveal the human condition through their art receive millions of dollars? Why are we so quick to blame the paparazzi, and not bat an eyelash towards the major publications who purchase their photos? And who is really to blame in all of this, the paparazzi, the publications, or the public?
los paparazzi son una porqueria siempre joden a las tres mas bellas. jodanse pero igual son las que mandan y lo saben la princesa del pop seguira britney y lohan y paris son las buenasasss bellas y rumberas las felicito pero regresen a las musica y dediquense a comunicar cosas buenas de ellas popularidad no porquerias para sabotearlas
Just to let you know, not everyone in the car was killed. Diana’s bodyguard was spared. He was the only one wearing a seatbelt.