Celebrity Shame-Baiting: Part III

Let's consider the application and effects of Celebrity Shame-Baiting in three distinct situations, each in ascending order of local, than national, finally international importance.

Back to Charlie Sheen. The common phrase describing this guy is not "troubled", "meltdown, but "self-destructing". He self-destructs on TV, he rants about his bosses, he rambled about "winning" in a dazed haze as he rushes every phrase that he says. His own webcasts serve as useful fodder to TV news magazines and reporters. Sheen even has a fan base supporting his outrageous rage sessions on-screen and over the Internet.

Then there's Robert Rizzo, the con-man turned city manager who conned a sleepy working-class city out of millions for himself, part-time councilmembers, the mayor, the "disabled" chief of police, and even the city clerk. The more mainstream media, newspaper and news outlets on TV, have covered the demise of the civil servant who served only himself, all at the expense of the working-class community he was supposed to serve. Although parodies of his conduct, his weight, and his egregious self-justification have not taken to the air-waves, columnists like Steve Lopez have found it appropriate to expose him in daily life, ruining even his petty chances to work off community service.

Consider the world stage. The Presidents of Tunisia, Egypt, and whatever Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi calls himself, are all rich, all powerful, all gained by ill-gotten gain. And now their day of reckoning has come. People power has triumphed. Although the first two leaders have fled their respective countries, Moammar Gadhafi still holds some semblance of power in his civil-war striven nation. In the midst of this on-going revolution, an Israeli Jew took the time to spin his caustic, incomprehensible rant into a techno-mix "Zenga Zenga". Very funny, very catching, and very good at bringing together disparate peoples in the Middle East. Let us not forget the connections forged by Facebook and Twitter in uniting oppressed peoples against their oppressors, as well as exposing to the world the crime and corruption wreaked by their leaders.

Around the world, in our backyards, on TV, we witness the power of the media in bringing down the big and the great, the privileged and the powerful. Celebrity Shame-Baiting allows us to laugh at the actors, despise the politicians, and even oust plutocrats who masquerade as servants of the people.

But does Celebrity Shame-Baiting have any cost?

If the practice merely provides us an excuse to ignore our own foibles, line our pockets, or distract ourselves from more newsworthy events, then it is a sorry use of media. Such outcomes would certainly characterize the pandemic projects against Charlie Sheen.

Robert Rizzo is a point of transition. If Celebrity Shame-Baiting exposes wrong doing, enough to gain our attention, earn our sympathy, and motivate us to meaningful action, then the practice falls more in line with utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Benthams's premise: that the greatest security against misrule is publicity, viz. the media. Anything beyond exposing misrule to effect proper change is unjustified and unmerited torture, like the continued invasions into the private choices of Robert Rizzo. Excoriate his public misdeeds, certainly, but leave the human being alone.

In the final case of lampooning dictators and exposing their corruption, Celebrity Shame-Baiting is more than fitting. As a fine-tuned and expansive practice of free speech, bringing down ruthless dictators through the press and other social media will ensure the more-widespread adoption of freedom of speech, a fundamental right in any fledgling liberal state.

Yet even in the case of bringing down ruthless dictators, media must motivate the masses to build something better in its place. For if the dogs devour the bear, having nothing left to gnaw, they may very well turn on each other, or the spectators themselves.