All-Seeing Eye

We as human beings, all have a certain amount of bias. It’s a natural instinct to form opinions based on what we have seen, or what a person views as right or wrong. These opinions, though they can be good, are commonly either purely negative or just outright wrong. This story in itself is an opinion, which can be considered good or bad, but it’s not intended to harm or attack someone. When people have their “bad” opinions they commonly attack someone with them.

A common depiction of people’s aggressive opinions is the heavy scrutiny of the actions of a celebrity. Even though many celebrities are worthy of the praise they are given, they shouldn’t be enshrined to the point of godhood, or even basing one’s life around. Not only is this an inconvenience to regular citizens, it’s also an inconvenience to the celebrity in question. What this does is drag the celebrities name in the mud for something that’s not their fault. The only difference between a regular person and a celebrity is the fame and the money they have. They are still human beings who deserve to be respected, so they shouldn’t be put in complicated situations because of the actions of others.

Some people, the Paparazzi specifically, are protected by the federal government, under the first amendment. They use the first amendment, under the guise that invading people’s private lives to take pictures (which should otherwise be illegal), is an act of expression. An expression of their craft (invading people’s private life).

Common examples of celebrities, who the paparazzi take it upon themselves to inconvenience in their daily life, are people like Emma Watson, Lindsay Lohan, and Princess Diana. 

 In the first case, explicit pictures of Popular Actress Emma Watson, were taken by the paparazzi without her consent. While giving a speech about her experiences as a woman in the filming industry, Watson spoke about her traumatizing birthday gift from the paparazzi, “I remember on my 18th birthday I came out of my birthday party and photographers laid down on the pavement and took photographs up my skirt, which were then published on the front of the English tabloid [newspapers] the next morning,” Watson said. It’s very frightening how young women in this industry are expected to adapt to something so absurd like this. It’s extremely unfair that a celebrity like Watson couldn’t even feel safe on such a special occasion like her birthday.

In the second case, the star of the movie Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan, was involved in a traffic accident with a paparazzi. The paparazzi in question, Galo Cesar Ramirez, rammed his vehicle into Lohan’s Mercedes Benz just to take a picture of her. In an article by the Denver post, Lohan reportedly said, “A line needs to be drawn in terms of getting violent.” “It was a very frightening experience,” Lohan said. Getting into situations like these can not only harm pedestrians, but can cause extremely dangerous traffic accidents.

In the third and final case, Diana, Princess of Wales, was unfortunately killed in a traffic accident. In Paris, August 31, 1997 Princess Diana, reported boyfriend Dodi Fayed, and their driver Henri Paul died when their car crashed into the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel, while they were being relentlessly chased by the paparazzi. At the time, most fingers pointed at the overzealous paparazzi chasing Diana’s car. An 18-month French judicial investigation blamed the crash on an inebriated Paul, while a British inquest found both the paps and Paul equally responsible. However, no paparazzi did time for her death.

This proves that one, the paparazzi completely disregards the privacy of many popular icons, two, they could care less about their and someone else’s safety, and three, they would even put someone’s life in direct danger just to get a simple photo.

Regardless of what you think of a certain celebrity, it’s completely unethical to invade a person’s privacy and possibly endanger someone’s life, just to implicate them further.