Paparazzi

The public’s obsession with Hollywood and celebrities is at unprecedented proportions these days and there is no end in sight. While there has always been a public fascination with the glamorous movie stars and even some curiosity about how they act in their private life, never before has the industry been so focused and so rabid on capturing celebrities during their day-to-day lives. Celebrities are literally hounded day and night outside their homes, while they shop, while they eat, and even while they are on vacation because no matter what the average man or woman says that they believe is right or wrong about taking pictures of someone during their private moments, they are still enthralled enough to purchase the latest copy of US Weekly and OK!.

The most pervasive, annoying, and even dangerous side effect of the infatuation with public figures and celebrities has to be the overwhelming number of opportunistic paparazzi. With the price of pictures of celebrities fetching up to millions of dollars for a few snapshots, photographers that dream of striking it rich have taken to following celebrities around in hopes of catching them in some kind of situation that would be considered newsworthy to the public and thus, to the magazines that buy the pictures.

While there is no doubt that the practice is annoying at best it can be dangerous at worst. Though no convictions were made, it was widely speculated that the paparazzi that were following Princess Diana at high speeds helped cause the automobile wreck that led to her death. However, as appalling as everyone agrees that this tragedy was there are still no efforts to place some kind of legal restrictions on the act of following someone rabidly and shoving a camera into their face at every opportunity.

Paparazzi are even known to taunt and jeer the celebrities in hopes that the celebrity will get angry and throw something at them or otherwise act in a manner that would appear to be unbecoming and, more importantly, unprovoked to the viewer of any pictures they snap. George Clooney was snapped in a picture that caught him throwing food at paparazzi that was yelling at him while he ate on a patio at a public restaurant.

Paparazzi have even sunk so low as to use telephoto lenses and trespassing to photograph celebrities in their private life in their private homes. It makes one wonder what the limits are to some of their tactics and morals.

While there is no doubt that celebrities should expect to be noticed and photographed at some point or another when they are in the public eye on television and in movies so much, there has to be a point at which someone draws a line at what is right and wrong. However, as long as people keep buying the magazines that pay the paparazzi so much for the pictures that they get while utilizing these tactics there is little hope that such a thing as professional courtesy will ever exist in the world of paparazzi.