The price of fame & babies?
It is a war of the tabloids when it comes to celebrities and the photos of their newborns. Surprisingly, we, as a society, seem to care more about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s baby pictures than we care about the actual events that are taking place in the world around us. USA Today featured an interesting article “Let’s make a baby-picture deal” in today (Thursday) Febuary 28. The article featured a story on the proud new parents of twins, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. The story commented on the “talk” of the expected money sums, which have been crowding the tabloid offices with who will be the first to feature the newcomers of Hollywood; People magazine takes the prize.
Baby photos are something that grabs a readers attention, according to the managing editor of People magazine. The magazine itself loves to be the first to have these photos and America loves reading the articles and viewing the photos. But why? Why do we love so much to read about celebrities having babies, and why do we care to see the first images after they are born? Some people don’t even have pictures of their own children, yet celebrities children are apparently much more fascinating. While reading this article, I was dumbfounded by how many people will be the first to pick up the new issue for the pictures of the newborns. Have we turned into a culture that lives vicariously through celebrities, as their lives are more drastic than our own?
USA Today chose to use examples, from People, in regards to formerly new parents and their children; Lisa Marie Presley’s issue had over 1.9 million sales, Patrick Dempsey had over 1.6 million, Christina Aguilera’s reports were not yet figured, and finally, taking the lead was Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with approximately 2.2 million sales for the shots of their new bundle of joy, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, according to the USA Today article. These numbers seem overwhelming, and still I wonder why we care? Of course they are cute, but we don’t know them, and never will, so why must we oodle over these babies we don’t know?
