Paparazzi Redux

[dmr]

Timberlake/Diaz Settle Lawsuit with Photographer they Whupped Up On

Not to show my real age, but this was years ago, Jackie and daughter Caroline were getting hounded by various paparazzi, including Ron Gallela, Lou Gunkel, and others. This is quite well documented.

What's all but forgotten, however, is an incident where one of the photogs got a bit too close and ended up flat on the sidewalk in sore shape.

Jackie said that the photographer tripped.

However, a Manhattan judo instructor finally came forward and stated that Jackie had indeed been taking judo lessons, and in practice she would perform a particular throw with the instructor holding a camera and coming toward her.

This was years ago, and I do believe this made the Daily News but I don't remember hearing anything about it since.

Oh well, just dusting off some very rusty memory cells. 🙂

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Going back to the original "core" of the question (although there is no core question as such), there is no law that can ever prevent what happened, for I'm sure there are laws against ramming somebody else's car on purpose; I'm sure there are laws against premeditated manslaughter or premeditated intent for blah blah blah. And the law(s) was(ere) broken.

The only fallout will be ad nauseam coverage of something that will get lost in left-right bickering which will result in no real solutions. And people will keep on doing stupid and incredibly dangerous things because they think of "No. 1": themselves.

 

[StuartR]

Frankly, I think it is every person's duty to be responsible for their own moral conduct. Paparazzi fail in this regard. And again, I don't think the comparison to porn is fair, as the participants in porn are willing to be photographed and they are compensated. Though I feel that it is the photographer's moral responsibility not to choose paparazzi work, I don't want to make it illegal to do so. Ultimately, I think responsibility lies very deep within our culture. People like William Randolph Hearst began these sensationalist newspapers, and they sold. From then on, the wheels were in motion. The public in general will become interested in whatever it is most often exposed to. If you grew up under Stalin in the USSR you were likely to be indoctrinated in the cult of Lenin and Stalin. If you were in the US in the sixties, it was JFK and Jackie O. In America of the 2000s, it is Brad Pitt, J Lo and P Diddy. It doesn't mean that people are sheep, it is just that culture and taste are often dictated by exposure, not sophistication. I think with increased education and intelligence, people often become fixated on other things, be they a fascination with Bach, or Henri-Cartier Bresson or Ingmar Bergman films. It's all the same thing. That said, I do think the stalker paparazzi are repugnant.

 

[shaaktiman]

Interesting thread. I enjoy the fact that a lot of the discussion has been focusing on "whose fault" the current state of affairs in stalkerazzi methods is. I remember having this same discussion about so many aspects of modern consumer culture. Look at advertising for example and the often rampant mysogynistic or overly-sexualized culture that it creates/reinforces/etc. It ends up being a chicken and egg game, where it really isn't anyone's "fault." No one really just started doing this out of the blue, it's a culmination of decades of pop journalism, celebrity worship and increasingly sophisticated (or lack thereof) marketing tactics by these publications.

Star magazine, faced with decreasing revenue streams, recently hired the manager of US magazine to give it a makeover. The way I see it, these magazines and TV shows are just going to get more and more fetishistic in their desire for dirt. It's an old saw in America that the one thing we love more than our celebrities is watching them fall from grace, the harder the better.

Frankly, I don't have much of a problem with it. At the end of the day, is it really ANY different than what Cartier-Bresson or Winogrand did?

my 2¢

adam

 

[bmattock]

Just to stir the pot some more - news now trickles in that would seem to have the potential for repercussions among non-car-ramming photographers:


LA Police to Take on Photographers

In Hollywood, cops take on the new wave of 'lawless' paparazzi

Duncan Campbell
Thursday June 16, 2005
The Guardian

Detectives in Los Angeles are investigating whether they can rein in a new breed of paparazzi with criminal charges following a spate of "hyper-aggressive" incidents involving Hollywood stars.

Just an FYI...

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

And here is a response from a paparazo!

Conspiracy of Dunces - I am a Paparazo

What do the celebrities want? They want to find a way to stop the paparazzi from taking their pictures. That is the bottom line. They want to be famous and all that means. And believe me, that means A LOT. AND they want to be NORMAL. And they want to control everything about their public image. But that's not all they want to control. These celebrities also want to control the media. Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves for the way you've allowed yourselves to be manipulated by these celebrities whining, not to mention the way you've covered (or covered up) how the celebrities were able to manipulate the police and district attorney's office. This could very well be one of the most important issues affecting the press in decades. And dear reader, doubt thee not - the great state of California's Governor is on the celebrity's side of this issue!

Grist for the Mill,

Bill Mattocks

 

[canonetc]

The love-hate-mutual-need thing going on with the stars and paparazzi is an interesting study of modern consumer psychology, and how it is driven by “the industry” as well as “the consumer.” I believe “interest” in the stars is driven more by the industry than by we as people. But with the last comment, the stars want a lot out of it too.

Sygma agency once asked me to get a shot of Paula Jones’ new nose job (she happened to live in my city years ago). The thought of creeping around in the bushes made me shiver, and although it was a “big chance” to shoot for an agency, I declined. Couldn’t live with myself, and didn’t think it would actually look good on my resume. “Hi, I’m the guy who shot Paula’s nose job!” Yuck! It wasn’t even a real assignment; any profit would come IF the image sold.

I once assisted a celebrity-agency shooter at a restricted-access awards banquet in Hollywood. We were the only photographers inside, and the “red-carpet” guys had to wait around outside. I have to say that the agency guy I was helping seemed to know the stars. He was well dressed and polite. They gladly grinned for him. The “red-carpet” guys outside looked pretty hungry, and they didn’t smile much. Yesterday it was reported in the news that Nicole Kidman walked up to and called a paparazzo “rude” after he booed her for not pausing enough for pictures. What he didn’t know was that one of her makeup artists had recently passed away, thus causing Kidman’s lack of being-photographed enthusiasm.

Some paparazzi could be caught in a cycle of money and survival; meaning, it’s a job they can do and get well paid for, far more than for a daily newspaper assignment. It’s hard, in L.A. anyway, to secure a full-time job as a photographer. So I don’t blame the Papi’s from trying to earn a living; there are just so many of them, and so few outlets for their images, that competition is really desperate. How they actually survive is amazing to me. But, yeah, coordinated group stalking is way overboard.

I do not believe street photography and paparazzi are in any way related. What is dreadful is that their reported actions could be harmful to the rest of us innocent bystanders who are in no way associated with that kind of photography. But again, for them it may be simple survival. Am I to judge the hungry rickshaw driver in Calcutta? In the end, if we cease our “demands” for entertainment gossip (and stop buying those entertainment magazines), perhaps the interest in the stars will slooowwwwlyyy decline. Maybe there’d be more interest in good photojournalism, for example.

Maybe it’s good to adopt the perspective of the architect Howard Roarke in “The Foutainhead” by Ayn Rand. An evil critic who had sabotaged Roarke’s work and career asked him, “What do you think of me, Mr. Roarke?!?” The architect calmly replied, “But I don’t think of you.”

Less TV. More photography. Carpe Diem.

Chris
canonetc