The Hindu : Privacy in the time of celebrity

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 22, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Privacy in the time of celebrity

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON: India is still safe from the seamier spin-offs of celebrity culture, but with Bollywood going intensively global and the "baba log" in the fashion industry desperately trying to keep up with the Joneses in the West, it is only a matter of time before India, too, gets there. And when it does, the media would have some tricky judgments to make in trying to strike a balance between satisfying the appetite of its readers/viewers and the celebrities' claim to privacy.

An issue it would be confronted with again and again is: what constitutes privacy when it involves celebrities whose own notion of it changes from situation to situation?

Currently, all of Britain is clued to a big legal battle being fought in a London court by the Hollywood couple, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who are claiming half-a-million pounds in damages from the magazine Hello! for publishing unauthorised photographs of their wedding in a New York hotel — a very public place despite security.

What has triggered a debate is the couple's own behaviour before their photographs were "snatched", as they have put it, and published by Hello!. It points to what is becoming a new trend in celebrity quarters — an attempt to dress up controlled publicity as a privacy issue. The fact is that the couple had signed an exclusive £1 million deal with Hello's rival magazine OK! which was scuppered after a paparazzo managed to take pictures with a hidden camera, and sold them to Hello!. That left the Douglases poorer by £1 million.

So, is it privacy or the loss of million quids that is behind the case? Someone who was perfectly happy hawking pictures of their would-be "private" wedding to the highest bidder cannot genuinely claim that their privacy has been outraged however unethical Hello's conduct might have been in publishing those unauthorised pictures.

Experts say that privacy ceased to be an issue the moment the Douglases decided to have their wedding in a public hotel in front of over 300 guests. And, as a former editor of The Times, Simon Jenkins, pointed out the idea that "stories, gossip and snatch pictures would not leak from this event relied on honour among thieves". Other celebrities such as Julia Roberts and Madonna were able to protect their privacy by holding their weddings in less public places, and with only close family and friends in attendance.

The Spanish owner of Hello! has dubbed the Douglases' reaction "a little bit exaggerated" considering that they had themselves put the photographs in the market. "We were used in order to raise the price of exclusivity. The wedding was offered to various media including ourselves, not in order to maintain privacy but solely in order to establish competition which would raise the price for exclusivity." He has apologised for upsetting the couple but maintained that "exclusivity is not the way to maintain privacy".

With celebrity news and gossip becoming big business — there is a whole thriving industry built around the glamour culture — the issue of what constitutes privacy has become important. Is it all right for film stars, fashion models, pop singers and sports celebrities to discuss their private lives for lucrative exclusive deals but cry foul in a different set of circumstances?

Can Michael Jackson seriously claim privacy for his children after what he did recently, when he dangled his little child over a hotel balcony as a large crowd watched in horror?

Or take the model, Naomi Campbell, who sued the Daily Mirror for violating her privacy when it published a photograph showing her coming out of a drug de-addiction centre. She lost the case only because the newspaper was able to convince the court that the photograph was meant to show that she had lied and misled the public when she denied in an interview that she was taking a drug treatment. But, in the circumstances, was it a privacy issue in the first place? Can people, especially those who know a thing or two about paparazzi, claim privacy when they choose to do in a public beach what they should have been doing within the four walls of their bedroom?

Of course, even celebrities are entitled to privacy but when you have a multi-million pound titillation industry dependent on "exclusive" pictures and gossip and when celebrities themselves thrive on such "exclusive" arrangements when it suits them, as the Douglases' case shows, can old rules of privacy still operate? Shouldn't those who live by the sword get used to a bit of occasional bruising?

There are fears that if the Douglases win, it would stretch the definition of privacy to a point where it could be bent by the rich and the famous to suit their convenience. "This case brings British justice into ridicule and contempt," Mr. Jenkins fumed adding that a victory for the Hollywood couple would have "nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with the power of the rich to manipulate the media".

Beware Indian media and the courts. For soon enough, similar battles could be played out there.

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