Obsession with the trivial

Jeorge Clooney has drawn attention to a subject most people have blissfully forgotten about. It is the preoccupation or obsession with the trivial. Three Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards (Oscar) winner, the actor, director and activist has made his resentment at popular cheap interests. He is pragmatic, though, that he did not expect people to be concerned about serious matters. His celebrity persona knows it well that the glamour world has an irresistible appeal for the public and hence the followings often derive immense pleasure from trifling matter relating to their celebrities.

At times, such interests are taken to the extremes. The impression is that figures of the glamour or sports world will have no private life of their own. It has to be an open book before their followers. Social media and some not-so-reputed journalism are fanning the trend even farther. Some icons of the silver screen and sports world are partly to blame for this. They tweet on trivial issues most frequently in order to raise the number of their followers.

If wardrobe malfunction of an actress or the baby bump make news, one has to conclude that the newsmen are doing injustice to their profession. In the name of entertainment, fashion and style, they are treating insignificant issues so ridiculously in details as if the world will fall apart if the readers did not know about such trifles and nonsense.

How appalling that media are in stiff competition to retain the right to publish the picture of the baby of so and so actors and actresses! More obnoxious is the mentality of those celebrity parents who sell the exclusive right to publishing such pictures for a fabulous some of money. As if they are running out of money! Or, do they take pride because the public have so much interest in just viewing a picture of their babies?

Sure enough if a celebrity mother breastfeeds her baby and stops her engagement with her profession for a reasonable time in order to take care of the young one, it is good news. Particularly, the breastfeeding will act as an example for her women followers who too will feel motivated to do the same. But news concerning other daily chores is in bad taste.

Jeorge Clooney's activist self has diagnosed the disease well and he has felt prompted to make good use of his star value. If the cameras follow him, he has decided to walk on to events where serious issues are deliberated. Let the cameras also follow him there. He will love to give a twist to the tail of something so insignificant in order to focus on grave matters.

His task will be even easier if his beautiful wife Amal Clooney, also a barrister and an activist herself, joins the party. Their combined appeal will pull both cameras and crowd in hundreds and thousands. The Clooneys are likely to be successful in their venture. Why they will be successful is best realised by the impacts Bollywood mega stars Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Amitabh Bacchan have made through a few TV programmes on social issues. Aamir Khan in particular has drawn attention to a few pressing issues in India through her programme Satyameba Jayate.

Powerful icons of their standing are likely to drive home powerful messages. To superheroes or heroines, earning money is not an issue. They care for their popularity among the audience. Their followers too are desperate enough to do anything for their icons. If the celebrities throw a message, its impact is likely to be deeper than it would have been otherwise. It is because of this government, world organisations and big businesses make them ambassadors of programmes, events or products worldwide.

The purpose is to reach as many hearts as possible through their presence and promotion. Life is not an unmixed box of seriousness but it is neither something full of cheap things and hollowness. Interest in celebrities is not condemnable but there is a limit to nosiness.