We don’t know their stories

Vinolia Mashego drum.co.za

Amy Winehouse

I thought that while growing up, we used to watched a lot of fairy tales while growing up and they all had the conclusion that life ends with a happily ever after slogan.

We realise when we much older, that it is a made believe fantasy. While reality is a total contradiction and very often more hush then what is portrayed in fairy tales, because we get to live the experience. No one writes our lives for us because it is not a movie nor is it a book, it has no director or script writer who plans out the next scene or the next chapter in the book. For a lot of celebrities this seems to be the opposite, because the media portrays celebrities life as role models, but are waiting to report on any thing wrong they do. Life is a sheer experience filled laughter, tears, hardships, achievements, joy, fear and everything else that which comes with our day to day living and it happens to the best of us, forcing celebrities to be more responsible with what they do in public or in private.

Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston and Vinolia Mashego are some of the celebrities who were in tabloid media, because of their drug abuse addiction which led to Amy and Whitney’s death and allegedly Vinolia’s financial difficulty. In a documentary on Vinolia’s life on SABC in January she mentioned that she turned to drugs because it made her feel good about certain issues and pressures in her life. Thus one thing led to another and eventually she had lost everything, read more where they talked and commented on how she got in the situation that she is. When I read the article and the comments I felt that it was based on ignorance with no relevant facts of what is being said about her experience and with no evidence, but rather based on what the writer heard. I would like you to follow the link to read it and see readers misunderstanding of the concept ‘Networking’ and the comparisons of celebrities who are not in the same stages of the entertainment or financial stability as it is more than decades ago.  Normal individuals every day people go through the same issues, such as stress, depression, anxiety and other pressures of life leading others to fall into situations like drug and alcohol abuse, financial strain or eating disorders. The only difference is the celebrities’ lives are given more public attention by the media and normal individuals don’t get as much public attention because it is in a much smaller context.  It made me think do we really know celebrities or do we think we know half their story.

Celebrities are humans just like each one of us, why do we treat them differently, do we writing their lives just like script writes or directors. How do we contribute to what they do?