Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Right to Privacy for Famous Persons
This film clip below is by Britney Spears who inspired this blog. I was watching the video and realised it was a message (protest) to the paparazzi. I noted the chicken noises at the beginning, I sense that is a sign of the cowardice of using a camera without permission and sneaking away and then using that image for the profit of others. The sexuality in the clip shows what they are after, and what sells. It is interesting that most of the paparazzi are men. I recall seeing the paparazzi in London and seeing how overwhelming the attention is. I myself had a brief experience as a community journalist where I joined a media pack to interview the then opposition Labor Leader here in Australia. I noted how the journalist pushed to get the scoop. I saw the humour in it as well and imagined if I’d had a fluffy microphone to send up the situation.
I wonder how the media would feel if the spot light is turned on them. I remembered the closest the media has come to a similar exposure was during the Leveson inquiry in the UK, when Rupert Murdoch was questioned about the News of the World and their intrusion into the lives of famous people. The inquiry revealed a media driven by profits rather than prophets, dictatorial and out of touch with mainline journalists. The intrusion into the lives of the rich and famous by the media has been illustrated by illegal phone taps, waiting outside people’s houses, stalking them physically and tracking them using surveillance, high powered telescopic lenses on cameras and so on. I think it would be interesting if the media could be scrutinised in the same way, as Murdoch experienced, to gain a sense of empathy for what it is like to have no personal privacy and for people to put words in your mouth or inconsistencies or getting it wrong.
Imagine what it would be like to stand in the shoes of Britney Spears whereby she has to pay people to protect her privacy, to have body guards and investigators to scrutinise staff and so on. Imagine what it is like to walk out your door and be met with flashing lights and questions, whatever you say ends up on the front page of a magazine, possibly changed and others judging and commenting on you continuously. The attention is not about love it is about greed. It is negative repeated behaviour and could be scrutinised as abuse if it is causing a risk to a persons mental health. Perhaps the drug issue in Hollywood is a reflection of the unnatural attention famous people receive and the fantasy of adoration that idolises ordinary people as god’s or larger than life.
I personally have never felt star struck when I have met famous people over the years. I have seen them as people and have been curious but I don’t project an image that they are somehow better or wishing to be near them so that it rubs off on me. This is a form of projection coupled with ego identity and the notion of wanting to feel special by association. It has an addictive quality that many personal assistants would feel being part of an inner sanctum. Yet in truth it comes from low self esteem, lack of self love and a belief that fame means you are worth something. I never felt that desire personally, I believe real happiness is where it is at, and no matter what you do, if you are not happy then you haven’t found yourself. In the world of fame it is so easy for an individual to lose themselves in the illusion that has been marketed and built up around them. There are so many nodding heads who are quick to be in agreement so they can be accepted and seen to be associated with a form of power called fame.
I worked years ago for a famous woman in Knightsbridge, London. I noted her staff were all smiles when she was around. Her maid who had been with her since the beginning of her fame said she had changed. She believed she was larger than life and that was reinforced by those who wanted to know her and her rolladex which I looked through. At the time it had famous people like Princess Diana and many Hollywood celebrities. Whilst I was there a guy who was a famous musician turned up and asked me to help connect his printer, I thought of the rich and famous and the world they live in. I heard the stories from staff who spoke of parties that were orgies and what life is like working in a wealthy person’s house. Everyone was watching and gossiping. I was told about the husband who married her who was after her contacts. Some would call him a gold digger. I felt sorry for her as I realised that she could never be sure who was real and who was wanting to be near her for their own ego gratification. I didn’t envy her position at all and was grateful of my freedom as an ordinary person. I knew my friends were genuine as I had no status.
I also had the opportunity to spend time with a man considered the top 50’th intellectual in the world. He was very famous. I remember when he came to Brisbane I sent him a note and made a point about being a bright student and that I should be able to get a scholarship to go to his event. The tickets were $400 per head. He rang me and invited me for free. I had a debate with him and we agreed to disagree, he must have felt connection with me. Anyway afterwards I went to his hotel and gave him a boomerang to say thank you and told him I was going to London, he gave me his private number. So he inspired me to move to the UK. Years later he and I reconnected a few times. The last time he invited me to dinner with friends. He asked everyone around the table to draw pictures of happy/sad images. I kept mine pretty simple a cloud for sorrow and a sun for happiness. He drew himself in front of a crowd feeling happy (he liked the attention) and then he drew himself reading playboy alone. The message he sent was to do with sex and loneliness. I got that message quickly and felt for him as I realised his fame was the barrier to his finding true love. He said to me he wished I would fall in love with him. I was his friend, although I don’t know if he realised it at the time, but I couldn’t be love for him. The money never interested me, I related to him as a person. I realised the tourniquet of fame and all that glitters is not gold. I wanted him to come on the street and be a clown, in disguise, but he didn’t take me up on it. I felt that would have liberated him. So fame for me is not so easy nor desirable. Money does not buy you happiness nor love. Being true to yourself does. In addition he gave me the opportunity to interview him for radio. I recall saying we were at a Casino, he corrected me and made sure listeners knew it was a hotel at the Casino. He knew how the media worked and he had to be careful that his reputation was not tarnished. That was an interesting moment where I saw how vigilant famous people have to be. Whilst they have many perks I cannot shake the feeling they are never free.
The lives of the rich and famous, whilst they may be rich doesn’t take away their right to live as a free person. Money does not give the media or anyone the right to invade another person’s privacy and affect the quality of their happiness or life. A person whether they are famous or not has a right to move around freely without being accosted. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the freedom of movement, the right to privacy, association and importantly equality and so on. This document emerged out of the carnage of the Second World War. Here is an overview from Wikipedia followed by the Britney Spears music clip which inspired this blog. Interestingly the UDHR is not enforceable so it is a values statement in truth. Until these values and rights are integrated, it is toothless as they say. This is a subject that should be taught in all schools. In my view it is a document that has nothing to do with nullifying the rights of groups which is the key critique, it is about individual freedom where people experience their freedom, through the Self. I cannot experience another’s freedom or a groups freedom as freedom has to emanate from the individual as we are born alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. The full text is published by the United Nations on its website.[1]
The Declaration consists of thirty articles which have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions, and other laws. The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols. In 1966, the General Assembly adopted the two detailed Covenants, which complete the International Bill of Human Rights. In 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, the Bill took on the force of international law.[2]
…The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable people. The Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it “an international document of the first order of importance”,[25] while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration—stated that it “may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.”[26] In a speech on 5 October 1995, Pope John Paul II called the Declaration “one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time”.[27] In a statement on 10 December 2003 on behalf of the European Union, Marcello Spatafora said that the Declaration “placed human rights at the centre of the framework of principles and obligations shaping relations within the international community.”
To view the document go to http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
The Britney Spears Video Message