The Twittersphere and countless celebrity magazines were in a fury Monday morning with the news of a surprise Hollywood marriage: Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. The couple, who has been dating since co-starring in the 2011 superhero flick “The Green Lantern,” shocked the gossip world with their secret nuptials, which took place over the weekend in South Carolina. Reactions ranged from sadness, with fan girls virtually wailing over the loss of another handsome face to matrimony, to humor, cruelly reminding the world that this is Reynolds’ second attempt at marriage (the first, with Scarlett Johansson, ended in divorce).
Just like a lot of people in the world, I really seemed to care. Really, Ryan? Want to go down that road again? And so soon? This is the kind of stuff my mother and I eat up when I’m at home. Who’s breaking up or making up? Whose life is a hot mess? Not to mention that keeping up with the current pop culture news is the easiest small talk topic ever. Almost everyone I know keeps up with entertainment headlines, knowing major Hollywood stories from Lindsey Lohan getting arrested (again) to Miley Cyrus’ engagement to longtime boyfriend and “The Last Song” costar Liam Hemsworth. But after seeing the insane reactions of some overzealous fans, I can’t help but wonder: Why do we care so much?
It’s not like any of us will meet these people. Actually, correction: some people in the communications industry may interact with them someday, but the majority of us will continue our lives celebrity-free, watching their antics from afar. So I ask again, why do we care?
Is it the heightened sense of drama that excites us? Is it the personal connections we forge with some actors through their performances that make the drama more real to us? Or are we, as a society, driven by voyeurism? After all, we use Facebook and Twitter to record our every move and track those of others. Maybe it is our heightened sense of knowing everyone’s business all the time that makes headlines like this more exciting to us, especially when they come as a shock. It is what has made reality television appealing for so long. It is the shows that showcase the most dramatic and fascinating characters that capture our interest, from the pageant moms on “Toddlers & Tiaras” to the Kardashians. We are legitimately driven, even addicted, to peering into the worlds of these people. Does that make it entertainment or just intrusion? This, I think, is the problem we face most today.
Having an interest in these sorts of topics is understandable and perfectly fine. It is something our society has carefully constructed since the first days of movies and television. We have created an awe-inspiring aura around these people, and we have grown to be naturally interested in their daily endeavors. But we need to be aware of the difference between being interested and being obsessed, because these are actually strangers whose lives we’re commenting on. And would we really want someone examining us that close if we were in their shoes? Think about it.