Remove that gossip blog from your tabbed websites

Submitted by Andrew Cochran (@Chaotician)

After having watched the Japanese film Sansho the Bailiff by the great director Kenji Mizoguchi, I googled “Kenji Mizoguchi quotes” to find some of his perspective on aspects of filmmaking. His films employ the long take, something we hardly see in current cinema, but was once used frequently, perhaps most notably to American cinephiles in Alfred Hitchcock’s great film Rope. In searching for Mizoguchi quotes I had hoped to find something he might have said about his favored technique. Instead of finding a quote ready-made for posting to my Facebook wall, I discovered several celebrity gossip sites, and one that would even answer the question “Who’s Dated Who?” Just what I wanted to know! Who has Mizoguchi dated? Did he have an affair, and if so, with who? Any drug arrests?

But wait just a minute. That wasn’t why I googled his name. So why did I get all of that delivered right to my cyber-doorstep? I did not even care to know any of that. More importantly, it really isn’t any of my business to know. But it seems we constantly hear about these kinds of carnal details. Remember back in 2005 when an action film called Mr. and Mrs. Smith came out? It had a decent amount of hype to it, and it got some critical recognition. But what got even more hype was the rumored on-set romance between the stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The media absolutely erupted when the rumor was confirmed to be true. Pitt left his wife Jennifer Aniston for Jolie! And I shouldn’t even mention the tabloids, but I will. On every magazine stand at every grocery store sits the 15 or so different magazines detailing who gained some weight, who cheated on who, and who just got arrested for drunk driving. The media absolutely loves this stuff. And who can blame them? It makes them money, because we buy it. We buy into this culture of gossip. It is not just about the movies; it’s about the stars as well. We, as a culture, love hearing, reading, and talking about celebrity gossip.

It’s for this same reason that we now have an overabundance of reality shows. The Discovery Channel isn’t really about discovery anymore. Their number one show, Deadliest Catch, sounds extremely interesting. When I first heard the title I thought it was about fishermen catching and talking about deadly animals they catch. But it’s just a reality show about guys in “extremely dangerous” situations cursing and swearing at each other. These guys are stars. They may have been in dangerous situations before, but not now. They’re moneymakers now. The same thing goes for Animal Planet. People like Jeff Corwin and Steve Irwin (RIP) worked to educate viewers. Now Animal Planet has reality shows like Pit Bulls and Parolees. We, as a culture, love seeing confrontations and talking about gossip.

And there is no way to change it. It’s the way things are. But for those of you who consider yourselves true fans of film, respect the stars and directors. Don’t crave to know the gritty details about their personal lives. If you give in to the tabloids, save yourself the time, money, and mental welfare and quit reading them. Remove that gossip blog from your tabbed websites. And for goodness’ sake, do not watch Entertainment Tonight.

Andrew Cochran's blog is http://morehuman.tumblr.com/, where he writes his opinions, reviews, and anything else he feels like linking to and talking about