that's private

Last week I watched Woody Allen’s, "Small Time Crooks". I have always been tickled by the nervous energy of his movies, the hopeless situations and the humor. In some ways they are kind of timeless. But when I saw him, when I saw Woody Allen, I couldn’t shake off the memory that this is the same guy who cheated on his long time girlfriend with her daughter and who is now married to the daughter.

Though this uncomfortable snippet of information about his private life did not take away from my movie watching experience, but it always came back to me, it was always there and at some level I guess I did judge him once again.

And it’s the same thing when it comes to many celebrities no matter what field they are in. A single scandal and depending on its severity, their whole life can get defined by it. It doesn't matter what else they have done in their life, the scandal becomes a frame of reference. Perhaps time weathers off some of the effect, but the imprint is always there. When you see Bill Clinton today, you may not immediately think of Monica Lewinsky, but on the other hand when you see Monica Lewinsky, the first thing that crosses your mind is her role in the Clinton scandal.

Media today focuses so much on the private lives of famous people that even the tiniest bit of totally useless information about them is readily available. In fact if you follow the right websites, magazines and TV programmes, you can have day to day update on what the celebrities are doing.

And lot of times even if you don’t want to know, you cannot avoid it. When Paris Hilton was released from prison last week, it created media frenzy; it was diligently covered by all the major networks. Some anchors even apologized for covering Paris Hilton before proceeding to talk about her. But every tiny, silly detail was covered right from the clothes she wore to what she ate to what kind of make up she had on.

So do we judge them on the basis of scandal, do we define them by their scandal, perhaps not all of us and not always, but its always there, it is there somewhere at the back of our mind.