celebrity gossip, academic style

If you’re in touch with the gossip world — or even with the pop culture world, or with your Yahoo! News feeds — you’ll have read that Perez Hilton made a very big announcement yesterday: he’s going to play nice. Stop bullying, stop calling names, stop drawing doodles to resemble crack and semen on celebrity’s faces. The announcement was made on Ellen, published in Out, and picked by everything from the The New York Times to Entertainment Weekly. You can watch the full Ellen interview below; you can read the full piece in Out here.

The basics: in recent weeks, Perez, who is gay, has spoken out about the rash of suicides by young, bullied, gay teens. He filmed his own testimony for Dan Savage’s amazing “It Gets Better” project; he’s used his blog to advocate for more compassion and less hate, especially towards GLBTQ youth. The suicides have also, according to Out, “made him reevaluate his own actions, which have often been portrayed as their own kind of bullying.” In other words: he’s going to stop bullying celebrities in his blog.

Here’s Perez, in his own words, explaining the decision:

It was me not viewing myself as a bully and viewing myself as a blogger — an entertainer — someone who talked about adults that chose to be in the public eye and all these justifications that I kept making for myself. In trying to raise awareness and do everything I possibly could to help the issue of bullying and teen suicides, I saw that so many people were calling me a hypocrite and calling me a big bully myself. And sure, it’s to be expected and OK that will be what some people think but it felt like that was what the majority of people were thinking. And if that’s the case, I want to change that because that’s not who I am or it’s not who I want to be. So, I need to take the steps to do things differently. I can’t be that which I’m criticizing in others. I can’t be that which I’m denouncing in others. And there is going to be a lot of skepticism and that’s OK because I deserve that. Time will tell and I’ve already begun this change. Like I said to Ellen — I’m not trying to lobotomize myself. I’m still going to be sassy and critical but there’s a different way I can do that. I don’t have to call people names. I don’t have to out people. I don’t have to draw inappropriate things on them. I don’t have to go for the cheap joke. I can still be critical and sassy and fun and funny and smarter and just do it in a different way that I can feel good about myself. Like I also said on Ellen — I want to be able to go to the rallies and marches and events within our community — like I have been and will continue to do — but I don’t want to feel like gay people are ashamed of me or embarrassed by me or thinking I’m hurting other gay people. That’s not who I am. That’s not my intention. I don’t want to hurt other gay people. I don’t want to hurt young gay kids.

(Photo from Out.com)

There have been two recurring reactions to this announcement: (1) he won’t stick to his word, because (2) it’s a publicity stunt. As several articles are keen to note, Perez is “a master at maximizing publicity for himself,” and this might be his own way of cashing in on the current cultural interest in bullying and the “It Gets Better” phenomenon. Even Ellen is oddly serious and dubious during his appearance — not only does she make it clear, before he even steps on stage, that she is *not* a fan of his site, but also holds no punches as she indicts him, and others like him, for the hurtful things that were said about her when she first came out and in years since. She does, however, think that people can change, and that’s why she agreed to have him on the show when he told her that he wanted to make the announcement.

So there are two things going on here. First of all, whether or not it is or is not *intended* as a publicity stunt, the fact is that it will, and already has, attracted attention, both for Perez and for the overall crusade against bullying. Perez will profit from this, either in terms of cultural or actual capital. But I don’t believe that the fact that someone profits, literally or figuratively, off of a “charitable” decision necessarily negates the good that that decision does. When George Clooney put together the telethon to benefit Haiti, it certainly benefitted his image, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t truly devoted to the cause.

I realize that it’s much easier to be cynical about Perez because he has been, by almost all account, an unmitigated ass. He makes fun of everyone; his stated morals and ethics are contradictory; he’s crass and in poor taste and brassy and frequently just annoying. But Perez Hilton is a celebrity, and like all celebrities, the “real” him, beneath the image, is a real person — a person named Mario Lavanderia. And Mario was teased himself for being gay, and had to navigate a truly cutthroat and unsympathetic industry, where he has been ridiculed for his weight, his looks, and his effeminate characteristics. At the risk of going armchair psychologist, most celebrity gossip columnists, both today and in the past, have been people who were never *quite enough* in show business — Hedda Hopper was a B-list star, so was Sheilah Graham. Louella Parsons was a frump. Rona Barrett was a short and ugly Jersey girl who was ridiculed constantly. The need to write snark about others comes from a place — one which many of us share — where our own insecurities hide and fester.

Celebrity gossip is, in many ways, rooted in bullying. We don’t usually call it that, because it makes it sound really ugly, but talking about the faults and failures of those who have succeeded — at being pretty, at being popular — whether they go to our high school or work next to us or appear on the movie screen, is our own way of venting frustrations. I remember, back in Sunday School, when my teacher told me that gossip was a sin. Now, I don’t believe that, even though “Celebrity Sin, Academic Style,” might be a great blog title. But it doesn’t always reveal our nicest, best selves.

What I’m trying to say is that I do think that Perez believes what he’s saying. He’s finally seen the link between how he wants to be treated — and how he wants all youth fighting to own their identities, whether gay or straight, to be treated — and the way he treats other people.

The problem, then, is that gossip is not about treating people with kid gloves. For that, we have People and Entertainment Tonight, which provide stories, but not gossip. Perez built his brand on snark — on providing an alternativeto the likes of People. As much as people like to complain about his style, over 2 million still go to his sight each month, whether because they love it or love to hate it. He’s changing, or at least going to attempt to change, his flavor, and hoping that people won’t want to spit it out.

I’m not betting on failure. Indeed, if he makes the change significant enough, he might attract gossip readers who genuinely do like their gossip nice — there are millions, most of them already subscribers to People and visiters to sites like “Celebrity Baby Blog.” Those who want snark can always find it at TMZ, or ONTD, or even, more intelligently, at Lainey. Over the last six years, Perez has amassed enough money to float him through any drops in traffic. And while I don’t think that all gossip should be without venom — it is, after all, a way of keeping celebrities accountable — I refuse to decry someone who wants to match his celebrity image, and its accompanying texts, with his own code of ethics.