I am a girl who would tell you that she loves gossip magazines, celebrity blogs, red carpet glam shows, L.A. star sightings and the general mental escape that comes with dreaming about a lavish life in Hollywood.
I’m not an actress or a singer. I’m not going to produce a movie or a win a million dollar game show. I’m not going to run away with an heir or inherit a fortune. What I’m saying is that basically there’s zero chance this will ever actually be my real life. It’s just fun way to fantasize and shut your brain off during the day. Getting engulfed in who’s dating who and which train wreck checked themselves into rehab this week is a nice way to pass the time.
Even in my career, I’d like to think of myself as somewhat of a pop-culture know-it-all . In fact, many of my most exciting media wins have been on Perez Hilton, TMZ, Access Hollywood, Extra and the like.
However, I’d just like to point out, that I am still in touch with reality. I understand that Hollywood A, B, C or even D-Listers who throw themselves in ‘the scene’ are generally fake, superficial, unhappy people who don’t have the great life they would like you to think they do. So, I get it, it’s fun to imagine – but not a life I’d want.
Cut to this week’s issue of People Magazine (a publication, by the way, that I like and respect) – Heidi Montag is on the cover talking about how she’s obsessed with plastic surgery and looking like a completely different (deformed) person than when she first appeared on TV. In fact, throughout the entire day today, I’ve seen this story mentioned everywhere from the taxi cab to CNN. But it wasn’t until I bought the magazine and read the article that I truly realized – this girl is sick.
I mean really sick. Ill. In the head. She’s gone off her rocker. And not just her, because like she said herself, there are a million other girls in Hollywood and elsewhere just like her and that do the same thing - they just don’t talk about it. That ‘same thing’ she’s referring to is having ten – yes, ten – plastic surgery procedures in one day. (Did I mention she’s 23 years old?)
This girl is from a small town in Colorado and was seemingly normal when the world first met her. She came to L.A. and starred in a reality show. From there, she clearly developed what can only be clinically diagnosed as body dismorphia via watching herself on TV and listening to negative media feedback about her looks. She said that bloggers would literally circle her face and claim she had a ‘Jay Leno chin.’ So she stopped smiling.
But the REALLY scary thing is she doesn’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, now, she sees herself as a newer, better, more ‘upgraded’ version of herself and is on a mission to look ‘perfect.’
I’m not going to repeat everything this girl said from her hospital bed and in her out-patient recovery headquarters, but I swear, that article changed me. It seriously changed me.
It made me sad for what this world is like and scared to have a daughter living in it one day. It made me overwhelmed because if God does bless me with a daughter, how can I even explain this repulsive cultural attitude to her when I barely understand it myself. It made me feel sorry for her parents who are reading about their daughter in People Magazine (after all, she told them she was ill for seven weeks but not that she was recovering from an Extreme Clone Makeover.)
But most of all, it made me feel like complete shit for perpetuating the problem (no need to say I told you so, Cisco). I read Perez Hilton every day – and guaranteed that’s the guy who circled her chin. I wanted to move out to Hollywood because it was shiny and flawless. I TiVo Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Girls Next Door and The Millionaire Matchmaker. I used to lose my shit when I saw a celebrity on the street (on the inside of course). I followed Britney Spears’s meltdown and hoped she got better, while watching her E! True Hollywood story . And guess what? I’ve even looked at Heidi Montag before and thought ‘she’s not even pretty.’
I’m being completely honest here and it’s making me sick – but it’s true. Now, not only do I feel nothing but pity for people like Heidi, but I also feel it’s people like me who encourage her behavior. I can’t stand that at all.
To that end, I hope Heidi Montag doesn’t sell one album, get one more contract extension on The Hills or make another paid personal appearance that adds to her bank account. Not just because she has absolutely no talent - but because no young girl deserves to be her fan.
So I’m going to make a promise to myself today. I won’t be unrealistic and say I’ll never read a gossip blog again, but I will say they are not my bible. I’m cleaning out my DVR and most importantly, I’m focusing on things in life that I think are beautiful because they’re real – not because they’re ‘perfect.’
Lastly, I know what you’re thinking: Will I still read People Magazine? Of course I will. Because in reality, that story needed to be told.
