A recent piece by Ilona Burton at The Independent caught my attention. She gives a good finger wagging to those who decry the pro-ana sites as the cause of the eating disorder problem. And in general she criticizes the critics of celebrity culture as the source of all evil.
As we've argued elsewhere, blaming celebrities is a total cop-out. Those with eating disorders make their own decisions. Sites that are pro-ana are not some simple cause of the problem. Indeed, they are as much a symptom as a cause. Pop culture history is full of foolishness about how music or movies or comic books were the purveyors of evil and social decay.
Such ridiculous attitudes go right back to ancient Athens, where none other than Plato fretted over the corrupting influence upon Athenian youth of theater and poetry. Throughout the ages the same theme appears over and over again. The explosion of 20th century mass communication media has though really thrown open the flood gates for this kind of pop culture blame-game.
The jaundiced eye of some social commentators regarded the swing music of the 1940s as a morally corrosive force, which ultimately would undermine the character of the soldiers necessary to carry out the war effort. (The same crazy swing dancing youth who, decades after the end of the war, would be celebrated as The Great Generation?) In the 40s and 50s comic books were accused of breeding an alleged epidemic of youth violence and juvenile delinquency. Television shows refused to show Elvis Presley's swiveling hips, for fear of feeding the frenzied libidinal blackness of his music: it suggested things dark and immoral. Meanwhile teenage girls continued to swoon.
By the 60s, television itself was rotting the nation's brains and the corrupting influence of the Beatles was widely discussed. This included allegations that their music promoted the use of psychedelic drugs. The Beatle-mania-backlash culminated in mass bonfires of their records, following a rather innocent remark by John Lennon. By the 70s, disco music was supposedly ripping at the fabric of sexual mores and common decency.
The 1980s brought us left-wing feminists claiming that pornography created rapists and right-wing moralists claiming that heavy metal music caused Satanism. And the 90s saw new panics about rap music promoting criminality, rave fatalities and the recent World Wide Web turning people into computer screen dazed anti-social zombies wasting away in their basements.
It's the same old story, over and over again. Mass media and pop culture get blamed for it all: apathy and violence, conformism and deviancy. Who could be surprised than that it is now widely blamed for both anorexia and obesity? Nothing new under the sun and all that!
At the core of all this is a resolute refusal to either take responsibility for one's own actions or to accept that other's (including those we love) can choose actions that we find disturbing, despairing and destructive. Invariably, of course, such passing of the blame leads to all sorts of exaggeration and distortion. Even if that were not the case, though, the core issue would still confront us.
Each one of us is uniquely responsible for what we do, with our own lives, and in response to the choices of our loved ones. Turning others into our punching bags or scapegoats may provide some momentary relief from the burden of personal responsibility. It ultimately solves nothing, though. The celebrities of stage, screen and runway, are easy targets, but that can't (even if they wanted to) make anyone choose how to live.
It is up to us to take responsibility for their own choices and actions, including our interaction with and care for our loved ones. To blame popular culture is conjure dragons of the mind, in need of magical feats. If someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder better to squarely face reality than escape in to the magical thinking of blaming the media.
Otherwise, we may indeed conjure up a straw man to beat out all that anger, disappointment and fear. No solution to the suffering of us or our loved ones though comes from conquering make-believe dragons. That requires confronting the real problems - and finding real solutions.
As we've argued elsewhere, blaming celebrities is a total cop-out. Those with eating disorders make their own decisions. Sites that are pro-ana are not some simple cause of the problem. Indeed, they are as much a symptom as a cause. Pop culture history is full of foolishness about how music or movies or comic books were the purveyors of evil and social decay.
Such ridiculous attitudes go right back to ancient Athens, where none other than Plato fretted over the corrupting influence upon Athenian youth of theater and poetry. Throughout the ages the same theme appears over and over again. The explosion of 20th century mass communication media has though really thrown open the flood gates for this kind of pop culture blame-game.
The jaundiced eye of some social commentators regarded the swing music of the 1940s as a morally corrosive force, which ultimately would undermine the character of the soldiers necessary to carry out the war effort. (The same crazy swing dancing youth who, decades after the end of the war, would be celebrated as The Great Generation?) In the 40s and 50s comic books were accused of breeding an alleged epidemic of youth violence and juvenile delinquency. Television shows refused to show Elvis Presley's swiveling hips, for fear of feeding the frenzied libidinal blackness of his music: it suggested things dark and immoral. Meanwhile teenage girls continued to swoon.
By the 60s, television itself was rotting the nation's brains and the corrupting influence of the Beatles was widely discussed. This included allegations that their music promoted the use of psychedelic drugs. The Beatle-mania-backlash culminated in mass bonfires of their records, following a rather innocent remark by John Lennon. By the 70s, disco music was supposedly ripping at the fabric of sexual mores and common decency.
The 1980s brought us left-wing feminists claiming that pornography created rapists and right-wing moralists claiming that heavy metal music caused Satanism. And the 90s saw new panics about rap music promoting criminality, rave fatalities and the recent World Wide Web turning people into computer screen dazed anti-social zombies wasting away in their basements.
It's the same old story, over and over again. Mass media and pop culture get blamed for it all: apathy and violence, conformism and deviancy. Who could be surprised than that it is now widely blamed for both anorexia and obesity? Nothing new under the sun and all that!
At the core of all this is a resolute refusal to either take responsibility for one's own actions or to accept that other's (including those we love) can choose actions that we find disturbing, despairing and destructive. Invariably, of course, such passing of the blame leads to all sorts of exaggeration and distortion. Even if that were not the case, though, the core issue would still confront us.
Each one of us is uniquely responsible for what we do, with our own lives, and in response to the choices of our loved ones. Turning others into our punching bags or scapegoats may provide some momentary relief from the burden of personal responsibility. It ultimately solves nothing, though. The celebrities of stage, screen and runway, are easy targets, but that can't (even if they wanted to) make anyone choose how to live.
It is up to us to take responsibility for their own choices and actions, including our interaction with and care for our loved ones. To blame popular culture is conjure dragons of the mind, in need of magical feats. If someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder better to squarely face reality than escape in to the magical thinking of blaming the media.
Otherwise, we may indeed conjure up a straw man to beat out all that anger, disappointment and fear. No solution to the suffering of us or our loved ones though comes from conquering make-believe dragons. That requires confronting the real problems - and finding real solutions.
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Follow us for all the scoop on all manner of controversies over Celebrities with Eating Disorders . Mickey Jhonny is a reliable source of thought provoking and stimulating writing on popular culture. If you're a fan of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, his piece tearing off the cover of its hidden inspiration is an absolute must read.
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