‘Society’s expectations of celebrity have been drastically devalued, if not actually turned on their head’

ON the face of it celebrity should be a wondrous thing.

A celebrity should be able to rejoice in the fact that he or she is an object of celebration. He or she will be living a life of which we, the uncelebrated, should be envious and for which we, the unrenowned, should be glad.

When I was young there were people who were described as ‘the celebrated’ poet, author, politician, scientist, athlete.

Derek Ibbotson and Anita Lonsbrough were our local heroes. They lived, so far as we could tell, quiet lives free of scandal and outrage. They were modest, the best at what they did, and were celebrated for that and that alone.

Harold Wilson was a celebrity. He was a local lad made good. Though there was, in later years, some trail of sulphur involving New Year Honours and the Soviet Connection, he remained our very own celebrity to the end.

There was an unspoken rule that these people were real celebrities, and that film and pop stars, whose glamour was indisputable, were, nevertheless, the froth and trivia of modern life. They got the red carpet treatment, but it was a bit of a joke, a bit of a game.

The word celebrity seemed at one time to indicate a kind of value in an individual, and that value in turn reflected on what society considered valuable and important.

Modern dictionaries puncture this bubble. They don’t support my theory of merit. They describe a celebrity indiscriminately as a well- known person, someone who is famous, from the Latin celebritas, a crowd or a festival.

They are people who are known by large numbers of other people; simple as that. No merit, no noble attributes required.

There is a lingering feeling among my generation that we have been cheated by today’s notion of celebrity and the icons it throws up.

We look at Kate Moss, Pete Docherty, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and can’t help feeling that their failings and misdemeanours are being ‘celebrated’ and that society’s expectations of celebrity have been drastically devalued, if not actually turned on their head.

If we could introduce a little ethical colour and separate people who were celebrated for their exceptional talent or goodness from those who were celebrated for being plonkers, drug addicts and criminals it would adjust the balance a little.

We could call the former lot celebrities and the latter notorieties.

Jerome Kerviel, the trader who lost his bank, Societe General, $7.2bn, is a huge hero, a celebrity, because he caused his employees worldwide embarrassment last month.

He’s had proposals of marriage. He’s a celebrity, but he should be a notoriety.

Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer are convicts and must therefore be notorieties, not celebrities. Neil and Christine Hamilton, who have avoided criminal conviction repeatedly, also consider themselves to be celebrities, though one is hard-pressed to think how or why.

Soap actors are ‘stars’. Footballers and rugby players – even if they play for Huddersfield – are ‘stars’.

People who write, play and/or sing popular songs are ‘stars’. People with huge chests, like Jane Goody and Katie Price – Jordan - are ‘stars’.

Football and rugby players’ wives and girlfriends are stars, with their own little niche, the Wag niche, in the celebrity hierarchy.

A great swathe of us is keen to know where these people buy their jewellery, handbags and toilet paper so that we can do the same.

We can’t be David or Victoria Beckham, and we certainly can’t have their cash or lifestyle. But perhaps if we have the same piercing or tattoo or thong some of their glamour and glitter will come fluttering down from above and rest on us.

Magazines such as Hello and OK make a fortune from these sad cravings. But if we’re honest there are few who can resist a peek at one of these celebrity magazines if we have a moment to kill in a doctor’s surgery or a dentist’s waiting room?

We envy these celebrities, even though we know we shouldn’t. After all, what are they? Who do they think they are?

Leaving aside the ethics, what exactly is a 21st century celebrity?

Well, they are generally better-looking and richer than us proles. You can be an ugly or ageing celebrity only if you have pots of dosh. You can be handsome or pretty and have no cash at all, just a loud voice and brash manner.

You have no need to be nice to people or to behave well in public. You don’t have to be a hero or heroine; in fact, this positively hinders your rise into celebrity status.

My many years in journalism have led me into the presence of quite a number of celebrities, and it is true that they adopt a kind of mantle, a presence that isn’t quite charisma, just a subtle (or in some cases not so subtle) awareness of their own importance.

The public buy into this by acting all shy, by laughing at their jokes, asking for their autographs, that sort of thing. After a little while I expect, celebrities begin to feel they really are important.

I have fallen for this time and time again. I have written things like: “(She) turns out to be a really decent, down-to-earth person with a ripe, self-deprecating sense of humour,” as if the alternative might be that (she), as a celebrity, is some kind of deity who has deliberately set out to remain a regular human being.

What was I expecting?

A revealing party game is to ask each guest in turn to describe their dealings with a well-known celebrity, a ‘star’, a personality. Once you get going there’s hardly a person in the room who isn’t bursting to tell everybody an embroidered version of how they ‘met’ one.

The truth is that we can’t help ourselves. We all want to make a mark on the world. Most of us don’t.

We admire those who do, even if it’s for the wrong reason, or, more likely these days, no reason at all.