January 03, 2005
Monday

Ketchikan, Alaska - Isn't it horrible? A celebrity is battling the crippling reality of anorexia. Another is boldly standing up to the unrelenting paparazzi. Yet another has had to deal with lactose intolerance her whole life. When other children were enjoying Trix cereal, she had to endure different breakfast items. She began to feel like an outcast, plummeting into depression and considering suicide.

Joseph Branco & son Wesley

If you are like me, you must be just thanking your lucky stars that you are a normal American able to live life free of problems or difficulties. Life is so easy for us normal Americans with our Norman Rockwell families, comfortable and fair career advancements, and simplistic lives sheltered from the evils of the world.

I have finally grown tired of the mind-numbing TV specials, flaky documentaries, and idiotic feature stories of celebrities and their pathetic problems. It is always the same routine. Some stick thin model type with her otherwise perfect body, fair skin, luscious hair, professional make-up, and designer clothes is weeping about her battle with self image. This charade and the mediums that broadcast it is an absolute insult to hard working Americans. We all deal with life's real problems, some more than others. We deal with challenges like making ends meet, nurturing our children, and dealing with other complicated problems without the comfort of an endless money supply.

I have no problem with becoming a celebrity on the merit of one's talents. I also have no problem with financially successful people. But asking the American people to shed a tear for the struggles celebrities have faced is disgusting and would be like me complaining about a paper cut to a stab victim. I have personally faced and overcome more interesting and notable challenges in my life. Where is my two hour special?

Can you imagine these celebrities telling the people in third world countries of their battles with anorexia, paparazzi, or having to sit in coach once? These celebrities should be embarrassed by their own nerve.

Perhaps some celebrity will take offense to this column and, during a Dateline exclusive, sob about how degraded they felt and how my article sent them into a depression and a year long downward spiral into drugs and prostitution.

With celebrity-dome there is always a justifiable reason behind their actions, no matter how absurd or inappropriate. This immature justification of often illegal activity is supplemented with the fact that celebrities never have the burden of being held legally responsible for these actions. The result is a class of people with the maturity level of five year olds who are not punishable and can buy any toy they want. These are the people our children look up to.

So before you write out that check to help aid in the Tsunami relief, remember that we have celebrities in our own country with self image issues.

 

Jospeh Branco ©2005
All Rights Reserved

Post a Comment         View Comments
Submit an Opinion - Letter

Sitnews
Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska