Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > General > The Lounge > This is a weird question.

[fire_of_avalon]

And I don't know if it belongs here or in EoEO, but I'll ask it here anyways.

A lot of celebrities, musicians especially, while admitting they obviously lead lives that are more touched by privlege and wealth than the majority of people, have also often lamented their lots in life. This isn't seen so much by film and television stars, but is fairly prevalent in the music industry. While I can't really name what I believe to be the first song discussing the hardships of being a rock star, several famous ones spring to mind. Turn the Page by Bob Seger, Highway Song by Blackfoot, and several songs released by the band Three Doors Down discuss how hard travelling, fame and separation can be for musicians who have hit it big.

Given this idea, but also keeping in mind the huge amounts of wealth and the rarity of the experience, do you believe musicians or any other celebrity has any reason to complain about their lives? Should they simply take responsibility for it because they brought it on themselves, or do they really have something to be pitied for?

A lot of people I know or pass by who are interested in celebrity gossip are typically very hard hearted when it comes to apparent turmoil in the life of a celebrity. Is this jealousy? Is it deserved?

My ultimate question, I guess, is are celebrities people too? Can you take their apparent talents, their wealth, their experience out of the equation and see them as average people, or are they always "different?"

[Martyr]

Lifestyles of the rich and the famous. They're always companining.
If money is such a problem, well, they've got mansions. I think we should rob them.

[theundeadhero]

Having what they have doesn't make them any less human. As much as complaining doesn't really help anybody, they have just as much right to it as anyone else. I can symphasize with them. No matter what you do being away from home is being away from home. Being sad because you don't have a special someone else is felt just as strongly by rockstars as the janitor at McDonalds. Feeling helpless about things being out of your control is just as frustrating in any situation. What they have doesn't take any of that, or any or example, away. It doesn't make any of it easy to fix either.

[Rainecloud]

Even a Bible celebrity had his woes. I'm not a scholar of all things Biblical, but I have heard of good ol' King Solomon saying that all his wealth was "like the chaff" and was "like striving after the wind", which means that it was all completely pointless and didn't bring him happiness at all.

Even back then, the celebrities were ungrateful sods.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Not needing to worry about money just gives them more time to worry about their relationships with the people around them. Furthermore, those relationships are often automatically skewed for the worse due to their wealth and fame and overall unusual position in society.

[The Devil Man]

Originally Posted by fire_of_avalon ^

And I don't know if it belongs here or in EoEO, but I'll ask it here anyways.

A lot of celebrities, musicians especially, while admitting they obviously lead lives that are more touched by privlege and wealth than the majority of people, have also often lamented their lots in life. This isn't seen so much by film and television stars, but is fairly prevalent in the music industry. While I can't really name what I believe to be the first song discussing the hardships of being a rock star, several famous ones spring to mind. Turn the Page by Bob Seger, Highway Song by Blackfoot, and several songs released by the band Three Doors Down discuss how hard travelling, fame and separation can be for musicians who have hit it big.

Given this idea, but also keeping in mind the huge amounts of wealth and the rarity of the experience, do you believe musicians or any other celebrity has any reason to complain about their lives? Should they simply take responsibility for it because they brought it on themselves, or do they really have something to be pitied for?

A lot of people I know or pass by who are interested in celebrity gossip are typically very hard hearted when it comes to apparent turmoil in the life of a celebrity. Is this jealousy? Is it deserved?

My ultimate question, I guess, is are celebrities people too? Can you take their apparent talents, their wealth, their experience out of the equation and see them as average people, or are they always "different?"

I am a little confused by your reference to musicians.

Are you talking about musicians who talk about their hard life in their songs?

Or... in general?

If it's general then I really have no sympathy for celebrities and their tough life. Because they usually talk about their 'hard life' either when they have a new movie coming out, when they have an auto-biography about to be released, when work has dried up and no one is interested in them anymore so they need to say something to keep the public interested, or when they have some crap TV show to promote.

I only really admire the old celebrities who didn't complain and simply got on with it, people like Lee Marvin, James Coburn, Telly Savalas, Cary Grant... real people with tough lives and backgrounds, who simply made their own way in life.

[fire_of_avalon]

I mean celebrities in general. I was just using musicians because I was listening to Highway Song and because it's easier to relate to being on the road a lot. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so specific.

[Martyr]

Originally Posted by theundeadhero ^

Having what they have doesn't make them any less human. As much as complaining doesn't really help anybody, they have just as much right to it as anyone else. I can symphasize with them. No matter what you do being away from home is being away from home. Being sad because you don't have a special someone else is felt just as strongly by rockstars as the janitor at McDonalds. Feeling helpless about things being out of your control is just as frustrating in any situation. What they have doesn't take any of that, or any or example, away. It doesn't make any of it easy to fix either.

Having a lot of money makes an easy fix for a lot of things though.

The situation at hand here is that celebrities are famous so they think they deserve the sympathy of the world because they can't find love or maybe they're overworked.

NEWSFLASH: If you are trying to get rich, you're going to be overworked. If you worked normally to become rich, then everybody would be rich!

2ndFlash! EVERYBODY has problems with love and life and the universe and family and what-the-f-ever else. Cry me a river. I've got my own problems.

The only thing celebrities have a legitimate right to complain about is the fact that they're targets for theft, assassination, and the far more common PAPPARAZZI.
But that's a side effect of their job. If you're a machinist, you are often the target of many lung diseases or maybe stray shards of steel that can pass through your eyes and blind you... Whatever.
We all know what we're getting into. And if we didn't research, well, we're into it. No turning back, right?

I can understand that they have problems. We all do. But they have a lot of money to help them with most of their problems. I mean, they can keep their kids from going away for 5 years for a unique arson charge that involves... Well, nevermind that.

Bottom Line:

If you're looking for sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between and Syphillis.

Edit by Kishi: Don't circumvent the filters.