When I was very young, I went to see "The Way We Were" starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford. I'm going to be honest and say that for two years I collected bits and pieces on Redford out of magazines and watched as many movies he was in as I could on TV (some of them were not great, I can tell you, but I watched them nevertheless). I even persuaded my parents to take me to the Drive-In to see a repeat screening of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid - the sound came through a little box placed in our car window and we watched the movie through the foggy windscreen. I forgot all about Redford as time went by until I saw him in a film with Brad Pitt some years ago in which he played a father figure (well, that's what it seemed). Name of movie? I can't remember. Once upon a time I could have told you everything about it. At that time, there were no videos, DVDs and there was certainly no internet. I don't believe there was a fanbase.....well not one that I ever found out about.
Last year, one of our daughters played the role of Marian in the local youth theatre production of Robin Hood. Coincidentally, Series 1 of the BBC production of Robin Hood began to be aired at this time on ABC television starring Jonas Armstrong, Lucy Griffiths, Richard Armitage and Keith Allen. A few months later, the Vicar of Dibley Christmas specials (I am a particular fan of the Vicar given my connections with church people) were shown on the ABC. These Xmas episodes featured Geraldine finally falling in love and marrying a "Handsome Stranger" who was played by Richard Armitage (AKA Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood). Once upon a time, we would have seen these shows on TV and that would have been the end of it. My daughter however had the Robin Hood Series 1 DVDs and I had the Vicar DVDs which meant that we were bombarded with the characters and actors from all sides. I confess, interest in the actors does occasionally happen, and a brief internet search elicited a number of fansites for all actors concerned along with the Internet Movie Database, YouTube and Wikipedia which provided all sorts of information. Most of it was very innocent and harmless but I was astonished at the number of message boards I found and the number of people chatting to one another about their favourite actor. Some fansites were beautifully presented with features on every aspect of the actors' work. There were others however, that made me feel a little uncomfortable - message threads drifted from discussion of movie roles and characters to more personal discussions on actors' private lives. Confining expressions of enthusiasm for actors' works on a board drifted into actual letter writing and attempted contact with the actors. Watching the actors on the screen drifted into trying to see them in real life. So, what are the appropriate boundaries for fans? When does appropriate behaviour become inappropriate behaviour? When does interest become obsession? When does healthy fun become unhealthy? Is there a happy medium?
I can tell you that now I have mentioned the names of several actors (particularly one) in this post, my statistics for hits will increase. Most hits will be from search engines which I can only assume have been set up to trawl the internet for mention of the actor's name. Apologies to LOTR fans, but I could not help but make the comparison of Frodo placing the Ring on his finger and by doing so, incurring the scrutiny from the "Eye of Sauron", with me mentioning a certain actor's name on this blog, and by doing so, incurring scrutiny from search engines which I can only assume have been set up by fans trawling the internet for any mention of news of that actor. This, I believe, is not an official "trawl" for news stories; I don't believe the people initiating the searches are paid. So, when does an interest become an obsession? When does fandom become unhealthy? Fans have always been around but media and the internet make the objects of fandom so much more accessible.
I first came across the term "Celebrity Worship Syndrome" by reading a post over at a blog whose author has a wealth of experience working with fanbases. The phenomenon of "Celebrity Worship Syndrome" was described by Maltby et al in 2003. A recent article written by them entitled "Praying at the Altar of the Stars" can be found here.
"imagine, if you have to, that you are a diehard fan of a famous individual. How much of your life is spent thinking about that individual? How much money have you spent on him or her (concert tickets, books, travel, souvenirs and other merchandising)? How important is it to your identity that you are a fan of that person? How would you feel if that person did something bad and it became embarrassing to be associated with them?" (Giles, D. & Maltby, J. (2006): "Praying at the Altar of the Stars", The Psychologist, Vol 19, Part 2.)
Maltby et al identified 3 dimensions of celebrity worship:
"1.Entertainment-social. Fans are attracted to a favourite celebrity because of their perceived ability to entertain and to become a source of social interaction and gossip. Items include ‘My friends and I like to discuss what my favourite celebrity has done’ and ‘Learning the life story of my favourite celebrity is a lot of fun’.
2.Intense-personal. The intense-personal aspect of celebrity worship reflects intensive and compulsive feelings about the celebrity, akin to the obsessional tendencies of fans often referred to in the literature. Items include ‘My favourite celebrity is practically perfect in every way’ and ‘I consider my favourite celebrity to by my soul mate’.
3. Borderline-pathological. This dimension is typified by uncontrollable behaviours and fantasies about their celebrities. Items include ‘I would gladly die in order to save the life of my favourite celebrity’ and ‘If I walked through the door of my favourite celebrity’s house she or he would be happy to see me’."
(Giles, D. & Maltby, J. (2006): "Praying at the Altar of the Stars", The Psychologist, Vol 19, Part 2.)
One of the scales used in these studies was developed by McCutcheon, Lange and Houran in 2002 and is called the Celebrity Attitude Scale with 34 items to be answered by respondents. It can be found here or here.. Scoring method is outlined at the bottom of the survey. Item scores are added for each category and % calculated. eg. Entertainment social = total score for specified items/35 x 100.
Now before I start getting brick bats thrown at me from the internet fanbases - I am not implying that fans should not indulge in harmless fun chatting away on message boards and talking about favourite movies/shows - I do it myself.....but when thimgs go too far and the boundary from social entertainment to intense personal is crossed.......
