I do not believe in celebrities. Since I've used Brad Pitt as an example before, we might as well stick with him. I don't believe in Brad Pitt; I don't believe he exists. As I understand it, most people believe something like the following: there is an actor named Brad Pitt who has played a number of fictional characters in films. That's not all they believe, they also may think that he is a very attractive man, has had relationships with several famous actresses, etc.
Here's what I think: There's a guy originally named (evidently) William Pitt, born not far from where I live in Oklahoma, who not only plays fictional characters in films, he also plays a fictional character named Brad Pitt, who is a movie actor, is very attractive, etc. "Brad Pitt" is just as fictional as Achilles or Benjamin Button. The belief that "Brad Pitt" is real is a confusion not much different from thinking that the characters on a soap opera are real people.
Here's an example: Various publications have, at various times, named Brad Pitt something like "the sexiest man alive." This is based, in part, on surveys in which people have said that they believe that BP is the sexiest man alive. Now, the vast majority of these people have never met the man, much less had a sexual interaction with him. So how do they know he's sexy? Primarily, I would guess, on the basis of how he looks in movies and publicity photos, although it could also be based on how he moves, things he has said, etc.
Now, all of this information is highly edited, retouched, scripted, etc. In other words, when you see a picture or video of Brad Pitt, it's very likely not an accurate image of William Pitt. Same goes for his movements, his speech. William has agents, make-up artists, publicists who help him to play Brad Pitt. So when people judge BP to be sexy, they are talking about an image, not a person. No one has ever had sex with Brad Pitt. (Feel free to weigh in Angelina, if you disagree-my guess is you sleep with a man, not an image).
People who believe in celebrities believe that the image is the same thing as the person. Thus they believe that there are people on this earth who stand above the rest of us, they are at once people and something beyond the level of a person. These celebrities have a kind of perfection the rest of us can't match.
Does this confusion do any harm? Why bother to be a celebrity atheist? I'm going to talk about that in my next post, but meanwhile just think about how many people you know who want to be celebrities or want to meet celebrities, or spend hours and hours reading and thinking about celebrities. The objects of all that activity are imaginary, they are just fictions. So essentially all these folks are spending a significant proportion of their time in a fantasy that they think is real. Don't psychologists regard that as a rather serious symptom in some contexts?
Peter G. Stromberg is the author of Caught in Play: How Entertainment Works on You. Photo by BDunnette.
