Royal Bodies

Evidence from history proves that the Ancient Greek civilization was obsessed with Idols. From their superhuman strength to their unparallel beauty, mere mortals have gravitated towards images greater than they are. This holds as much truth today as it did four thousand years ago. In today’s culture, instead of praying to false Idols, we are obsessed with the idea of celebrity due to the impact that the media holds. The media, to be specific is obsessed with celebrity and vice versa; due to the power that each holds. When a magazine puts someone famous on its cover, people are more enticed to buy it.

Hilary Mantel dares to make the rather obvious point that the royal body is public property. She describes the Duchess as “becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung…, a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own.” Mantel states that it is important that the Duchess of Cambridge is young, pretty and now demonstrably fertile. She contrasts Kate’s all-important reliability to the tragically unstable egos of Marie Antoinette and Diana, Princess of Wales, writing that the Duchess “seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character.”

Living in a technological era, we have access to the tabloids more than ever before. There are television sets, magazine covers, Internet blogs, and movies screaming to be read and watched, and they are plastered with images of these tacky celebrities. Now, in an age where we have more contact with celebrity gossip than we have ever had, we are faced with a question: what are the effects that superstars have on our youth? Celebrities influence fans to be destructively thin, put harmful substances in their bodies, and many parents are concerned with the overall content these celebrities are putting on television, in movies, and over the Internet. Pop culture