Reviewing Trash So You Don't Have to

I am asking my readers not to get angry, but I picked up this week’s emStar/em magazine to read about the “Baby Battle’s” of the celebrities. I know that I should not be reading this trash but I am only doing so to keep the thinkers of the internet (my readers) up to date on current events in the world of trashy tabloids. Why is this important from a psychological standpoint? Because it shows us how celebrites manipulate the MSM (and vice versa) by using victimhood to get more publicity for their wilting careers–and we fall for it.br /br /Case in point. I discussed Terri Hatcher revealing to the media that she had been sexually abused as a child in a post entitled, “a href=”http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2006/03/is-this-really-breaking-news.html”Is this Really Breaking News/a?” This week’s emStar/em has a section called “In Out” that mentions that the new “In” is Terri Hatcher as the cover girl of emVanity Fair’s /emApril issue. The “Out” is Sheryl Crow, Lance Armstrong and Natalie Portman as emVF/em covers–Teri replaced them after revealing she had been sexually molested as a child. In the ema href=”http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/pressroom/”Vanity Fair /emarticle/a, Ms. Hatcher brings up her sexual abuse:br /br /blockquote”I didn’t intend to talk about this with you,” she tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Leslie Bennetts, “but it is something that’s been surfacing with me for the past three years. This is something I’ve tried to hide my whole life.” br /br /Hatcher tells Bennetts that, in 2002, when she learned that her uncle was arrested, she hesitated going public with her story of sex abuse, fearing that cynics might accuse her of using it to get attention and resuscitate an expiring career. But Hatcher found herself tormented by the thought of Sarah Van Cleemput, the young girl who had shot herself, and she was wracked with anxiety over whether Stone would be convicted. “I kept thinking, If she’d known me, especially me being famous, if I could have said to her, ‘Look, it happened to me!,’ if I could just have said to her, ‘You’re going to be O.K.’—I kept thinking, What do I do with this information I have that no one else has?”/blockquotebr /br /Well, if you really cared about being the altruistic helper you portray yourself as, you could have waited until Natalie Portman had her chance at the cover of emVanity Fair/em before you pushed her aside with your tale of woe. When we allow celebrities to use their status as a victim to sell books (a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074321689X/104-5197000-3067125?v=glancen=283155″Ann Heche/a), make the cover of magazines or gather other goodies, we cheapen the experience of other victims of abuse and reinforce the idea that victimhood pays–big time.