i agree w/ a lot of the comments here. the paparazzi need to get a grip – it’s just gotten way too out of hand the last few years and unfortunately, will probably only continue to get worse.

i think the biggest interest with michelle williams, and why the paps follow her around so much is because of matilda. i think people in general just want to know that she’s going to be okay. the world has sort of invested their feelings in the little precious girl ever since her daddy passed. but i think we’re all seen (by all the past paps pics) that she has a terrific mother in michelle and there should be no doubt, that that little girl is going to live as normal as a life as possible. i always say it because it’s so true, but hollywood moms out there need to take notes from michelle williams. THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT! truly and class act and so obvious, a doting, loving mother that is not concerned with buying her $100 dresses so she looks cute in people magazine photos, not going out there to all these celebrity events – just wants to do right by her daughter and does not ever lose focus of that.

i think this article says it all right here – speaks volumes about what a great mother she is – matilda is so lucky …

http://www.newsweek.com/id/170184

Marie – you do make some good points about the differences, but the choices Michelle (and if you want to go even further, Heath) has made have been ones that she has known will make her famous. It doesn’t matter whether this was her intention, she took on things she knew would come with fame (and personally, as a now-adult who grew up with Dawson’s Creek as the soundtrack to my teenage years, I’m really grateful she did!). Whether or not she is the so-called ‘actor’s actor’, doesn’t change her choices. This is no way justifies some of the things that she has been through because of the paps, but there’s no point in romanticising. If you read back over my posts on this thread, you will see how I feel so there’s no point in me going through it again (!), but having said that, I think if the paps and the fans and the industry and the media are to blame, it’s a bit of a dubious and somewhat glaring omission to leave out the celebrity at the centre of it all. Again, this doesn’t excuse the abuse (and yes, it is abuse) by some of the paps, but if the fans and blog readers are going to be accused of sourcing the interest, it’s not much of a stretch to acknowledge that the celebrity generates portions of the interest as well.

Marie- ITA!

Sally- I know exactly which article you’re referring to, and I highly recommend that you hop on over to pittwatch (if I’m allowed to do this, the link is: http://www.pittwatch.com). We’re having a very good discussion about that article over there (scroll down until you see “Discussion Topic: Angelina’s ‘Carefully Orchestrated Image’,), and some of the commentors there who share my views (which is quite a few of them!), can probably explain what I’ve been trying to say about Angie NOT courting the press better than I can!

All I’ll say here is that most of us readers/commentors over at pittwatch are upset by the article, disagree with it, and think it’s mostly a bunch of lies.

marie, beautifully written!

Probably the thing that strikes me most about this is the fact broad brush strokes applied to those, like Michelle Williams, who are in the public eye.

There are actors, there are singers, there are celebrities. Because each of these jobs involves playing to the public does not mean that all of the individuals who inhabit them want to be famous.

I have a friend, in London, who wants to be an actor. She’s been to drama school, she’s done some plays in fringe theatre and on the West End and a small film because acting is what feeds her soul. Just as writing is what feeds mine. She’s not an attention seeker, I’ve never had a conversation with her about fame or any of that nonesense, it’s an irrelevance in terms of her ambition, and I know that she just wants to step into the shoes of different characters, act her guts off, and work with interesting artists. It’s what she’s wanted all her life.

There is a possibility that if she became very well known at some point within the industry (which is all she’s hoping for) that that might translate to being publically well known but who knows? That’s something she can’t predict or control at this stage, because she doesn’t care about it and if it happens it’s only going to come from her work, not from her doing a Paris Hilton.

I can say that my friend is the actor’s actor, which is what you can sense Heath Ledger was and what Michelle Williams is: private people, perhaps also shy, who happen to love something that puts them in the public eye whereas most people end up in offices or schools or hospitals, the latter two especially with their own audiences but localised. A teacher of one school isn’t going to be known in the next, or at least probably not, anyway.

And for those who claim that acting means you can’t be shy…you’re not being yourself, you’re being somebody else.

The advent of ‘celebrity’ – a horrible, horrible misused word I think – during the 1990s and now in the 21st Century has changed things considerably. We no longer seem to be able to distinguish between ‘artist’ and ‘celebrity’ – sometimes, they can be one and the same, people who are artists but court celebrity in that they live their lives publically (not necessarily a negative thing, just the reality, like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith and their family who aren’t the retiring types). Then there are celebrities like Paris Hilton who clearly, and admittedly, always wanted to be famous.

And then, there are artists who are just that.

Sometimes, their work or, in the case of Michelle Williams it was both, events surrounding them that are outside of their control, captures peoples’ attention. But just because the term celebrity might now include them does not mean that they wanted it or expected it or are comfortable with it. Most will be realistic enough to know that it’s a possibility, but as only a tiny minority of actors succeed in acting for a living, the vast majority will choose (if they are given the opportunity) to be actors and, like my friend, never even think of the rest because how can you? Michelle Williams obviously did not choose to be a celebrity. She chose to be an actor and recent American films are all the better for it.

I know ‘celebrity’ is a hazard of the job sometimes, but I think we need to be honest with ourselves and recogise that there is a difference between Paris Hilton and Michelle Williams. It is a very sad situation if Michelle feels that things have gotten so out of hand that the only way to gain some normalcy for her child (her child!) is to step away from acting.

And that brings me to a further point which is that children are children and while some, again like the Smiths, are photographed with their parents consent and some (parents) don’t appear to mind much, but others are not and that should always always always be the prerogative of their parents. Just because you may be famous does not mean that you surrender your child as public property, or that if you give a few magazine photos, as the Jolie-Pitts have done, that it’s okay for someone to then spy on your children in the bath. Child protection, anyone?! Parental rights and consent?! In England, a school can’t even photograph its students at school events, for example, without written consent from parents.

No. There has to be a line that you do not ever cross. CBB does a fairly okay job in staying appropriate in what it writes, certainly, with quotes from interviews and blogs and interviews on the site, which I think is nice.

But back to the line you don’t cross… the paparazzi have clearly crossed it with Michelle Williams and her young daughter.

People are very unrealistic when they expect celebs not to have gripes about their jobs. I have never met ONE person who can’t find fault with at least one aspect of their profession, no matter how minor or major. As I have stated previously in regards to this topic, my husband has been employed in the same job for more than 16 years now. He loves it, and wouldn’t change it for the world. However, there are things about that he doesn’t like, aspects of it that he wishes were not so and that he wishes he could change. However, he is not quitting. He wouldn’t dream of it because for him the pleasure far outweigh the displeasures but he still has his gripes for sure. Nevertheless, never once has anyone suggested that my husband “quit” or “Just stop whining,” because his sentiments are normal are normal and very real. You just accept the good with the bad, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it. Celebs are no different. Just like the rest of us, there are going to be things about their jobs and profession that bugs the hell out of them (the paps and lack of privacy for starters.) Doesn’t mean they should quit what they obviously love to do. I am sure that each and every one of them are aware at this point of the sacrifices that they have to make to be a part of the Hollywood world, and just because they perks in most cases far outweigh the downside it doesn’t mean they are going to be any less annoyed with a bunch of photographers in their faces every where they turn. Like Michelle said, “How many pics of me with my child and a cup of coffee in my hand walking down the street do you need?” And it’s not just the pics, but the lengths that these guys go to in order to get these pics. And it’s also not just in Hollywood. I was in Toronto earlier this fall and you should have seen the paps (over 20 guys at least) and how they surrounded this coffee shop because Halle Berry was inside with Nahla. It was quite frightening to say the least, a bunch of guys screaming both Halle and Nahla’s name and flashing pics left and right. IN TORONTO!! One of the managers of the shop came out and tried to get some of the guys to leave because they were causing such a ruckus, to no avail. I couldn’t imagine having people follow me around like that or having people say, “Oh just suck it up” simply because I expressed my displeasure with the paps boorish behavior.

When I hear most celebrities complaining, it’s usually in relation to their children. We see a nice picture that we like… mama or dad holding the child. What we don’t see are the swarms of paparazzi surrounding them, screaming their names and practically knocking them down to get a shot.
I know Brad Pitt, among others, has begged photographers to use long range lenses so they aren’t right in the kids’ faces.
It’s not too much to ask, as a star, that your kids aren’t terrified.

Sally, I never said anything about us not being partly to blame, I believe we are in a liberal sense, but with that in mind, I think if you gave the majority of people who like looking at photos of Michelle and Matilda the choice of either seeing photos that were the result of harrassment or not seeing photos at all, any reasonable person would say none at all, myself included. Paps (and let’s be fair here, not all of them are awful) mustn’t hide behind the demand for photos as a justification for some of the tactics they use, and we mustn’t allow them to use us as a reason for it. With that in mind, the extremes they go to are ultimately their own responsibility. They should be controlled more by law and possibly, agencies shouldn’t deal with photos that are obtained in a manner likely to cause distress to celebrities (and more so their children). But this is a very difficult thing to regulate.

The bottom line is that this is an industry with all too many contributing factors, and unless there is an outright ban on pap photos of celebrities (something that will never happen universally), I don’t believe such a lucrative inductry could ever be restricted to a certain set of rules that would be deemed acceptable to all concerned.

So of course we are partially responsible for the interest, but I don’t believe that responsibility stretches to such a point that a celeb can point a finger and say ‘hey you there, fan person, you’re the reason my kid cried and was scared’.

I completely see where you’re coming from Sally, but I think if you’re suggesting that we are entirely to blame, that’s a bit much. I hope I made sense!

As far as Angelina NOT courting the press, read this article in the New York Times. She is smart and crafty but don’t for a moment think she is not in control of how the press views her and her family. The article is GREAT. Her and Michelle have really nothing in common in terms of their relationship with the press.

New York Times, Angelina Joie’s Carefully Orchestrated Image, 11/21/08
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21angelina.html?scp=2&sq=angelina%20jolie&st=cse