The love-hate affair

PURNIMA LAMCHANE / TNN / Jun 11, 2006, 19:29 IST

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What makes public anger at an errant celeb turn into sympathy? We on these emotion-ridden flip-flops.

What makes public anger at an errant celeb turn into sympathy? We on these emotion-ridden flip-flops.
Be it Sanjay Dutt, or Salman Khan or, now, even Rahul Mahajan. Public opinion swings from one extreme to the other. And it often forms the subject of an endless debate, specially when it comes to the rich and famous erring.
They break the law and the authorities swoop down on them - getting the thumbs up from the public. 'They're getting what they deserve,' is the general verdict. One day spent behind bars and the sympathy quotient swings dramatically in their favour. Then questions like, 'Why must they be given the treatment that's reserved for hardened criminals?' laced with an emotional tenor start doing the rounds.
Theatreperson Aamir Raza Hussain blames it on "our being a very middle-class country with a strong moral fibre. Celebs here enjoy a lot of adulation and affection. If a thikanedaar in Rajasthan shoots a black buck, nobody would bother, but if a Salman Khan does it, they create a hungama. And when he spends a day in jail, they start echoing the sentiments voiced by his friends and family - that he's not a bad guy after all."

People start feeling sorry the moment they see Rahul Mahajan wheeled out on a chair from the hospital. Why? "I'd feel sorry for anyone who's dependent on an outside source or substance to feel happy in life. For those whose 'back gear' refuses to work. And no, this has nothing to do with the fact that he or she is a celebrity," says theatreperson Sita Raina.
Former CBI chief Vijay Karan thinks it's a vicious circle "that's played up by the media - that again has to cater to the demands of the public." According to him, people derive "sadistic pleasure when those they considered top of the line are exposed. Soon, however, they start empathising with what he or she would be going through."

But, at the bottom of it all, he says, "people are getting fodder for some good gossip, even if it is at somebody else's expense." Adds mediaperson Rajat Sharma, "Indeed there's a large body of audience that changes its mind. But that's often because the media they've consumed has confused them. Once the dust settles down, that's when clarity and consistency take over."
BJP MLA from Saket Vijay Jolly too thinks that "the larger-than-life image these celebs come to assume often makes people crucify them initially. But soon, they're consumed by sympathy for anyone who's been troubled by the authorities."
Consultant psychiatrist Avdesh Sharma attributes this to the love-hate relationship we have with the celebs. "They have what we don't; they are what we'd like to become. When they get hauled up by the authorities then the part of us that hates them surfaces. That person becomes the epitome of all that's wrong in society," he says.
"And then, with the media doing its bit, we get caught in the process itself and become obsessed with all the details about that person. That's when the other part of our 'relationship' with the person starts - and we start seeing his softer, human, familial side.
Our emotional side takes over and adulation begins once again and we begin to feel protective about him. This is also a time when we actually start debating if he's being implicated unnecessarily," he says, calling it a subtle process "with no logic involved."
lucknow.times@timesgroup.com

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