It's about time someone said it: paparazzi are artists and heroes
Paparazzi are heroes, essential workers on the front lines of pop culture. Of course, no one ever thinks of them this way. Instead, they just get blamed for things like Britney Spears' nervous breakdown and killing Princess Diana. Paparazzi didn't kill Princess Diana, you did. Sure, not you specifically, but you in the collective sense. The value for the work paparazzi do only exists because the demand does. It's like blaming the employee at the tobacco shop for the vaping epidemic.
Paparazzi don't even get credit for their iconic contributions to pop culture. Tell me who shot influential works of art like the famous 'Bimbo Summit' photo of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in the back of a car, or that picture of Kirsten Dunst eating salad while Jake Gyllenhaal looks on, disgusted. No one knows! The credit usually just goes to some vague agency with a name like Backgrid or X17. Meanwhile, 'Bimbo Summit' is on t-shirts and the photographer doesn't even see a cut. In fact, they're probably still in hiding from all the people who yell 'Princess Di killer' at them.
And this is at a time when paparazzi aesthetics have become shorthand for internet cool. For their recent album I Quit, pop band Haim did an entire series of singles covers recreating famous paparazzi shots: Nicole Kidman, arms outstretched post-divorce from Tom Cruise; Scarlett Johansson and Jared Leto mid lip-lock; Keira Knightley and Jamie Dornan in boot cut jeans and scarves. All across Instagram, the selfie is dead but the pap pic – generally involving celebrities walking, on yachts, or frolicking on beaches – thrives. No one wants to praise a paparazzo, but everyone wants to jack their style.
Paparazzi are ingenious like cartoon coyotes. Songwriter Benny Blanco once told me that, when he was recording Circus with Britney Spears, paparazzi took shifts hiding in the bushes outside the studio waiting for the pop star to pop up. In Jeff Weiss' entertaining new book Waiting For Britney, a gonzo memoir told from inside the bowels of mid-'00s tabloid culture, he recalls the time he and his photographer dressed like security bouncers and managed to sneak backstage at Britney's infamous MTV VMAs meltdown. When he describes his attempts at securing the first pics of Angelina Jolie sunbaking at Brad Pitt's cliffside mansion following Pitt's split from Jennifer Aniston, you'll finally understand what it means to be dedicated to one's work.
The paparazzi have also often inspired their targets to create their best work, like Britney Spears' Piece of Me, Taylor Swift's Reputation and Lady Gaga's Paparazzi (obviously). Just last month, they rejuvenated the career of Justin Bieber, who slagged off some cameraman who was following him at the beach by yelling the now iconic phrase 'It's not clocking to you that I'm standing on business?', a tirade that reignited Bieber's muse and became the basis of his successful comeback album, Swag. Considering her increasingly contentious relationship with photographers, it's clear Chappell Roan 's next album is going to be the greatest masterpiece ever recorded.
Even those with the barest understanding of celebrity culture understand the mutually beneficial relationship between paparazzi and publicity machines, that one hand feeds the other with that most significant currency of our era: attention. Paparazzi are the only attention-seekers I can get behind.
Even their singular noun is cool: paparazzo, stemming from the Italian words 'papa' meaning 'dad' and 'razzo' meaning 'rocket'. Dad rocket. If this sounds wrong, just know my grandmother was Sicilian. Unlike Stanley Tucci, whose family is Calabrian. Look, I only ended on this weird fact so I could somehow tie this all back to The Devil Wears Prada 2, which I think I just did.
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It's about time someone said it: paparazzi are artists and heroes
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