The Public Who Knew Too Much

England’s greatest love story is over. Jordan and Peter have announced their split, with the former fleeing to the Maldives and the latter seeking refuge with family in Cyprus. Jordan hasn’t officially commented, she is, by her own admission, keeping quiet on the matter. By her own admission on Twitter. Within hours of the couple’s public announcement (which itself followed hours after they appeared on stage together at The British Soap Awards) the British tabloids were aflutter, which is to be expected, they live and breathe for Jordan and Peter and their contemporaries. But it wasn’t the cut and dry reportage of a celebrity split and the salacious guesses as to the causes (potentially because the purported cause, as snapped by the paps on a ‘boozy night out with Jordan’ very quickly confirmed his homosexuality). No, the tabs were aflutter because they suspected something far more sinister was at play. Had Jordan and Peter faked their separation in order to revive a floundering franchise, by selling their split and then inevitable reunion to perpetually hungry media?

Now, I’m struggling here. I’ve sat back as The Hills redefined a genre called Reality Television, and when I say redefined I mean made a mockery of an at best remotely interesting, at worst, completely inane concept. I have tolerated Speidi fabricate and have photographed their every breath and amass a pile of money that seems to grow in correlation with the dissolution of their souls. And now I am forced to entertain the idea that Jordan and Peter have devised a cunning plan to earn money that involves faking an entire marital and indeed familial split (they have two biological children together, and a third from Jordan’s fling with the man of moral fibre himself, Dwight Yorke) followed by a reunion in which the ‘re’ prefix is potentially redundant.

What is going on?

I know pop culture has long performed a seductive gypsy dance in front of our faces whilst its horrible children empty our pockets, but it seems to have upped the ante and invited us backstage, doing away with all pretenses that what we’re consuming is even remotely real. And it doesn’t seem have to curbed our insatiable appetites.

It’s one thing to cultivate an image and sell it to the media which in turn sells it to the public. That image might include a relationship, a few carefully timed lunches at the Ivy and a car prang outside a club as you try to escape the cameras, but it’s all orchestrated behind closed doors, and executed on the public stage, just like we’re used to. But it seems the notion of celebrity has become contrived-squared, contrived-on-crack if you will – we are now invited to analyse the machinations of a celebrity’s marketing ploys, dissect the finer points of a manager’s performance and sort of weigh in on the highs and lows of creating celebrity.

What was the tipping point? When it became accepted, nay, expected for celebrities to tip off paparazzi when they were going shopping/playing with the kids in the park/grabbing a Pinkberry? When managers and publicists not only got into bed but began passionate affairs with paparazzi agencies? Was it reality TV? The internet? YouTube? When in doubt, always blame YouTube.

We are more aware than ever of what goes on behind the scenes of creating, marketing and indeed sinking a star, perhaps because in the eerie realization of Andy Warhol’s famous omen, we have become handy with DIY stardom. Plus we are showered with endless, vapid, dare I say vile reality television programs that promise warts and all insight into the workings of modeling, acting and singing careers which we discuss with the practiced air of long time management teams.

Celebrity is no longer just something we passively eat for breakfast, it’s something we are all on a first name basis with, something we participate knowingly in making. There are no secrets anymore, no questions as to how it all works. The articles on the possibility of Jordan and Peter’s oh so public split being an oh so clever ruse are written with thesis-level insight. They lay bare the reasons (money in magazine tell-alls about their dreadful split and beautiful reunion, boosted profiles in the face of feared irrelevancy) the timing (they were holding hands just hours earlier, they’d helped each other through a marathon just days before, Peter had twittered his love the previous afternoon) pick apart the execution (they announced the split hand in hand, she took the children and fled to the Maldives, he wore a lot of muscle tops and spent time with his brother) and postulate as to what the ultimate ending will be – the couple getting back together before the year is out.

If all of this is true, or even if it isn’t, one glaring fact remains. Our insight into the creation of a celebrity culture we are so obsessed with doesn’t change our gluttonous consumption of it. If Jordan and Peter do indeed sell their split-story to OK and then months later sell their fairytale reunion, those magazines will still be purchased. Perhaps by people with a knowing smile as they flip to the heartfelt tell-all, but purchased nonetheless.

I don’t know what’s weirder. The shrewd dissection we are so capable of, of the Jordan and Peter marketing machine, or the fact that when all is said and done, no matter the truth and whether or not we’ve found it, we’ll eat it all up anyway.

For old time’s sake – from an era when everything was so much simpler …

Image of Peter Andre and Katie Price by Alankparish on Flickr