Watching stars struggle

We’re fascinated by Britney’s meltdown, Lindsay’s drink and drug arrests, Amy’s rehab struggles.

Should that make us uncomfortable? Do the media and the public enjoy giving women a hard time?

Some academics think so, and dozens of them met this week in London to discuss society’s fascination with what they termed “train-wreck” female celebrities such as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse.

The topics for the one-day symposium Wednesday at the University of East Anglia mixed tabloid talk and academic argot.

Papers included “Britney’s Tears: the Abject Female Celebrity in Postemotional Society”; “Hooker, Victim and/or Doormat: Lindsay Lohan and the Culture of Celebrity Notoriety”; and “Just Too Much? Heather Mills and Celebrity Transgression.”

Diane Negra, one of the organizers, said the participants wanted to study why we take “pleasure in seeing women brought low.”

“The massive coverage these women draw is only a little bit about themselves,” said Negra, a professor of film and television at the host university in Norwich, 115 miles northeast of London. “These women operate as lightning rods for a lot of other concerns.”

There’s nothing new in our fascination with celebrities. But the Internet and the spread of “tabloid” culture into the mainstream have created a whirlwind in which rumor, claim and rebuttal swirl and feed off one another.

The Web has also helped drive an explosion in the volume of news, rumor and gossip. A Google News search for soul diva Winehouse on Wednesday produced almost 10,000 stories.

In British newspapers, the story of the singer’s erratic public appearances, struggle with drugs and health worries is played out almost daily.

There are plenty of male celebrities, from British singer Pete Doherty to actor Robert Downey Jr., whose personal and legal difficulties also make headlines.

But Negra said the coverage of women is more judgmental, casting wayward female celebrities as “cautionary tales.” She said coverage of female celebs is less likely to celebrate a troubled star’s triumphant comeback, the way Downey has been lauded for “Iron Man” or Owen Wilson has been shown returning to work after a reported suicide attempt.

“We seem to have a lot more fixed ideas about what women’s lives should be like than we do of men,” she said.

“When we use female celebrities this way, we see them failing and struggling, they serve as proof that for women the work-life balance is impossible. Can you have it all? The answer these stories give again and again is ‘absolutely not.’ “

Unsurprisingly, celebrity journalists disagree. Gordon Smart, who edits The Sun newspaper’s celebrity pages, said the preponderance of troubled female stars in the news was a coincidence.

“At the moment there just happens to be cluster of female celebrities that are going through difficult times,” Smart told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Cary Cooper, a professor of psychology and health at Lancaster University in England, said negative celebrity coverage is not the media’s fault – readers and viewers want to watch celebrities struggle.

“It makes people feel good,” Cooper said. Celebrities “look like they lead a golden life, and yet it doesn’t make them happy. So in a way it justifies our humdrum existence.”

Negra suggested the negative tone of much coverage reflects public concern about the growing number of celebrities who are famous simply for being famous, like Paris Hilton or the stars of reality TV shows. The criticism is a way of addressing troubling questions about the link between talent and fame.

She thinks much of the hostility toward Paul McCartney’s ex, Heather Mills – depicted as a self-serving gold-digger by the British press – arose “because of the sense that her fame was unearned,” in comparison to that of the former Beatle.

Veteran celebrity publicist Max Clifford doesn’t believe women get a harder time from the media. He thinks the knives are out for all celebrities.

“The media don’t mind whether it’s a male or a female – if they can assassinate them and sell newspapers, they will,” Clifford said. “The sad thing is, bad news is news and good news isn’t.

“When I started out in the business in 1962, it was all about promotion. Now most of my job is about protection – protecting celebrities from an ever-more-vicious media.”