traverse city film festival

The Traverse City Film Festival

Every year since it started in 2005, I’ve made it to at least one film at the Traverse City Film Festival. Pretty cool, huh? And for the past few years I’ve come away with a prevailing idea to ruminate on and possibly do something about. Perhaps these will turn into stories or books someday, perhaps activist movements or social media campaigns, who knows.

This year I was thinking about celebrity. I saw the Amy Winehouse documentary “Amy.” It perfectly exemplifies the destructive power of celebrity. I felt sad, not only about the tragedy of her life and death, but about the way she was hounded, slandered, and spewed across every single media venue there is. We are brutal to our celebrities, augmenting their every mistake, chastising their every misstep. Is it that we want to bring them down to our level? Do we find some sick fascination in reading about their downward spirals? Personally I think it’s nothing short of tragic that every child star ends up rehab and that their struggle with addiction is plastered across the tabloids at the grocery store check out.

I saw a headline the other day that speculated whether Jennifer Aniston was pregnant or whether she’d made a bad wardrobe choice.

Ouch.

I don’t know what to do with this yet. But I want to open the conversation.