Monthly arts and media column

This month, I really wanted to interview some members of the Paparazzi. I have passed them in abundance outside the home of Cheryl and Ashley Cole about four times a day every day for the last three months and have wondered about what they do and why they do it.

Some sit in their cars with their laptops, waiting. Some will be leaning on their motorcycles, long lenses slung around their shoulders. They drink coffee, they read newspapers, they presumably exchange bits of useful information and withhold other bits.

White minivan guy

There is one guy in a white minivan who is always there. He is there even when the others aren’t. He was there before the latest media interest and he will probably be there when the rest have all gone. There is an obvious and simple financial reason for their presence, which is that you can earn £100,000 for a single photo if it is taken at the right time.

Do they feel guilt?

But I wanted to know more than that. How exactly do they view themselves? Do they feel any guilt about their intrusive behaviour and the way it affects others? How do they fit their work into the rest of life? (Which I’m sure is important to them as well). I’ve wondered at times whether the rubbish bags, left stacked up at the gate, might hold any extra information about them but I suspect that these would just tell me where they’ve been buying their coffee and which newspapers they read. In the event, when I’d plucked up the courage to go and park up next to them and ask them these questions, Ashley and Cheryl had gone away on their respective holidays and so had the paps.

The numbers of cars, motorbikes, ladders and police had varied from week to week. Their ebb and flow did not depend on Ashley Cole’s latest football performance or on Cheryl’s latest single.

Photos are far more valuable if they can illustrate a story of scandal rather than of success. So when Cheryl announced, via Twitter, that they were separating after almost four years of marriage, the paps went nuts, despite the Coles’ pleas to be left alone. The road was particularly congested that day. The news was that Mr. and Mrs. were meeting back at the house for ‘talks’ — and the stories the next morning were accompanied by a murky night-time shot through a tinted car window of Cole hiding beneath his jacket. I don’t know who got that shot. It might have been white minivan man. Perhaps this further £100,000 is what will keep him solvent through the coming months as he sits outside that gate every day.

Who is he?

Until I began to think about him for this article, I didn’t know much about Ashley Cole as a football player. I knew about his speeding convictions and his affairs but didn’t really know why he was famous, beyond marrying Cheryl. In fact I knew far less about him than my seven-year-old nephew. As an avid Chelsea fan, he can run through the incredible statistics, successes and failures of the football player’s career and tell me exactly why he needs Cole’s card in his Match Attax collection. I then found out from Wikipedia that Cole is very important at left back and has been part of significant wins for his clubs and his country over the last six or seven years. The sordid stories that have defined him in the popular press have overridden the ‘real’ story of his career and his talents.

Complicated relationship

The relationship that exists between the media and celebrities like the Coles is very complicated. They clearly need one another to survive but they resent and slander each other too. It is no wonder that so many celebrities write autobiographies. The desire to tell their own story using their own words with complete editorial control must be very strong. Cheryl’s recently published book with ‘details of my marriage break-up’ is her attempt to control the information that is circulated about her. She wants you to know who she is through her own words, not through gossip, or candid photos.

Go to the source

When we want to find out the truth about someone, particularly when it comes to finding out about Jesus, it is essential to go to the source of the words that they themselves have spoken. Over the holidays I was at a service, celebrating Easter, where the resurrection was not mentioned once. It felt like tabloid Christianity, with the facts all mixed up and the emphasis all in the wrong place. The message was missing and everyone went away no more informed than they were to start off with. I reflected that it was a good thing that the New Testament writers hadn’t been in it for the £100,000 payouts, or they would have missed out on the headline story that gave us the risen Jesus.

Paparazzi tales: who cares about the truth?

White minivan guy

Do they feel guilt?

Who is he?

Complicated relationship

Go to the source

Eleanor Margesson

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