Events | 2009.12.06
Your biggest fanatics | Mark Lawson
Celebrity obsessives are not new. But Twilight\'s star and boyband JLS face a new, Twitterfied breed
For those interested in the derivation of language, the word "fan" has never been much fun. You guess that it must be a shortening of "fanatic", and this proves to be right. But, for observers of culture, the term is lengthening again. Two showbiz targets of teenage admiration have expressed horror at the level of passion they raise.
Robert Pattinson , the young actor who plays the cute vampire in the Twilight movies, has revealed that some of his fans have gone as far as cutting their necks and inviting him to drink their blood . And the blood of fans of the boy band JLS was involuntarily spilled when an appearance in Birmingham had to be abandoned, a surge towards the stage resulting in one serious crush injury and dozens of minor wounds.
The objects of this demented affection have been reported as saying that these events have left them reconsidering their profession. Pattinson – who was also left shaken on another occasion when a portion of his audience mobbed his car – is apparently questioning whether he should act in any more Twilight movies, or even retire completely. JLS have also worried aloud about the viability of future live concerts, although the commercial rules of music suggest that the band will be persuaded to accept a solution involving better crash barriers rather than cancellation.
These examples of potentially deadly celebrity are merely the latest in a long catalogue of stars becoming alarmed by their success in being loved. Jimmy Osmond has spoken of the scariness of hearing the great soprano wail of the Osmonds\' school-age clientele at the peak of teen-mania in the 70s.
During the first decades in which performing a song could leave a star requiring presidential levels of security, there were also several incidents in which fans were killed or injured in the scrum. But those crushes – and similar disasters at football games – resulted in such changes to the organisation of stadium events that bands were often lucky if they could even see their fans from the stage, let alone be threatened by them.
And, though crowds can be unsettling, what the famous have always feared more is the loner: the figure at the gates of the mansion or the bottom of a letter who has failed to understand that the relationship between fan and idol is a fantasy of friendship or connection rather than a plausible relationship. John Lennon and Jodie Foster both became the prey of deranged male individuals: him fatally.
So what\'s unsettling about what has happened to the vampire actor and the band created by reality TV is that the danger came not from a solitary aberration but from packs of fans who would be called normal. Both Pattinson and JLS are victims of a change in the shape and practicalities of fame.
The stampede in Birmingham is being investigated, but one factor certain to be examined is that the organisers underestimated the level of interest in the group. This may have been due to musical snobbery – the group is unlikely to appear in future histories of pop.
It must also be significant that the gig was free, which may lead, regrettably, to high ticket prices being justified as a health and safety measure. But the most important fact is that this group emerged from The X Factor, and the shows of Simon Cowell have created a new variety of renown: very brief but, while it lasts, unusually fierce. Susan Boyle, who this week in America seemed startled by the amount of attention she attracts, is another who has achieved the profile of an Elvis without the commensurate career or support. Not only graduates from reality TV, though, face this difficulty. Pattinson is still trying to live the life of a promising actor who has done a couple of films when, in reality, he requires the protective infrastructure of Robbie Williams.
Fame is becoming bigger and quicker and, therefore, more alarming to those it hits. And, as usual when a disturbing trend develops, social networking technology needs to be taken in for questioning. For all the fantasy of their sexual availability to fans – a fiction protected by keeping marriages and homosexuality quiet – the stars of the past maintained some mystery and distance. And, though they received alarming approaches, the most frightening letters would be kept from them.
The problem for today\'s big names is that electronic access, such as blogs and Twitter, encourage a fantasy of accessibility, and fans communicating online stoke each other\'s fires: a very bad idea, such as inviting an actor who plays a vampire to drink your blood, can spread fast into minds which might consider it a good idea.
We thought, by now, we understood celebrity and how to deal with it. But, as these frightened young performers have found, fame, like any virus, mutates to evade the attempts to contain it.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]st-fanatics-twilight-pattinson
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