- Recent celebrity documentaries Beckham and Robbie Williams, and the final season of TV drama The Crown, have painted a portrait of the UK tabloids as cruel, sadistic and predatory of its homegrown celebrities.
- While criticism of the British tabloids – particularly the ethics and methods of the News of the World – is often justified, the specifics offered by all three shows fall flat.
- While these shows all try to claim part of the noughties nostalgia trend, they feel politically and contextually vacant.
The millennium press
- By 1998, only 8% of editorial in The Sun and The Mirror could be classed as “public affairs” – the rest focused on gossip, sports, or both.
- Inevitably, as celebrity culture became news, news also became gossip and both categories disintegrated into what we now call “clickbait”.
- As The Crown dolefully shows, one picture of Princess Diana could sell for millions to print newspapers in 1997.
The Crown
- The final season of The Crown covers the last eight months of Princess Diana’s life.
- Through fictionalised monologues from actors playing real photographers and journalists, the press compare themselves to “hunters” and “killers”.
Beckham and Robbie Williams
- Unlike The Crown, the main characters in the documentaries Beckham and Robbie Williams are not only living subjects but also active participants in the programmes.
- Beckham consults a litany of talking heads – former managers, teammates, Spice Girls and two suitably shame-filled paparazzi – to build a portrait of the footballer and his union with wife Victoria.
- As Williams notes, “[When you become famous] you want to give away the privacy you want to give away.
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Rachel Sykes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
