Meeting Beckham
I met David Beckham last week. Ok, I didn’t meet him personally but we were in the same room – just me and 300 others at a soiree to welcome him, the king of football and wife of Posh Spice, to Sydney.
Throngs of screaming girls massed outside Café Sydney as if The Beatles were in town and it was 1964. Those who were allowed in circled him like famished sharks or whispered reverently in corners eyeing him off. What do they see in him? Sure he’s mesmerisingly handsome, in an English lad kind of way, and he seems like a nice enough bloke, and he can play footy too but – I’m almost ashamed to admit it – I don’t get the fuss.
I’ve never understood the obsession with fame, even though I suffer mildly from it myself. Why do we want to be in the presence of someone we don’t even know just because we feel like we do? Just as we assume we know his wife and three kids. We know all the details of his alleged bevy of extra marital trysts including this latest round leaving his wife ‘incandescent with rage’. We’ve been inside his home(s), know half his friends and who designs his jeans. We know what he gets paid and when he gets a haircut or a new tattoo. There’s nothing more he could say that would enlighten us.
Not that I read the gossip magazines. I don’t. Honestly. I skim them, only when I’m at the hairdresser to help pass the time, or in the checkout queue. I’m not really the slightest bit interested in Lyndsay Lohan’s ‘skinny-fast’ diet, Brad and Ange’s ‘kinky x-rated sex games’ or Reese moving on with Jake. Geez, that didn’t take long. I bet Ryan is hurting, even if he’s supposedly finding comfort with Our Abbie.
Yes I’m on first name basis with them all. I know their past lovers, their current trials, and their breed of dog. I’ve seen their high school photos, and was there for the fallouts with their mums. I surprise myself when I spy a dress and recognize it as the one Beyonce wore in The Bahamas. If only we were this informed about other fields of inquiry. We could change the world.
We’re savvy enough to know we shouldn’t be believing it all. That quotes such as ‘we’re having a baby’ over pics of Reese and Jake aren’t quotes, that Reese didn’t ring the magazine editor and reveal her innermost secrets. We know full well that when two people are pictured together they may not actually be together but were photoshopped to be as one, or that pics are carefully selected of, say, Jen looking distressed to back up the accompanying headline that she still pines for Brad when actually she was just squinting in the sun. We know there’s no such thing as ‘sources’, ‘close friends’ or ‘associates’. We’re well aware of all of that but still we can’t help ourselves.
It feels slightly immoral to be prying into other people’s lives. It’s like McDonalds. It tastes good while you eat it but leaves you a little squeamish afterwards. There can be only one reason for it: It makes us feel better to know that those who are paid way more than us and have homes in three continents also have cellulite and rough trots. It restores our faith in equality. That’s why we devour the gossip rags. In smaller numbers than ever before (circulation’s dropped around 10% this year for most of them) but still enough to keep them afloat.
And that’s why we seized the chance to catch a glimpse of Beckham. It’s not as if the doting fans were there to watch him play Sydney FC. Do they honestly expect he might whisk one of them away? I mean, this is Becks we’re talking about. Don’t they read anything?