Wonder Woman is the ideal comic book hero for a contemporary woman. With powers above and beyond normal human perception, she not only saves the world time and again, but she redefines beauty in ways that normal humans can’t relate. If only there was an equivalent super hero everyone could look up to, someone who elevated humanity to its highest possible height. Wonder Woman is that type of hero… but, alas, there never has been.
Wonder Woman is an exemplary role model for the new empowered women of today. While it’s unlikely that any of today’s female celebrities will receive the Nobel Prize for literature anytime soon (that’s a good thing), if she were to win, she could possibly become one of the most popular female celebrities in the world. What if she won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role? What if she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role? What if she were the toast of the entire planet? Such a wondrous, unique woman deserves all of the greatness she has been bestowed upon us.
Still, with all the wonderful works of creativity, artistry, and talent that we celebrate in our entertainment, it can be easy for some of these greats of our culture to get swept away by the waves of fame. For example, just consider the huge leap that Tiger Woods made after winning his first major tournament, the Masters. While some might argue that Tiger Woods is a sports legend, his sudden fame is beginning to run the risk of destroying the carefully crafted image he has built for himself over the years. Worse, the negative backlash against Woods by his fans (some of which is justified) may well have cost him his reputation as an actor, and make him much less marketable going into the next season of his reality TV show, The Golf Channel.
What about Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates? Yes, both are popular faces on our reality TV shows, but their recent controversies serve as a cautionary tale for all of us. For example, Oprah announced that she was undergoing treatment for cancer, and Bill Gates declared that he would give every man who comes to his office a day at the spa. The public took notice, and both stars have now been forced to make statements about their health and their lifestyle, in front of the cameras, in what many believe to be an unhealthy move for them. Such public displays of poor judgment are likely to cause future problems for these two celebrities, and could jeopardize their ability to maintain their well-known faces in the public eye for much longer.
Is there any correlation between celebrities and social media, and does “following celebrities” mean that you must become a social butterfly in order to get ahead in life? Not necessarily. As we saw with Woods and Gates, both celebrities have used their newfound fame to further their business endeavors. Woods recently launched a golf training program, and Gates is said to be working on a new business. So while there is nothing inherently wrong with following celebrities, some people have an excessive need to do so. What’s an average Joe or a regular joe to do?
In essence, we live in a celebrity culture, and it is the mass media that provides the link between stars and fame. People gravitate towards celebrities because they offer them something extra – fame and wealth, to be exact. In the end, whether or not these men and women understand how to balance fame and wealth is another question altogether. We may one day see a celebrity fall from grace, and all of this will have happened because of inappropriate use of the power of the media.