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Making the Most of a Celebrity Mug Shot
by Scott Holleran

Macaulay Culkin in Saved!

September 19, 2004

As the sensationalistic press proclaimed with top headlines in prominent placement, Macaulay Culkin was busted last week for illegal drug possession. The mug shot was everywhere.

Though it seemed as if Culkin had been picked up for aggravated battery, the charges stem from possession of pot and prescription drugs (without a prescription). Clearly, the press wasn't interested in reporting what happened in context—an actor being busted for a minor violation of the law—because that would have meant maybe a paragraph on page ten, or a link down near the bottom of the page, or a broadcast brief in the celebrity roundup.

It's legitimate to report what happened, but the screaming headlines and snapshot of the bleary-eyed actor could only have been motivated by the wish to denigrate a child movie star. Macaulay Culkin is merely the latest target of journalists obsessed with de-glamorizing that which is glamorous.

They hunt and harass Hollywood stars. They distort the most ordinary transgressions. They ridicule celebrities for gaining weight, for losing weight—for staying the same weight—and they literally violate one's most private affairs. Consider what they did to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, among countless others, snidely dubbing the young couple "Bennifer." And for what perceived horror were the actors so roundly ridiculed—walking off the set in a tantrum, slugging a director, child molestation?

Nope. At worst, Affleck and Lopez were guilty of over promoting their movie. Even assuming nefarious motives, they were still a couple of actors trying to sort through their lives and make money in the movies; they did not deserve an onslaught of personal attacks.

Whether in the pages of celebrity weeklies, in the diatribes of nightly network monologues or on the front page of the New York Times, the quality of reporting is horrible. When they're not faking or plagiarizing stories—and circulation statistics—the sensationalistic press is focused on character assassination. And George Clooney is 100 percent right: scandal-seeking journalists chased Princess Diana to her death.

They overstate errors, they understate achievements and, when they do report what actually happens, they rarely provide the proper context. Then they wonder why the public doesn't trust the press.

Macaulay Culkin has a promising career in motion pictures. Whether he's playing John Candy's young charge in Uncle Buck or the crippled cynic in Saved!, there is an authenticity about him—something that can't be faked. From playing Kevin in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to his recent work, Culkin projects goodness, a rare quality in today's movie actors. His movies, especially the Home Alone pictures, have brought laughter and joy to audiences and that is a real accomplishment.

Let the press publish bold-type headlines, plaster his mug shot everywhere and make the most of a man's mistakes. At 24, Culkin ought to keep making movies and know that some of us are rooting for him to succeed, not fail, because man at his best, in reality as in the movies, is more meaningful than man at his worst.

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