Opinion: Why Do We Celebrate Celebrity Screw-Ups?

(Aug. 26) -- A comedian once pointed out that there's little humor in an ordinary person slipping on a banana peel, but we laugh hard when someone rich or pompous falls.

Tiger Woods' tour of too many mistresses officially sank his marriage. LiLo's in and out of jail. Mel Gibson's domestic rants become public knowledge. Surely I'm not the only person who found a little sadistic pleasure in at least some of these world-changing news events.

Blogger Ed Brayton, for one, feels exactly the same. The German term for this shameful pleasure is schadenfreude, finding joy in the misfortune of others. It would be churlish, even pathological to express glee when friends or neighbors suffer similar public ordeals.

So why do the travails of some celebrities seem fair game for our chuckles, lifted eyebrows, half-muttered "You had it coming"?

After extensive research through trashy tabloids I scan for free (but others buy, making celebrity-humbling websites, TV shows and magazines a huge industry), I found some answers.

The obvious cause is envy. Why should Celebrity X have fame, several million bucks in investments and a Lamborghini to drive badly while others struggle with a zero bank account and a rusting beater?

Another is the changing nature of celebrity.

At one time, people became famous because they had unusual talent, integrity, courage, athleticism or brains. If beauty made someone famous, her looks launched a thousand ships, not a hundred paparazzi careers. Now celebrities like the "Jersey Shore" crew achieve prominence through the immense reality-TV industry, whose product is instant fame. A few are meta-celebrities like Paris Hilton, celebrated only for being famous, to the extent that she charges thousands of dollars just to show up at a party. If people don't really merit fame through great achievement, don't they deserve a comeuppance?

Another source of schadenfreude is our justifiable suspicion that many of the rich and famous didn't work very hard to get there.

As a poet, I've worked at my craft for more than 40 years, published five books and maybe made $3,000 from it. But chance, connections or some fleeting fad suddenly moves others from sleeping in their cars to designer duds, bling and Bentleys. A natural resentment arises in those of us who are lucky to earn a million or two over our entire lives, most of which goes to taxes and necessities, when some upstart shouting crude lyrics suddenly is banking checks in the eight figures. Worse, our kids think he's way cooler than we are.

For the final answer -- yes, it is my final answer -- I'm going to reach way back in time and revive the gods of ancient Greece for a moment.

Unlike the stern, just deities of today's monotheistic faiths, Zeus and his crew were wonderfully imperfect. Zeus was a sex addict, even rapist; Apollo and Aphrodite (who cheated on her lame husband) had egos that wouldn't fit under Donald Trump's comb-over; Dionysus couldn't lay off the sauce; and the rest of the pantheon were always falling in love with mortals, changing them into trees or animals, blasting foes with storms and thunderbolts and generally carrying on much like (according to the tabloids) Brangelina and their peers. They were powerful, beautiful, charismatic and had flaws that made them more interesting, just as Superman needed kryptonite and a weakness for Lois Lane to make him a compelling character.

Our modern Greek gods -- film stars, politicians, rock singers and rappers -- need feet of clay. Otherwise our resentment of them would never be tempered by the simple joy of schadenfreude. And our own mundane lives wouldn't be enriched by the assurance that the rich and famous have problems and screw up too -- much more publicly than we do.

John Oughton is a journalist, poet and professor of learning and teaching at Centennial College in Toronto. His latest book of poetry, "Time Slip," draws from his 60-year journey through the Middle East, Japan and North America. Read his blog on Red Room.