I have no doubt, that could we retrieve a brittle newspaper from the 1774 Colonies, on page 6, or “Ye Olden Gossip Page,” we would find reference to a celebrity who did something outrageous whilst visiting Boston. The article might invoke the name of an 
English actor who engaged in some kind of scandalous behavior that shocked Colonial society to its core. After all, look at the reputation enjoyed by one Benjamin Franklin in France!
What is of interest in the review of these celebrity scandals is, of course, our shock and surprise at their arrogance and always the willingness of an entourage of publicists, gossip columnists, media types and other apologists to rush to their defense. Here in the present day “States,” whole industries are created around celebrity; in fact, we make up our own celebrities and pay them handsomely. We hoist people up on RealityTV pedestals who are devoid of any talent whatsoever and we pay them tens of millions of dollars for no other reason than they are famous for being famous. I am sure there were some such characters in the Massachusetts colony.
Johnny Depp and his mutts
Johnny Depp is actually a celebrity who does something; he acts. I cannot vouch for his character but his Pirates of the Caribbean movies are mildly entertaining and he gets handsomely paid to make them. The latest installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean series (#5) is being filmed in Australia.
Australia is a “far way away’s” from Hollywood and it takes a long time to make a movie. If you were fortunate enough to visit Australia for a few weeks, and you had a dog or two, chances are quite strong you would leave them in the care of a kennel or a close friend. If you were to move to Australia, and you took your dogs (what dog lover wouldn’t?) they would have to go into quarantine.
For the sake of this blog, I will say that quarantine is not like putting your dog in solitary confinement in San Quentin. You can visit your dogs, pet them, love them and all that until the period passes. It is only 10 days; not exactly the end of the world. You then reunite with your dogs and you can all go back to normal living. You cannot quarantine your dog in a private home, because they can have contact with other pets and people – and they could potentially escape.
Not so with Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp is rich, you see. He travels by private jet. He was accused of smuggling his dogs aboard his plane. They were not directly transported to a home quarantine, but to a groomer and undoubtedly other places. Upon hearing all this celebrity entitlement, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce ordered the dogs to leave the country – or they would get euthanized.
Not surprisingly, the Agriculture Minister has been vilified on the social media. The last thing star struck celebrity fans want is for an adult to tell them they are behaving like children. They did not like the fact that Barnaby Joyce gave Johnny Depp an ultimatum in plain, easily understood (Australian) English. Who is, after all, this civil servant who has the nerve of trying to prevent the possibility of rabies from entering the country?
Enter Kyle Sandilands
Kyle Sandilands is one of those radio shock jocks who lives to well…shock people. He is a media type such as we described above; he has stated over the airways that Joyce’s ultimatum made: “’Australians sound like ‘a bunch of hillbilly redneck losers,’” and he called Joyce, “a savage little man” in an interview that Joyce was dumb enough to engage in with the shock jock. You cannot win those arguments.
Ethically, Joyce is a hero, Sandilands is a jerk and Depp is simply a celebrity.
I know just a thing or two about Australia other than its fine people. I know that Australia has been tragically swept by non-native species and disease – all brought in from other lands. Johnny Depp does not care about that; he is a celebrity. Kyle Sandilands does not care about that, he wants to be part of Depp’s entourage; as a media type he is one step removed and I’ll be darned if this didn’t give him a ton of free publicity. Mr. Joyce is more like the rest of us than we think. In our daily lives, we try to live in reality.
There is nothing at all to be done about Johnny Depp other than to see his movies if you are so inclined. Unless we elevate teachers, police officers, nurses, social workers, youth coaches and the like, we will always gasp at celebrities getting off their private jets holding onto their dogs.
Ethically, Johnny Depp or Kim Kardashian; Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton say more about us than it does about them.
