If you have read the news, passed by a tv screen, or even scrolled through Facebook, you have probably heard of the sexual misconduct scandals oozing out of Hollywood. One celebrity after another is being called out for doing messed up things.  I think this is a good thing. It exposes celebrities for who they really are: Humans.

For the longest, we as human have put famous and/or talented people on pedestals.  We have made models of what we should be, models of what is excellent. Why do we do this? Why we assume someone who is extraordinarily good at their job is a great person as a whole? This goes into psychology. There is a bias in social psychology called fundamental attribution error. This is when a person exhibits a behavior we tend to assume it is due to the character of the person rather than the circumstance. Now, this is sorta unrelated to the topic of this post. However, I may have to stretch this definition. I have a hypothesis. Based on the fundamental attribution error,  people tend to think well-performing public figures are good people because they are good at what they do. The behavior they show is proficiency, and we tend to think they are proficient as a person when they are actually just proficient in their professions.

Now that we know why we put celebrities on a pedestal, how does this relate to celebrity scandals and humanity in it? Right now, we are seeing the toppling of these pedestals. In this information age, we have more information about celebrities now more than any other time. In turn, we learn the good and bad of every figure. Mahatma Gandhi the pioneer of peaceful protest, and the leader of the decolonization movement in India.  He was also a racist who preferred Indians in South African receive better treatment than Black South Africans. Albert Einstein one of the most influential scientists of all time. He also married his cousin and made his wives follow a strict social interaction contract. John Lennon, a member of one of the important music group in the modern era. He also beat his first wife. Due to this massive information, we know everything about a public figure. This forces you to see the flaws and shortcomings of these people. This is possible for everyone now because of the internet but it’s not common.

People don’t actively go searching for the life story of an actor that was in a movie they like or even an artist they like. What these new scandals do is force flaws in front of their face of fans. It forces fans to recognize that their idol is not as great as they thought.

When that happens shock and outrage comes.