Is A Justin Bieber Pic Worth Dying For?
On Tuesday night in Los Angeles, Chris Guerra, a 29-year-old photographer—a paparazzo intent on getting a picture of pop singer Justin Bieber—was struck and killed by an SUV driven by a 69-year-old woman. As reported by KTLA, Guerra had been following Bieber’s white Ferrari on Interstate 405 when the sports car was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol and directed off the freeway onto Sepulveda Boulevard—a major L.A. artery. According to the CHP, Guerra parked his car across the boulevard from the Ferrari, crossed the street to take pictures of the police stop, and was hit by the SUV after he took pictures of Bieber’s car and was walking back across Sepulveda to his own car.
In an ironic twist on the fatal paparazzi-induced death of Princess Diana in Paris in 1997, this time it was the overeager photographer intent on snagging a big-money shot of an international celeb who paid the price. And for what? Absolutely nothing. There were no images of Bieber in Guerra’s camera because Bieber was not there. Someone else was driving his car, but Guerra, so focused on the reward for shooting what might have been an exclusive pic, lost sight of his own safety.
Is any picture worth that? Short answer: no. Longer answer: still no. And yet the culture of photographers known for their winner-take-all mentality and the editors and publishers who egg them on with prize money sometimes measured in five, if not six, figures (and I’m not counting decimal points), remains unrepentant in its singular mission to feed the frenzied audience of fawning fans.
Why do the likes of Bieber, Aniston and J-Lo merit the harassing, rude and risk-taking attention of this pushy arm of the press? Certainly not because their musical or theatrical skills rise to such heights; not because they inform world opinion; not because they have accomplished great works of science or art or literature. Of course not. It’s all about the dollars proffered by exhibitionist media owners and agents who see nothing but green in the transient fame of otherwise mediocre talent. It’s also about the egos of the celebrities who snack at well-positioned troughs, bathe at all the right beaches, and flaunt the flashiest fashions (clothing and vehicular) in a well-accepted game of cat-and-rat (I’ve never met a paparazzo who was a mouse).
All of which would be harmless and unimportant if the competition among the paparazzi was not so cut-throat as to encourage newcomers to the trade–like Guerra apparently was—to think fame and fortune can be found by the side of the road.
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