“Nicole Kidman accepted a public apology and undisclosed damages Thursday to settle a libel lawsuit against a newspaper that suggested she had an affair with actor Jude Law. The actress’ lawyers told the High Court libel hearing that in a March 6 article, the Daily Mail alleged Kidman had tempted Law to cheat on his wife, actress Sadie Frost, causing the breakdown of their marriage. The story also suggested that she was dishonest for repeatedly denying an affair, her lawyer said… Associated Newspapers, editor Paul Dacre and journalist Nicole Lampert accepted that the allegations were untrue and without foundation and apologized for the embarrassment caused to Kidman.” — ABC News (US)

Celebrities complain about all the rumors and libel and innuendo to which they’re subject, but really it’s a crucial part of fame. Fame is penetration, marketshare, mindshare. Fame is when people fantasize about you, play with you like a doll, combine and recombine you with their own desires. It’s an impulse very much like that which drives slash fiction — people need and want to explore all the possibilities which you, as an actual person, cannot obviously manage in reality. Give the people Ken and Barbie, and they’re going to want to see what Ken and Barbie do together. One person will want to see Ken and Barbie have a picnic, everyone will want to see them kiss, and the random degenerate individual will want Barbie to tie up Ken and stomp in his face with a stiletto. The possibilities are endless — or more precisely, they’re only as limited as the imagination of the ten million people who fantasize about you.

Thus for Ms. Kidman or any other celebrity to lament this “use” of her image is hypocritical. If people did not use her image, she wouldn’t be famous. To put it another way, fame can be quantitatively defined as the amount people fantasize about you — and the more people fantasize about you, the more likely it is that there will be certain scenarios that outrage or insult you. But they’re just fantasies, and you have to remember that if someone fantasizes about tying you up and pissing on you, it’s really because he loves you from afar.

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