Blurring Boundaries: How Privacy Turns Profane in Public Entertainment

Personal Confidential - Gossip, Glitz and the Profane

By John Corry

August 21, 1983

The New York Times Archives

NBC's recent pilot series, Personal Confidential, introduced a show that med to expose the most intimate and confidential aspects of personal lives. Yet, it was not long before the line between privacy and public consumption became blurred. The sacred became trivialized as the profane took on the guise of entertnment.

In its debut episode, the program featured interviews with notable personalities alongside a compelling story from South Carolina about a woman who had tragically killed her husband due to alleged abuse. As she sat weeping on a park bench recounting her experiences, she was suddenly interrupted by advertisements. The co-host then re-introduced the segment as a reminder for viewers of the tragedy's essence: A battered wife unable to ure anymore, Linda Belford sd.

This approach seemed to foreshadow how the sacred had become profane and eventually reduced to mere gossip and glitz, stripping its original meaning. The show promised to explore more such stories in subsequent episodes, including an interview with William Holden's psychiatrist for insights into Hollywood royalty.

Furthermore, the series also touched upon a new technique called sexual enhancement by a California psychiatrist and his wife, advocating this approach along with two of their patients: a young couple facing dissatisfaction in their intimate lives. The show hinted that they knew what to expect from other women due to their extensive exposure to media representations of sexual norms.

As the series ventured into territory once considered private, it rsed questions about how such matters should be presented as lifestyle choices, gossip, or even news content within our media landscape.

Entertnment Tonight, a well-produced show that successfully engages audiences nightly across multiple platforms, is often lauded for its rapid-fire presentation. This format is particularly evident in their coverage of recent events like James Stewart's health condition and Burt Lancaster's upcoming surgery.

However, this approach can lead to a sense of overload, as each piece of information becomes equally impactful or trivial without context or depth. Mark Hamill carrying his own luggage through an rport registers with the same emotional weight as Susan Fisher's dining experiences in Chinaboth events are presented with equal importance and impact.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to Entertnment Tonight. Other networks have shown interest in replicating its format, with indepently produced programs like Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous being a recent example. This two-hour special showcased a range of celebrities, from Liberace's breath-taking sincerity to Donald Sutherland's embodiment of Renssance spirit.

The show was meant to explore these celebrity lifestyles in depth, yet in doing so, it often came across as deferential or even obsequiousdescribing Michael Cne as telling it like it is and Susan Anton's China trip as turning the heads of a nation. However, if this approach does not elicit meaningful emotions or provoke thought, then what is its purpose?

A version of published in The New York Times, Aug 21, 1983.

The narrative here underscores the transformation from private to public experiences and the potential consequences when such intimate moments are trivialized or reduced to mere entertnment. It suggests that as media platforms increasingly blur boundaries between what is considered news, gossip or lifestyle content, the complexity of these issues becomes evident.

The article's prompts readers to reflect on our consumption habits and rses concerns about the diminishing emotional weight and depth of information presented in this mannersuggesting that there might be a loss of meaningfulness as everything starts to mean nothing at all.
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