The Daily Beast's Nicole LaPorte crunches the numbers and figures out that "the typical celebrity shot sells for 31 percent less than it did in 2007. The dropoff has been more dramatic at the high end of the market. Six-figure photographs are down more than 50 percent." Why?

Well, for one thing, simple economics. There are now so many photographers parked outside celebrities' houses and favored coffeeshops that oversupply is dragging down prices. And magazine budget cuts have largely killed off the boom-era overbidding on exclusives.

But there's another reason, says LaPorte:

"Nicole Richie is the mother of two; Britney Spears is, astonishingly, under control; and Lindsay Lohan (whose troubles continue) has become so ubiquitous that she's devalued her market value."

According to the story, an exclusive shot of Lindsay passed out drunk could, back in the day, nab $150,000 for exclusive, worldwide rights, and a shot of Britney shaving her head went for $300,000. Now, not only are starlets either behaving themselves, lately there isn't a particularly winning "big story" or star to drive the narrative and up the prices.

It's enough to make you nostalgic for the halcyon days of the Girls Gone Wild era. Or not.

The Crash of the Britney Economy [The Daily Beast]

Is there a rule that the more humiliated a celebrity would be by a shot, the bigger the coup? Anyway, however you quantify it, the infamous paparazzi shots of Jackie O sunbathing in the nude still qualifies, apparently, as a major accomplishment, which I suppose is why people are interested in the lengths Garritano went to. Here's the account from the Telegraph: "he managed to gain access to Skorpios by befriending a local and then disguising himself as a gardener....After hearing a rumour that Mrs Onassis sunbathed nude on one of the beaches, he took a boat out and moored it near some undergrowth where he was able to remain hidden."

The images, which were later a major selling point for Hustler, are now up for auction. And the photographer is apparently really proud of the achievement. Did the fact that it made Jackie practically photographer-phobic burnish it? Now, in the era of Perez and TMZ, and in the post-Di reality, this derring-do feels depressingly quotidian, and even kind of...tasteful. Doing yoga in the nude is practically high-tea compared to what we're used to. And never have Lady Gaga's enigmatic lyrics felt more appropriate:

Shadow is burnt
Yellow dance and return
My lashes are dry
But with teardrops I cry
It don't have a price
Loving you is cherry pie

Secret Of Jackie Onassis Nude Paparazzi Pictures Revealed [Telegraph]

Because, you know, what the world needs now is more lawsuits.

Schwarzenegger, himself a celebrity, has approved a measure which states that the rights of a free press "to report details of an individual's private life must be weighed against the rights of the individual to enjoy liberty and privacy." That sounds reasonable… or does it?

Magazines and blogs (like this one) buy pictures of stars everyday; how are we to know if the snapper was over Lindsay Lohan's property line or not? What if you were fined for clicking on an illegally obtained photo? What if you went to buy ice cream, and later found out that the ice cream you bought was stolen, and you were being sued by a rich person for eating it?

As Dionne Searcy writes for the Wall Street Journal:

Some legal experts… question whether the California law is enforceable. In general, it remains legal for individuals to take photographs of other people, as long as the photo is snapped in a public place. In many cases, they add, it can be difficult to determine where a photo was taken after the fact.

In addition, there's a concern that celebrities are getting special treatment. Your house is on Google Street View; journalists have the right to pursue a story by knocking on your door or photographing you on the sidewalk if you are, say, a dry-cleaner ripping off customers, a lottery winner or a suspected terrorist.

But a measure okaying lawsuits is really saying: Celebs! Go ahead and sue. You have money! The snappers and blogs and magazines will be sorry they fucked with you.

Look, I'm not saying it's right to jump a hedge to get exclusive picture of someone's backyard wedding. Laws should not be broken. But taking a magazine or blog to court and fining them as much as $50,000 for not knowing that shot is illegal doesn't seem right either.

A New California Law Places Paparazzi Under The Spotlight [WSJ]

In a flurry of bill-signing yesterday, Schwarzenegger approved a measure to make the taking or selling of unauthorized photos a crime punishable by a $50,000 fine. The bill also allows lawsuits against media companies that publish such photos. As the ABC News clip above points out, Schwarzenegger himself has been the victim of paparazzi pursuit, and he signed another bill a few years ago that tripled the damages stars could receive if they sued paparazzi for assault. But of course, paparazzi are still chasing people, and it's doubtful whether this new bill will make much of a change either.

Parade editor Jeanne Wolf (who rocks a pretty impressive Kiss of the Spider Woman look above) tells ABC,

Everyone would applaud this law if in fact it did teach paparazzi how to be dignified in their treatment of celebrities and public figures. I don't see that happening right away. What I do see happening is a bunch of court cases.

Maybe said court cases will make paparazzi a little more careful — for a while. But as long as there's significant money to be made in the "undignified treatment" of celebrities, paparazzi are going to be as undignified as they have to be. And the truth is, they are only a very small part of America's fucked-up relationship to its actors, especially female ones. The publicity actually sanctioned by celebrities — the airbrushed covers and tedious interviews and faux-inspirational weight-loss photo shoots — is just as big a problem as paparazzi photos. The only difference is that such publicity asks us to look up to celebs, while some paparazzi pis ask us to mock them. The latter is more fun, especially given the boring, self-serving content of most celebrity profiles, but both contribute to the idea that we should be watching actors' every move. If said actors really wanted to combat this, they could stop giving interviews, posing in bikinis, and selling exclusive photos to favored magazines. Until they do, they send the message that fame is okay as long as they control every aspect of it — which is more than a little hypocritical.

Schwarzenegger Signs Tougher Anti-Paparazzi Law [AP]
Gov.'s Surprise Bill Signings: Harvey Milk Recognition, Paparazzi Restrictions And Ammo Tracking [LA Times]
Governor Signs New Anti-Paparazzi Law [ABC]

Earlier: Theft, Lies & Videotaping: Gosselin Plans To Tap Into Kids' Trust Fund

Though TMZ dropped its plans to open a Washington office in 2007, it has increasingly been focusing on political figures. According to The Washington Post, TMZ has been trying to beef up its journalistic credentials in recent years by breaking big stories like Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rant, Michael Richard's racist monologue, and recently, by releasing photos of a beaten Rihanna. Last month, TMZ got the attention of politicians with an exclusive story about Chicago's Northern Trust Bank, which got $1.6 billion in federal bailout funds, sponsoring a golf tournament outside Los Angeles with performances the bands Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Last week, TMZ founder Harvey Levin was invited to speak to journalism graduate students at U.C. Berkeley.

TMZ and other celebrity-focused websites like Hollywood.com and L.A. paparazzi blogger Zuma Dogg are covering individual lawmakers more as well. The Washington Post describes a recent incident in which Congressman Aaron Schock was interviewed by a TMZ reporter:

The freshman congressman, walking to the House chamber for a vote, was caught off-guard when a reporter approached him with a Sony camcorder, compared him to ex-fashion model and The Hills star Brody Jenner and asked him about D.C. nightlife.

The footage was shot by TMZ ... which cheekily suggested that the unmarried 27-year-old lawmaker must have "an impressive stimulus package." And while Schock managed to blurt only that he is "all work, no play," the airing of the brief encounter this month landed the Illinois Republican on the front page of the Peoria Journal Star and on several local newscasts. "I started getting text messages from a lot of stay-at-home moms in my district," he says. "I'm not Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. I was totally caught off guard."

Harvey Levin doesn't seem to see the same distinction between celebrities and congressmen. "We cover sports figures, chefs and people who are famous for all sorts of reasons ... and some of them are in politics," Levin told the San Francisco Chronicle. Levin admits that the millions of TMZ viewers are more interested in personalities than policies, but argues that attention from his camera crews may actually help politicians, since often even their constituents don't recognize them. "Our feeling is ... if you understand the personalities of some of these people, you care more about them," he says.

But clearly there is also a huge downside. Democratic political consultant Garry South, who was recorded last year by Zuma Dogg while meeting at a Malibu Starbucks with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom about his gubernatorial campaign, says the new paparazzi focus is likely to make politicians less candid even in private because they never know who is watching and filming. "It has politicians on notice, at least the savvy ones, that there is no privacy whatsoever anymore - not even in the bathroom at the urinal," says South. Newsom added, "We're in a reality TV series now in politics, 24/7."

Though more attention from the paparazzi may make politicians more recognizable to their constituents (especially if they're prone to cheating on their spouses or stumbling down the steps of the Capitol building) it's unlikely that the coverage will turn out to be as mutually beneficial as Levin makes it seem. News outlets are already focusing more on celebrity news and less on the boring political decisions that actually affect people's lives. Paparazzi prowling the streets of D.C. will probably make pols dress better on a daily basis, but overall TMZ's reporting will probably just lower the level of political discourse even further.

'The Hills'? No, TMZ Now Hits The Hill [The Washington Post]
Paparazzi Turning Lenses On Politicians [The San Francisco Chronicle]
TMZ Chief Is Speaker At Cal Journalism School [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• PETA has taken some time out from their busy schedule of objectifying women to call McDonald's out on their inhumane method of slaughtering chickens. • Doctors say that the chronic stress caused by the recession may lead to lower testosterone levels among men. • Although Showtime has its fair share of hookers, victims, and doormats, the network is leading the way to better roles for female actors with what CEO Matt Blank calls their "strong women's club:" "You're talking Edie Falco. You're talking Mary-Louise Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, Billy Piper, Toni Collette ... these women are some of the most exceptional talents on television right now." • Click here to watch the latest video from Jay Smooth about Rihanna, Chris Brown, and the greater issue of violence against women. • A woman who was allegedly set on fire by her husband embraced him while she was still burning, and held on until he was also in flames. The couple died in the hospital from their burns on Sunday. • Till-Death-Do-Us-Part.com is a new dating site that is set to be the e-harmony for the terminally ill. • Minister for the Olympics, Tessa Jowell, is pushing a rule change that would allow women to compete in every Olympic sport (currently, there are 40 medal events that are for men only). She also hopes to open synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics to male athletes. • According to the National Pet Owners Survey, there are 88.3 million pet cats living in America, compared with 74.8 million dogs. While more families own dogs than cats, cat owners are more likely to own multiple felines, which has led to the discrepancy in numbers. • A 41-year-old woman has plead guilty to reckless homicide after dragging her 73-year-old husband around their pool, essentially "exercising" him to death. • Sunday's New York Times had this sad story about Romanian mothers leaving their children and homes for better paying jobs abroad. • The latest wave of "paparazzi" in Seoul aren't looking out looking to capture celebs and their spawn, but rather the small crimes of everyday people. Capturing even a minor crime on film- like lighting up near a non-smoking sign- can pay big. •

Gary Morgan, CEO of Splash photo agency, tells Time magazine: "There's going to be a lot of interest, all around the world, in the Obama family." Morgan has already sent more photographers to D.C. and was one of the agencies with shots of Barack Obama shirtless in Hawaii in December. The pictures, of course, sold well. But when it comes to the sisters, there's added bonus: they are adorable. The tabloids are dying to get their hands on some shots. This from Time:

"My dream would be a picture of them decorating their bedrooms or having a pajama party," says OK! Magazine editor in chief Susan Toepfer, who adds that she'll settle for photos of Christmas and Easter celebrations. "The Obamas have made it clear they want to be open with the public. They're going to become the national family."

But how do you photograph a family that happens to be the First Family? Unlike regular celebrities, they have Secret Service protection. Long-lens shots into the White House backyard? No way. The kids aren't going to be sitting in traffic while photographers snap away, like they did with Britney Spears.

Of course, the Obamas set up photo ops, and may very well continue to do so, involving the kids. Morgan says: "If they're out and we can get a shot, it's because they don't mind us being there. The Secret Service guys are cool as long as you don't do anything dangerous."

But at this site we constantly visit several photo agencies — several times an hour, every day — in order to post the most recent celebrity photographs. We haven't seen any shots of Sasha and Malia since the President has taken office. (And we probably wouldn't post them if we did.) Will the paps be stymied by the tight security surrounding the First Daughters? Will a more "open" White House mean shots of Michelle, Malia and Sasha shopping the streets of D.C., like Katie Holmes and Suri in New York? And while some argue that paparazzi shots of kids on a public street are an invasion of privacy, can you honestly say you wouldn't want to see the Obama ladies coming out of a restaurant, or getting manicures, or heading to a museum?

Gary Morgan from Splash says: "We'll see how it goes after a few months. It's not like we don't know where he lives. You can't keep people cooped up there forever."

Sasha And Malia: In The Eye Of The Paparazzi [Time]

Our culture's obsession with famous people has been snowballing. First there were a few magazines detailing the lives of the rich and famous; then tabloids, then TV newshows, and now hungry paparazzi and a 24 hour web gossip cycle in which we are inundated with celebrity information.

And the very definition of celebrity has changed; thanks to YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, writes Robin Givhan for the Washington Post. "Everyone is famous, and everyone is fair game. Life has been transformed into one endless red-carpet moment: a nonstop parade in which we twirl and pose, or bob and weave, and try to manage our personal image."

For the past couple of years, in an era of Britney, Paris and Lindsay, many complained that being famous no longer held the same cachet: Instead of being about an untouchable allure, stars were no longer heavenly bodies. They were suddenly brought down to earth.

But now, we have a man who has reignited the media circus. Photographers snapped images of him bodysurfing in Hawaii; there was frenzied interest in his daughters' first day of school. The Obamas are a new kind of celebrity, according to a piece in the new New York magazine. "I would put them up there with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie," says Chris Doherty, owner of photo agency INF. Veteran pap Dennis Van Tine says his Obama photos are outearning his Lindsay Lohan stock. "A photo of him smoking would definitely fetch over $100,000," says Splash News CEO Gary Morgan, who plans to send more photographers to D.C.

Right this minute, Barak Obama is gearing up for his shoot with Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, inspiring soda slogans and getting footwear designers all excited. The kind of stuff that used to be reserved for starlets or screen goddesses.

Here's the question: Is it better for this country to be interested in the life of the President-Elect instead of a bubble-headed blonde? What if it means an invasion of privacy for Obama's family and young children? And does treating the President like a celebrity — and not like an elected official — mean disrespecting the man and his office?

POTUS Weekly, The New Ad Campaign: Why Pepsi Loves the President [New York Mag]
With Everyone on It, The Red Carpet Is Wearing Thin [WaPo]
The VF Spread Cometh [Politico]
First Fashion [Portfolio]

Most of us can probably list at least a few celebrity arrests. If you don’t remember Paris Hilton’s DUI, you might still have heard about Britney’s driving-with-a-baby scandal. It seems like every time a celebrity gets behind the wheel, it makes national news. But, Slate argues, this does not make celebrities bad drivers. They are just overexposed and driving in more dangerous conditions than the rest of us — due to the paparazzi and all. The good news: we don’t care! Bad behavior in cars is usually viewed as a “folk crime,” so even though it may be dangerous to drive after a few drinks, enough people have done it that it no longer seems to count as “real crime.” Celebrities: they’re just like us!

Oops! She Crashed It Again [Slate]

Related: Foreign Imports Will Be The End Of Britney Spears

[New Orleans, December 1. Image via INF]

Elterman snapped the two getting into the car, and the pic ended up on a full page in Creem magazine. Elterman, who's photographed stars like Bob Dylan, Joan Jett, and Matt Dillon (see some here) says, "Photographers today just do not know what it is like to make a photograph of a real icon. The stars who the magazines run today are totally boring to me."

Elterman continues:

"I came from a family of art collectors and I have always been active in the arts. It dawned on me one day that if you knew your craft was a photographer, you could make a beautiful iconic photograph that would be published in the magazines and could eventually hang in a gallery or at MoMA in New York. There is nothing different from what were are doing today compared with the work of Walker Evans or Helen Levitt. The concept of Paparazzi As An Art Form has been accepted, and we did our first gallery exhibition early this year at the Seyhoun Gallery on Melrose Ave. The response from the public and the media was overwhelming."

Although we don't use Buzz Foto, we often come across "paparazzi" images that are like artwork, with echoes of Hopper, Lichtenstein (yesterday's Snap of Kate Moss), Seurat, Kubrick, and others, including Ms. Levitt (see Naomi Watts, below). We've compiled some of these arty Snap Judgments into a gallery, here:

Brad Elterman: Elevating Paparazzi To An Artform [Mediabistro]
Brad Elterman: Then and Now [A Photography Blog]
Brad Elterman.com
BuzzFoto.com
Related: "Paparazzi As An Art Form" exhibit information

Earlier: Lindsay & Sam: Got Any Fries To Go With Those Shakes?
A Scene From Sam Ronson's REM Cycle
Saint Angelina, Brad & The Twins Hit Cannes
Mary Kate Olsen Gives Chauffeured Shade
Don't Rain On Serena & Dan's (Art) Parade
Madonna: The Material Girl Is In Her Element
Seth Rogen Makes Naomi Watts Want To Hurl
House Elf Seen Sneaking Into Posh Hotel
Jennifer Garner Updates Famous Seurat Painting For Paparazzi
Chelsea Clinton At Starbucks: We Have Soooooo Been There
Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes: The Visual Metaphors Say It All
Redskins Cheerleader Arrives In Iraq, Promptly Tosses Hair
Kate Moss: Between A Rocker & A Drag Queen

Brad and Angelina photo above via Henry Flores/BuzzFoto.com

But it's not just photographers looking to profit off of the Fritzl family's misery. A hospital worker allegedly snapped some pictures of Elisabeth and her children and tried to sell them for upwards of 200,000 euros. Two out of three of Elisabeth's children who were kept in the cellar with her — Stefan, 18, and Felix, 6, — along with the three raised above-ground, Alexander 12, Monika 14 and Lisa 15, are all at the hospital with their mother. Elisabeth's oldest daughter, Kerstin, who was raised in the cellar, is still in a coma, but sources say she is on the mend.

Elisabeth is planning to be interviewed for her television debut by reporter Christoph Feurstein, the same guy who interviewed Natascha Kampusch, the other young Austrian woman who was locked in a cellar for several years. Elisabeth is expected to discuss the child she had who died and was subsequently thrown in the furnace by her father. "It might not be good for the psychological healing process but Elisabeth's heart pumps nothing but pure venom for him," a source tells the Daily Mail. It's vaguely ironic that the Mail, a rag that publishes tabloid pictures of Lisa Marie Presley merely to poke fun at the pregnant star "piling on the pounds," would be the paper to suggest that the media's gone too far in the Fritzl case. But at least someone's pointing it out.

Elisabeth Fritzl Is To Talk About The 24 Years She Was Imprisoned In Her Father's Dungeon On Austrian TV [Daily Mail]
Exclusive: Kerstin Fritzl Winning Fight [Sunday Mirror]

Austrian Man Locked His Daughter In The Basement For 24 Years
Who Is Josef Fritzl?

Let me rephrase: Not many people had both read it and parsed it. (Unfortunately, and strangely, the story is not yet online. Update: Now it is. ) Samuels' piece, unlike Vanessa Grigoriadis' think piece in last month's Rolling Stone, is not so much the tale of an American tragedy as the tale an American economy. (Photo agency X17 estimates its 2007 Britney-related gross to be some $3 million, or 25% of its entire revenue.) Nor is it, as one blogger attests, the "worst piece by David Samuels I have ever read." In essence, it is a nice bit of gonzo journalism (without the fear and loathing) centered around cars: fancy ones, and the money it takes to buy them (achieved via Hollywood stardom, or the pursuit of and profit from that stardom); fast ones (used to either flee or follow, depending on one's place on the Hollywood food chain); and fatal ones. (Britney's death by car is foreshadowed some four times in the article.) For whatever reason, it reminded me of Tarantino's Death Proof — one paparazzo's car is described as a "stripped-down steel cage that looks ready for Le Mans or Dakar" — with a lot less blood, fewer laughs, a phalanx of burly Brazilians standing in for Kurt Russell and a star-turn by a whiter, more drugged up, more famous radio star.

The conceit is simple: Samuels, who has also written for Harper's and The New Yorker, embeds himself with a team of paparazzi employed by X17 (whose pictures this site publishes dozens of times a week) and assigned specifically to Britney Spears. (The total number of paparazzi following Spears on any given day, Samuels reports, is upwards of 40.) The team is made up of an eight-member, mostly Brazilian team of shooters known as "MBF" who seem alternately bemused and beleaguered by their jobs. (They can make between $800 and $3,000 a week plus bonuses.) The story's supporting cast includes X17's owners, Francois and Brandy Navarre, their $5 million Pacific Palisades mansion (Adam Sandler is a neighbor), and a host of angry, mostly-black office workers who admonish the paparazzi as they lie in wait for Spears outside a Los Angeles courthouse. (Britney's reported lover, paparazzo Adnan Ghalib, also makes a brief cameo).

And of course, there are the cars. In pursuit of Britney, Samuels and his borrowed band of merry thieves go from on-the-street stakeouts high in the Hollywood Hills to the parking garages of fancy hotels and the exteriors of downtown Los Angeles court buildings with their automobiles: black Audis, Ford Crown Victorias (car of choice for the LAPD), Porsche Cayennes, BMW trucks, silver Mercedes', Land Rovers, Ford Explorers (one of which was famously attacked by a bald, umbrella-wielding Spears in February 2007) and of course, Britney's white Mercedes SL65. Interestingly, many of the paparazzi are former valet parkers; one owned two used car lots in his native Brazil. But back to the cars:

At 4:44, the radio crackles. "She's out! She's out! She's out!" I jump into Fabricio's car and we drive fast down Coldwater Canyon "Don't tell me shes' going to Four Seasons Again, or I will kill myself," Fabricio moans. Maxi, the Argentinian, is driving like a maniac in the wrong lane and trying to cut back into the queue. "He's new, so he's totally desperate," Fabricio says. "He's an amateur." He radios ahead for directions. Britney is at a record store. As everyone jumps from his car and rushes to the store window, I follow two of the paparazzi into a parking garage. A door opens, and I find myself standing next to her.

"Hi Britney," I say. She looks at me and smiles brightly. "Hi," she says. "Happy Thanksgiving." One of the photographers asks her how her Thanksgiving is going so far. "Good," she says. Her eyes roll back in her head as she smiles. A Brazilian pap lowers his camera and opens her car door, as if he is still working at valet parking. The pop star gets into her car and starts driving straight toward a concrete wall.

The potential upside of waiting 12 or 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week, is the chance that one day Britney will roll her car into a ditch.

When Britney Spears fulfills her apparent fate and dies in a fiery car crash, or overdoses on prescription medication, it will be surpassingly strange if MBF misses the shot.

Britney runs over a photographer's foot, can't seem to decide whether she is turning right or left, and blunders into the median strip. She rolls down her window for a quick second and looks around, confused, then lurches forward, nearly colliding with another car.

"When I ask [paparazzo Luiz Betat] what the pictures the pack is waiting for next, he shrugs. 'Now I think she can have a little car accident," he says simply.

Britney, claim the paps, is in on all of it, as does TMZ's Harvey Levin, although he is careful to qualify that assertion by saying that she is also "seriously mentally ill". Her manager, Sam Lufti, tells X17's Brandy Navarre that Britney reads the message boards on photo agency's blog, X17 Online, and comments on the pictures they post of her. (There is also a rumor that when she's unhappy with the shots, she goes out a few days later and restages them.) There is no evidence that Britney restages driving shots, but it's likely that even she — in her drug-addled and/or mentally ill mind — has enough sense not to restage high speed chases down Mulholland Drivea and become another Princess Diana. Likely.

Suddenly, a pair of headlights appears at the bottom of the ramp. The photographers start shooting, and then they run for their cars. Felix drives a new BMW truck. I jump inside, and as the pack swings up Coldwater Canyon at a scarily high speed, the other MBF drivers box out the competition so Felix can pull up alongside Britney and shoot video. The star is blasting a song from her new album, Blackout, through her open passenger-side window and singing along. She looks lost in her own world, a rich girl singing to herself in a white Mercedes. "Britney is unpredictable," Felix shouts, as he films her driving. "She might stop and take her clothes off, I don't know."

Shooting Britney [The Atlantic]
The Celebrity Hunters [The Atlantic]

Related: Everyone Officially A Tabloid Or About To Become One [Gawker]
The Lady Doth Protest Too Much [Gawker]
Britney For Smart People [Huffington Post]

Even though she wins my heart with most of her back story — she got suspended from art school for challenging her professors; she stands up to Weeds directors who try to rearrange her performances without permissions; she turned down Shannon Doherty's sloppy seconds, declining to takeover for the departed Doherty on Charmed — I'm sort of put off by her high horse stance on paparazzi.

"She bristles at the attitude that tabloid attention comes with the job, comparing that to saying a sexual assault victim was asking for it by wearing a short dress," according to the Times. Parker then goes on:

I understand the fascination, and I understand the curiosity, but at the same time I understand the fascination and curiosity of staring at someone who has fallen off their bicycle and has a bloody nose. Does that mean you should stand there and point and look at them as though they can't see you? I don't think so. Does that mean you should take a picture of them? Probably not. Does that mean you should take out your cellphone and film them so you can put it on YouTube?

The reason I take umbrage with this stance is because Parker began her career as a theater actress. She has always worked on the stage — according to the Times, her role in Cell Phone is the first "after four years' absence — her longest stretch away from the theater since she was 17." She could likely support herself and her children through a career doing plays in New York and London. But she chose to make the leap into feature films and television. It's a rational choice for sure, but the decision comes along with the trappings of fame. Have the paparazzi gone too far? Absolutely. But Parker's attitude towards the plebes who are interested in her life — and comparing herself to a rape victim in the process — is, to use her own word, inelegant.

You're Welcome to See Her Live, Not to Ask About Her Life [New York Times]

Just last year, the x17 agency found itself slammed with allegations that it was trafficking skilled illegal immigrants into Los Angeles and condemning them to lives of indentured servitude trailing the likes of Vanessa Minnilo and Spencer Pratt. Three years ago I personally spent some time with an elite cadre of Bauer-Griffin photographers, nearly all of whom were foreigners who had honed their skills snapping pictures of wars and things but left that business because, you know, there's no money in it. So what do our amateurs have going for them?

Well duh! It's the fact that our youth has been immersed from a tender age in American celebrity culture, exposed to a near limitless array of celebrities on a few hundred cable channels in what amounts, for the average American, not only to the formation of a crippling addiction that practically assures a recession-proof market, but millions of hours of free job training! You knew there had to be a silver lining somewhere.

The Rise Of The "Citizen Paparazzi" [WSJ]