To protect or to parade: it’s a famous dilemma
David upset Stella by sharing a photo — and exposed the different ways of famous parents, writes Sophie Donaldson
IT’S been a heated week in the world of celebrity offspring. To celebrate her sixth birthday, Harper Beckham, daughter of Victoria and David, was thrown a princess-themed party, complete with a real-life royal princess in attendance (it was only Eugenie though). But it was in a real-life castle — the bash was held in Buckingham Palace, naturally.
How do we know all this? Because her doting dad shared a few snaps of the birthday girl with his 38 million Instagram followers. Stella McCartney was said to be ‘furious’ because the photo also includes her daughter, Reilly. Where the Beckhams regularly share photographs of intimate family moments, laboriously documenting the slightest movements of each of their four children, McCartney tends to keep mum about such matters. Her children are rarely in the spotlight.
In fact I didn’t know the name of her daughter until this falling out — but I sure do now.
Meanwhile, over in Los Angeles, Kim Kardashian came under fire for allegedly dressing her daughter North West in a corset. The reality star took to Twitter to point out that the dress was loose cotton — and the lace-up bodice was just for aesthetics... and it wasn’t actually a restrictive undergarment. Phew!
Then suddenly Harper and Reilly and North West were overshadowed by the goddess of fertility — sorry, I mean Beyonce — releasing the first official photograph of her two newborns. She shuttled them into the bright lights of celebrity existence via Instagram, cradling the babies in her arms and posing beneath a wreath of flowers as a cascading turquoise veil flowed behind her. As planned, the internet imploded and her star rose a tiny bit further.
This is the conundrum of the modern-day celebrity — to flaunt, or not flaunt, your child?
For famous parents, it is near impossible to shield your child from the press. With relentless paparazzi and photo-sharing apps it’s almost inevitable that they will, at some stage, be exposed to the world at large. Given the likelihood of it happening, are celebrities right to take matters into their own hands and decide when and how their children are publicly portrayed?
I do not have children, but the thought of publicising a child’s private life makes my stomach (or womb?) churn.
I don’t know what’s worse: sharing contrived candid snaps (like the one of Victoria Beckham and Harper in bed, eyes closed, arms around each other published on Instagram last month) — or the contrived, highly stylised photoshoots (the sort that Beyonce favours).
The former is a cheap attempt to give fans a glimpse at the celebrity’s ‘real life’ at the expense of the child’s privacy — while the latter is a tasteless attempt to objectify the child to the point where it becomes little more than a prop.
Our reactions to such public displays veer from outrage (how could Kim put a child in a corset!) to ambivalence (Katie Price posts yet another provocative photo of her daughter) to reverence (isn’t Beyonce amazing?).
Instead of being incensed that a child’s identity is being exploited — no matter whose child it is — we don’t seem to really know how to react. Perhaps it is because we will never be in the predicament ourselves. We have emerged from childhood unscathed from embarrassing moments caught on film that will only ever emerge at an 18th birthday party. We will never really understand the strange, cold world of celebrity unless we are inside of it.
Or, perhaps we don’t immediately lambaste all celebrities for taking advantage of their offspring because a little bit of us enjoys it. The western world was positively swooning with the arrival of Prince George, and then his sister Charlotte. There were oohs and ahhs over the official family portraits and chortles at their funny little outfits at Pippa Middleton’s wedding.
I don’t imagine the Duchess of Cambridge will take to Instagram any time soon, but can you imagine the furore if she refused to release any images of her children? In Britain, there would be uproar. The royal children are seen as public property by virtue of being public figures.
But whether they are Kate’s or Kim’s, they’re all kids. Their parents may have chosen to pursue a public life but their children haven’t yet.
The very least these parents can give their children, apart from the yachts, private education, flashy cars, designer clothes, vast inheritances and property portfolios, is a little bit of privacy. At least until they are out of nappies. Is that really too much to ask?