paparazzo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The name paparazzo did not yet exist around 1930, but the methods used obviously do - a press photographer is hiding in a water barrel
Der Münchner Punsch , 1861: The sheet caricatures under the title "You (meaning the photographers) shouldn't have me" the public- shy character of the Bismarck opponent Georg von Vincke

Paparazzo (plural paparazzi ) is an originally joking, but now common name for a certain type of press photographer who usually stalks celebrities in an undesirable way.

Paparazzi mostly work for the tabloid media or as tabloid journalists . Your job is controversial: On the one hand, the need for free reporting, especially about celebrities, is defended in connection with the freedom of the press . On the other hand, the “work” of the paparazzi is mostly considered “unlawful intrusion into privacy” and fundamentally unethical behavior. Bernd Graff wrote in 2014 in the Süddeutsche Zeitung :

"Paparazzi photos are the result of crossing borders and losing control, breaking taboos and violating personality - and a voyeurism that is actually outlawed ."

etymology

Defensive hand gesture by Oskar von Hindenburg towards a press photographer (1932)

The word comes from the name of a pushy press photographer who Walter Santesso embodied in the 1960 film The Sweet Life of Federico Fellini . Whose namesake turn the hotel owner Coriolano Paparazzo from was Catanzaro , of the Guide By the Ionian Sea by George Gissing is mentioned. Fellini had read the book while preparing for his film and was intrigued by the name.

Legal restrictions

Prohibition sign No paparazzi

Even figures of contemporary society can not be photographed at any time (for example, not in the private sphere). For example, the 2004 “Caroline ruling” by the European Court of Human Rights emphasized the need to protect any private sphere and thus criticized German case law. Some German media criticized the judgment as a restriction of the freedom of the press and claimed that only " court reporting " was now possible.

A law came into effect in California on January 1, 2006, severely restricting the possibilities of paparazzi. After that, it is forbidden to follow celebrities in the car or to "wedge" them. Anyone who causes accidents or is violent risks high fines. The sued photographer must, for example, compensate three times the amount of damage incurred and pay photo fees.

This was preceded by accidents involving stars, including Scarlett Johansson and Reese Witherspoon , who felt they were being followed by paparazzi. Arnold Schwarzenegger , former actor and frequent photographer himself, signed the law while serving as governor of California .

After the deaths of Diana Spencer and Dodi Al-Fayed in August 1997, the reenactments by paparazzi were discussed worldwide.

Well-known paparazzi

The Hungarian count and heir to millions, László Széchenyi, in 1908 with his future wife Gladys Moore Vanderbilt

The circumstances of the recordings of Otto von Bismarck, who died on July 28, 1898 , were sensational . A few hours after his death, two Hamburg photographers, Willy Wilcke and Max Priester, illegally gained access to the death room and took a flash photo of the former Chancellor. Then they tried to sell the negative to the highest bidder through advertisements in Berlin newspapers. The highest bidder offered the amount of 30,000 Reichsmarks, which was unusually high for the time. Bismarck's son Herbert managed, through the involvement of the police and the judiciary, to have the photo plates confiscated before the pictures were published. The unsuccessful coup ended with imprisonment and economic ruin for both of them.

One of the first documented attacks, which was directed against a paparazzo and which also resulted in legal consequences, occurred on January 22nd, 1908 in New York, when the Hungarian Count László Széchenyi presented the photographer Reilly, who took a snapshot of his companion Miss Vanderbilt wanted to do, beat up on the street.

Tazio Secchiaroli is considered to be the first photographer to go hunting for celebrities in Rome in the 1950s. He inspired Federico Fellini to create the character of the paparazzo in The Sweet Life . He was later u. a. known as the personal photographer of Sophia Loren .

Two of the first and most famous paparazzi were Felice Quinto (1929-2010) and Ron Galella (* 1931). Well-known German paparazzi are u. a. Hans Paul and Willi Schneider.

The former Berlin tabloid journalist and paparazzi photographer Christoph Seitz , who also took photos in Hollywood , quit his job in 1997 after Lady Diana died and in 2002 published the book I was a paparazzo .

Reception in photography

Triggered by the film The Sweet Life , the fashion photographer Helmut Newton took an intense interest in the paparazzi phenomenon. On a shoot for a fashion magazine in Rome in 1970, Newton worked with practicing paparazzi by integrating them as extras within his fashion photographs. In 2008 the Helmut Newton Foundation held an exhibition under the title Pigozzi and the Paparazzi at the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin , which addressed Newton's connections to well-known paparazzi and presented photographs of paparazzi.

A separate exhibition was dedicated to paparazzo Ron Galella at the C / O Berlin at the turn of the year 2011/2012 .

further exhibitions

literature

  • P. Howe: Paparazzi: And our obsession with celebrity . New York 2005.
  • KO Ferris, SR Harris: Stargazing: Celebrity, fame, and social interaction . New York 2011.
  • Kim McNamara: The paparazzi industry and new media: The evolving production and consumption of celebrity news and gossip websites . In: International Journal of Cultural Studies , 14 (5), 2011, pp. 515-530.
  • Andrew L. Mendelson: On the function of the United States paparazzi: Mosquito swarm or watchdogs of celebrity image control and power . In: Visual Studies , 22 (2), 2007, pp. 169-183.
  • William Merrin: Crash, bang, wallop! What a picture! The death of Diana and the media . In: Mortality , 4 (1), 1999, pp. 41-62.
  • Patrick Rössler , Miriam Meckel : The discreet charm of voyeurism: paparazzi and the photo coverage of the death of Princess Diana . In: Wolfgang R. Langenbucher (Ed.): The freedom of communication in society: The democratic functions of a basic right . Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 358-375.
  • Carol Squiers: Class struggle: The Invention of Paparazzi . In: C. Squiers (Ed.): Over Exposed: Essays on contemporary photography . New York 1999, pp. 269-304.

Web links

Wiktionary: Paparazzo  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Paparazzi  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. The Münchner Punsch makes fun of Vincke, who does not want to be photographed: When the lithographers and photographers stormed him, he exclaimed: “No, they shouldn't have me!” (The exclamation itself is reminiscent of the Rheinlied by Nikolaus Becker .) He even had the glass plate of a photographer who photographed him destroyed, with the remark that since the great amendment people in Germany have had a lot of negative ideas about him anyway. Munich punch from March 3, 1861.
  2. a b Paparazzo on www.duden.de
  3. Bernd Graff: Art? No war! In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 5, 2014, p. 13
  4. Axel Hacke : And what do I do now? In: Der Tagesspiegel , September 5, 2004
  5. sueddeutsche.de / Hans Leyendecker May 17, 2010: Oh, Caroline
  6. ^ German statesman Bismarck was one of world's first paparazzi victims . indianexpress.com
  7. Lothar Machtan : Death of a Patriarch . In: Die Zeit , No. 40/1998; about Bismarck's death, book review.
  8. Innsbrucker Nachrichten , January 23, 1908, No. 18, p. 9
  9. ^ Egmont vgs, ISBN 978-3-8025-2587-2
  10. ^ Matthias Harder: Catalog accompanying the exhibition Pigozzi and the Paparazzi . Helmut Newton Foundation, 2008
  11. ^ Paparazzi exhibition - fists, feint, movie stars . In: Der Tagesspiegel
  12. Blinded stars in FAZ from June 28, 2014, page 9
  13. Abstract