We will never learn from Caroline Flack’s death until women admit they were part of the problem
Last night saw the release of the Channel 4 documentary Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death. Originally, Caroline Flack had been planning to make a documentary with the filmmaker, Charlie Russell. She wanted to tell her side of the story following allegations that she had attacked her partner Lewis Burton. Only, as we are all too well aware, Flack died by suicide before the documentary could start filming.
Presumably because Flack herself had proposed the film, the people closest to her have chosen to be involved – her mother, her twin, her friends, celebrities from her mid-noughties X Factor heyday including Olly Murs and Dermot O’Leary. It’s a somewhat one sided story – more a eulogy than a documentary, with the narrative of a brilliant but unhappy woman, broken on the wheel of celebrity. As producer Anna Blue, tells the documentary: ‘…she just wasn't emotionally wired to deal with all the problems that came with being famous.’
It’s a familiar story, from Britney Spears to Marilyn Monroe. A talented young woman dreams of being adored, becomes famous and realises that for every person who loves you, there will be someone who cannot wait to see you fail. And somehow, the criticism will feel 10 times louder than the praise. The story repeats again and again and again as we create more and more famous people. Where a hundred years ago there were only a handful of celebrities outside of royalty, we now have thousands of them. Actors, singers, reality TV stars, YouTubers, Instagrammers – the list of ways to become a star grows and grows.
The nature of fame has changed over the last hundred years or so, too. Once upon a time being famous meant a red carpet premiere and then a return to your mansion in the Hollywood Hills, easily going incognito with sunglasses on. But camera phones obliterated celebrity anonymity, replacing autographs with selfies, while social media enabled us to track, follow, discuss and contact the famous.
And while on the face of it most celebrity magazines are slightly less toxic now than when Heat magazine would draw a ring around a cold sore or a belly roll. But there are plenty of publications who still share the cruel photographs and allow the readers to tear the woman to shreds in the comment section. Even for someone without mental health issues it would be an overwhelming experience. It couldn’t be less surprising that people like Caroline Flack, with delicate mental health, struggle with modern day fame. It’s surprising that anyone is emotionally strong enough to handle being famous in 2021.
It's certainly true that, as her friend Anna Blue said, Caroline Flack wasn't 'wired' for fame. But should you need bullet proof mental health to be able to withstand working as a television presenter? Or shouldn't it be possible for people – even delicate, complicated people like Caroline Flack – to work in the public eye without losing their lives?
Flack’s specific curse as a celebrity was that despite being a talented television presenter, she wasn’t always liked, especially by women. She was one of those I don't like her but I can't work out why celebrities such as Rita Ora and Anne Hathaway – both inexplicably hated by women. Which meant that when she did do questionable things (dating a 17-year-old Harry Styles) or unquestionably bad things (alleged assault) there was an enormous appetite to see her fail. Rita Ora's 2020 birthday party was the same. How much of that backlash was about Covid regulations and how much of it was people delighted to find a an excuse to rage against Rita?
It was predominantly women who shared the ‘Be Kind’ posts when Caroline died, and a few weeks ago on the first anniversary of her death. And it is mostly women who suffer from this culture of trolling and gossip. And yet it is also almost exclusively women who follow these accounts, who send each other unflattering pictures of celebrities, celebrating their weight gain or acne, who browse gossip sites on their lunchbreak. As Wheeler said himself about his documentary: “I think there’s a perception that if someone is single, and a woman, that they are fair game and we can all judge them. And I think that judgement comes from other women as it does from anywhere else.”
There is a renewed outpouring of pain following the Flack documentary, understandably so. When she died there were calls for better regulation of the press, for ‘bullying’ celebrities to be illegal. These Change.org petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures will, unfortunately, make absolutely no difference to the treatment of famous women because they ask for legislation which would be impossible to police.
The only thing that will make any real change is if we all stop interacting with it. Not just pretending that we never do it, not just expressing a distaste for it and then sneakily doing it anywhere. Stop covertly reading stories about celebrities you hate gaining weight. Unfollow the celebrity gossip accounts on Instagram. Don’t like snarky jokes on Twitter.
If women – and I am afraid to say it is almost entirely women – stop consuming these stories, they will cease to make anyone any money, and they won’t be published anymore. As is the case with so many things, yes, it is men in suits who get rich from these toxic articles and social media accounts. But it is women with smartphones who perpetuate them.
If we are in earnest when we say ‘never again’ about Caroline Flack, then that needs to be a real, genuine change, not an e-signature to a petition followed by a sneaky browse on the sidebar of shame. We either have to accept that we’re part of the problem, and stop pretending we’re desperate for the world to treat the famous better, or we each need to take responsibility for our own little part in a culture which builds women up to enormous fame, and then punishes them for their aspiration.