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Psychologists in a mess over Roman's
empire
ENVIOUS? Me? Moi? No, no, you don't understand at all. Why
ever should I be envious of a good-looking young monarch,
simply because he happens to be the 41st richest man on the
planet and able to purchase, as chairman of a football team,
every player he wants?
Have I ever thought to myself, ''If I'd been able to spend
£225 million at Exeter last year, and clear all the
debts and bring in Juan Sebastien Veron and Joe Cole and Geremi
and Damien Duff, perhaps the Grecians would have avoided relegation''?
Of course not. The thought has never crossed my mind till
this moment. The truth is that it's impossible to be envious
of Roman Abramovich, the governor of a far-flung Siberian
province called Chukotka and the instigator of football's
biggest-ever spending spree after his Chelsea takeover last
month.
For one thing, his business interests are so terrifyingly
vast that most of us, me included, wouldn't have the guts
to take them on.
His oil company is planning to pay shareholders a dividend
of $1.01 billion dollars this autumn, with Roman expected
to pocket half of that.
Even the $0.01 billion at the end of that figure, tacked
on with an accountant's obsessiveness, is in fact worth $10
million, or £6.3 million - far more money than most
people will ever see in their lives.
For another, Roman makes no secret of his Jewish heritage,
which would have been unthinkable for any Russian only a few
years ago. And for another, he beamed with a true fan's delight
as his newly assembled squad of galacticos swept to their
first victory of the season on Sunday, beating Liverpool 2-1
at Anfield.
He is evidently star-struck. The thought of buying Veron
or Vierra or Vieri must fill him with the same white-knuckle,
clenched bladder joy that made hordes of teenage girls squeal
at the Beatles 40 years ago.
It's endearing that Roman is shocked to find himself promoted
to the star-spangled ranks of the galacticos himself. He is
confident but not a show-off, a winner who doesn't need applause.
His wife is certainly beautiful but he is no socialite -
anyone who decides to buy his own kingdom and then picks one
near Vladivostok is evidently no party-fiend. Yet he played
up to the soccer fans on Sunday, signing ticket stubs and
acknowledging the Chelski fans who chanted his name. (He hates
the 'Chelski' tag, by the way, because he thinks it makes
him sound Polish - apparently 'Chelsov' makes a better joke.)
He's unique, but I suspect most people can understand exactly
what makes Roman tick.
Most people, that is, except scientists - scientists like
the pair of American psychologists who have flagged up a new
variant of mental illness called Celebrity Worship Syndrome.
Lynn McCutcheon of DeVry University in Orlando, Florida, and
James Houran from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
in Springfield devised a questionnaire to measure the depth
of fans' obsession with the stars.
Subjects must answer Yes or No to statements such as, ''I
consider my favourite celebrity to be my soul-mate'', ''I
am obsessed by details of my favourite celebrity's life'',
and, ''If he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favour,
I would probably do it''.
Nowhere do McCutcheon and Houran pose the key tester, ''If
I had billions of roubles I would buy all my favourite stars
and charge everyone else to look at them''.
Which is, in effect, what Roman Abramovich has been able
to do. But the scientists claim their pop quiz will identify
the 20 per cent of Westerners whose obsession with stars signals
a tendency to anxiety, depression and social dysfunction.
Of these, about five per cent will be 'borderline-pathological'
or madly obsessed, in danger of harming themselves or the
star they worship.
''Just worshipping a celebrity does not make you dysfunctional,''
Houran said. ''But it does put you at risk of being so. There
is this progression of behaviours and, if you start, we don't
know what's going to stop you.''
It's tempting to sneer, ''Of course you don't know. You're
a psychologist. You don't know anything about people!''
In the journal Personality And Individual Differences, the
duo even have the cheek to claim: ''Many religious people
apparently ignore the religious teaching that 'Thou shalt
worship no other God', or fail to connect it to the 'worship'
of other celebrities.''
In other words, they are labelling as hypocrites people such
as Roman and me, because we are both proud of our Jewishness
yet undeniably starstruck.
McCutcheon and Houran completely misunderstand the role of
celebrities. We are not gods. I've been a celeb for 30 years,
a celeb long before the term was even coined, and I must have
signed an autograph for every rouble that Roman has in the
bank - and not once has any fan called me a god.
It's a ridiculous idea, and a blasphemous one. What celebrities
represent are our aspirations and our ambitions. Their fame
and success are mirrors we can hold up to ourselves. We'd
all love to be rich enough and powerful enough to buy a world-beating
team of sports stars.
And even Roman, who has achieved that dream, has his own
aspirations - to be so gifted an athlete that he could hold
an audience of 80,000 spellbound with his skills, and win
the match with a burst of extravagant brilliance.
We can all dream. Except psychologists, of course. They seem
to have forgotten how.
Email
him at uri@urigeller.com
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