Last week, FIFA released the report that India has the second highest number of fans at stadiums of Qatar. These days, various animated celebrations for football-heroes can be found also in many Indian villages, including numerous huge cut-outs and banners. Social media is fi lled with fan-based posts and at times which have even crossed the limits and led to some sort of verbal abuse and bullying. What prompts people for such expressions? Whether they are driven only from a genuine love towards the game of football? If the love for football is real and authentic, why India could not produce yet a team which can participate in FIFA World Cup?
Not only in spots, but also in cinema the celebrities have earned such an overstated public acceptance in India. Studies traced a relatively high form of celebrity worship in India. It is not surprising that a country with 33 million gods in Hinduism creates more gods as part of celebrity worship (Balakrishnan, 2015, p. 39). American social psychologist Lynn E. McCutcheon and her colleagues have concluded after conducting various researches that more than religious sceptics religious believers showed more enthusiasm for their favourite celebrities (McCutcheon et al., 2015, p. 45; McCutcheon et al., 2016, p. 525; McCutcheon et al., 2017, p. 24). Idolization can even reach the status of mimicking religious practices for their heroes (Brooks, 2021, p. 865). Literally, in India, there are temples where deities are celebrities from the fi elds of politics and entertainment. It seems that some fi nd it diffi cult to differentiate their relationship with the Supreme God and that with their superheroes and which leads to the deifi cation of humans.
A recent study found that poor self-image and unhealthy self-esteem as signifi cant reasons for excessive and unreasonable love towards the idols and intense celebrity worship (Sitasar et al., 2019, 13). Insecure childhood attachment with parents can also lead one to obsessive behaviours directed towards celebrities (Brook, 2018, 870). Idolisation of celebrities has been also associated with poorer body image (Scharf & Levi, 2015, 1943).
However, exaggerated social acceptance and celebrity status can be demanding too for the so-called ‘super heroes’. Celebrities are usually subjected to increasingly high expectations (Summers & Morgan, 2008, p. 176). High expectations based on their stardom would damage their effi cacy at times and which would even lead to public harassment and cyber attacks and to spoil their career. Sometimes, celebrities cost their privacy to pay for their stardom (Choudhary, 2017, 49).
Within the socio-religious context in India, clerics also enjoy a celebrity status to a certain extend which has been named as clericalism by Pope Francis. Indian culture has a history of deifi cation of priest-like castes. It happens when people identify them with the sacred agent, especially in a larger group (Dávid-Barrett & Carney, 2016, p. 307).
A study among Indian priests stated that unrealistic expectations lead to burnout (Joseph et al., 2010, p. 200). According to analysis of the responses of seminarians, priests, Bishops and religious, in a survey, to the question of priests’ living their priestly values, there is only a weak correlation between expectations and reality (Parathazham, 1988, p. 381). The distance between expectation and reality would damage the self-image of the priests. An exaggerated public opinion, respect and honour are often accompanied by high expectations of their personal life and ministry.
Non-realistic celebrity status for the priests in the society would harm the priestly formation as well. A qualitative study in Indian seminaries brings lights to this factor. Seminarians experienced an exaggerated respect and special privileges from their family members, parishioners and those they met during pastoral service. But those relationships lacked genuine warmth and reciprocity. Seminary-staff members recognized the burden of several expectations that seminarians live – expectations of society, the seminary and the family – and of their own aspirations. It was found that those aspirations and expectations curtailed seminarians’ openness towards their formation process in the seminary.
– Fr.Jo Paul Kiriyanthan