'Tall Poppies' Cut Down to Size

LONDON, Feb. 16, 2007— -- This Valentine's Day saw the first live telecast of the British music industry's biggest awards ceremony, aptly named the Brit Awards.

It also saw the show's famously loudmouthed presenter, Russell Brand, offer several sex- and drug-related jokes, two of which involved teenage drug use by Conservative leader David Cameron, and a purported picture of -- ahem -- the queen's intimate body parts.

It is telling that out of an audience of 5.3 million viewers, ITV, the channel that broadcast the awards, received a mere 300 complaints.

Compare that with the record-breaking 200,000 Americans who called to complain about Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during her Super Bowl halftime performance in 2004.

So, is it impossible to shock the British? If the Brit Awards are any indication, the answer would seem to be yes.

The most public drug bust-up in the United Kingdom in 2005 involved one of the world's highest-paid models, Kate Moss. Pictures of Moss snorting line after line of what looked like cocaine (though the substance was never conclusively identified) adorned the front pages of every supermarket tabloid.

But what astonished many was not the fact of her apparent drug habit but rather its total lack of impact on her modeling career.

What, Her Worry?

Despite a drugs-and-nicotine-fueled lifestyle, Moss was never pictured looking anything less than photogenic. Indeed, even on the incriminating, grainy cell phone footage, she looked, as various fashion bloggers enviously noted, perfectly camera-friendly.

And the resulting notoriety did her career no harm -- her annual revenue skyrocketed from $9 million in 2004 to $28 million last year.

Some would argue that this is no way to treat a "disgraced" mother of one, but the British public -- if advertisers provide any clues -- does not seem to care.

Analyzing the reaction to Moss' drug scandal, Shane Watson, a columnist for the London Times' Style magazine, observed that "British culture is quite raucous. There's very little need for celebrities to lie about drinking or drugs or swearing here."

Comparing the U.K. scene to the U.S. scene, where she spent her adolescence, Watson said that "there's lot of panic in America when it comes to drinks, drugs or sex, particularly when it involves women. I think it goes back to the Puritans. Even our laws reflect this difference -- by the time it's legal for an American to drink, most British kids have already established their drinking habits!"

This relaxed attitude to drugs and alcohol is clearly what drove Brand to defend David Cameron's early drug use at the Brit Awards, when he asked the audience: "Who among us didn't smoke just a little bit of weed at school to take the edge off those crack comedowns?"

But if the British take a casual stance on celebrities ingesting illegal substances, their tabloids certainly don't relax when it comes to cutting public figures down to size.

Tall Poppies Cut Down

Speaking to ABCNEWS.com, Watson said that "our tabloids reflect our national character. Unlike the U.S., where people actually believe in the American dream and value success, we are much more cynical and suspicious about money. It's the tall poppy syndrome -- this culture of cutting people down to size. Americans tend to celebrate success. We generally react with a mix of envy and skepticism."

Her comments are echoed by Michael Butcher, editor of the British celebrity gossip magazine Reveal, who told ABCNEWS.com that "in the U.K., we like our celebrities to have human failings, so long as they are not malicious -- Kate Moss being a case in point. Americans tend to put people on a pedestal, whereas we have more of an underdog complex. We want our celebrities to be a bit more like us."

This desire to identify with rather than idolize celebrities is perhaps best reflected by the success of recent reality shows like "Big Brother," which has made veritable stars out of its otherwise ordinary participants, and earlier soaps like "EastEnders" and "Coronation Street," which are utterly devoid of the glamour that made American shows like "Dallas" and "Dynasty" so popular.

As Watson pointed out, "The more self-consciously glamorous the celebrity, the worse the backlash."

Discussing the harsh treatment meted out to certain figures by the British tabloids, she said that "one of the reasons tabloid editors are so nasty to someone like Victoria Beckham is because they reflect a popular view that she has betrayed her roots, and they punish her for it. Whereas if she were American, I suspect that people there would probably applaud her for changing herself to fit her new role."

Perhaps the last word should belong to Butcher, who denies the charge that British tabloids are uncommonly nasty to the celebrities they (and often, the wider public) dislike. Speaking to ABCNEWS.com, he insisted, "We are not in the business of generic celebrity-bashing, we just believe in showing them in their true colors, good and bad."

True colors or not, it's these fine cultural distinctions that seem to decide which celebrity survives the withering glare of the tabloid spotlight, whether in the U.K. or in the U.S.