As a writer myself, I am a sucker for a good “writer works for long time in obscurity and finally hits the big time” story a la J.K. Rowling. The newest addition to this class is Charlaine Harris, who wrote the “Sookie Stackhouse” series of books that were turned into HBO’s red-hot vampire series True Blood (which stars the lovely Anna Paquin as Sookie). In time for the second season premiere, the New York Times has a profile of Harris. In the obligatory “how she’s changed now that she’s famous!” section of the profile, the Times lists some of Harris’ new status symbols, which include a personal assistant (Harris’ longtime best friend).
While I get the Times’ point, which is that becoming famous and successful and busy often means that a person needs to hire an assistant to make sure all the work gets done, I don’t like the implication that an assistant is just another fancy object like a car or a hot tub. Statements like these lead to faceless assistant entourages (where they don’t have jobs other than standing around and making the celebrity feel/look important) or assistants working for people who don’t bother to remember their names and discard them as quickly as a day-old newspaper. It’s the same problem when glossy magazines write “trend” pieces about celebrity babies, treating the kids like accessories or pets with cute outfits rather than people.
So can we please stop listing an assistant as an outward sign of wealth and status? It’d go a long way toward helping change the way assistants are viewed in our culture – we’re people, not props.
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