Framing Celebrity: New directions in celebrity culture

by Su Holmes (Editor), Sean Redmond (Editor)

Overview

Celebrity culture has a pervasive presence in our everyday lives – perhaps more so than ever before. It shapes not simply the production and consumption of media content but also the social values through which we experience the world. This collection analyses this phenomenon, bringing together essays which explore celebrity across a range of media, cultural and political contexts.

The authors investigate topics such as the intimacy of fame, political celebrity, stardom in American ‘quality’ television (Sarah Jessica Parker), celebrity 'reality' TV (I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!), the circulation of the porn star, the gallery film (David/David Beckham), the concept of cartoon celebrity (The Simpsons), fandom and celebrity (k.d. lang, *NSYNC), celebrity in the tabloid press, celebrity magazines (heat, Celebrity Skins), the fame of the serial killer and narratives of mental illness in celebrity culture.

The collection is organized into four themed sections:

• Fame Now broadly examines the contemporary contours of fame as they course through new media sites (such as 'reality' TV and the internet) and different social, cultural and political spaces.
• Fame Body attempts to situate the star or celebrity body at the centre of the production, circulation and consumption of contemporary fame.
• Fame Simulation considers the increasingly strained relationship between celebrity and artifice and ‘authenticity’.
• Fame Damage looks at the way the representation of fame is bound up with auto-destructive tendencies or dissolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135653712
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/12/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Dr Su Holmes is Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Kent, the author of British TV and Film Culture in the 1950s: Coming to a TV Near You! (2005) and co-editor of Understanding Reality Television (Routledge, 2004).

Dr Sean Redmond is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand, the co-editor of The Cinema of Kathryn Bigelow: Hollywood Transgressor (2003) and the editor of Liquid Metal: The reader in science fiction film (2004).

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors.  Acknowledgements.  Introduction: Understanding Celebrity Culture  Section 1: Fame Now 1. Intimate Fame Everywhere  2. Its a Jungle Out There!: Playing the Game of Fame in Celebrity Reality TV  3. Bringing Out The _* in You: SJP, Carrie Bradshaw and the Evolution of Television Stardom  4. I’m a Celebrity, Get Me into Politics: The Political Celebrity and the Celebrity Politician  5. Not Just Another "Powerless Elite"? When Fans Become Subcultural Celebrities  Section 2: Fame Body  6. Spectacular Male Bodies and Jazz Age Celebrity Culture  7. Seeing is Believing: Constructions of Stardom and the Gay Porn Star in U.S. Gay Video Pornography  8. Celebrity Skins: The Illicit Textuality of the Celebrity Nude Magazine  9. Get a Famous Body: Star Styles and Celebrity Gossip in heat Magazine  10. Droppin’ It Like Its Hot: The Sporting Body of Serena Williams  Section 3: Fame Simulation  11. Glitter and Grain: Aura and Authenticity in the Celebrity Photographs of Juergen Teller  12. The Mockery of Cartoon Celebrity: The Simpsons and the Fragmented Individual 13. Spending Time with (a) Celebrity: Sam Taylor-Woods Video Portrait of David Beckham  14. "I’m Jealous of the Fake Me": Postmodern Subjectivity and Identity Construction in Boy Band Fiction  15. Langsters’ Online: kd lang and the Creation of Internet Fan Communities  Section 4: Fame Damage  16. Idols of Destruction: Celebrity and the Serial Killer  17. Madly Famous: Narratives of Mental Illness in Celebrity Culture  18. Celebrity: The Killing Fields of Popular Music  19. "Sometimes you Wanna Hate Celebrities": Tabloid Readers and Celebrity Coverage.  Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"An exciting project, one that seeks to renew the field of star studies by enlarging its purview and bringing it into the present moment" - Amy Villarejo, Cornell University, USA

"This important new book stakes out the breadth of current work on the attractions and obsessions of celebrity culture. Fame, power, adoration, idolization, gossip, madness, and death are all here. Framing Celebrity poses significant questions about the mediation of public identities and the popular figures who undeniably exert such influence in our lives" - Dr Paul McDonald, Roehampton University, UK

From the Publisher