Toxic: Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s

by Sarah Ditum Narrated by Sarah Ditum

Overview

A scathing reexamination of the lives of nine female celebrities in the 2000s, and the sexist, exploitative culture that took them down

Welcome to celebrity culture in the early aughts: the reign of Perez Hilton, celebrity sex tapes, and dueling tabloids fed by paparazzi who were willing to do anything to get the shot. It was a time when the Internet was still the Wild West, and when slut-shaming, fat-shaming, and revenge porn were all considered perfectly legitimate. Celebrity was seen as a commodity to be consumed, and for the famous women of this era, they were never as popular-or as vulnerable-as when they were in crisis.

Toxic tells the stories of nine women who defined the hell of celebrity in the 2000s and explores how they were devoured by fame, how they attempted to control their own narratives, and how they succeeded or (more often) failed. These women come from all walks of fame-pop music, acting, reality TV, and WWE wrestling. Some of them you think you know already, and others will be less familiar, but Toxic reveals these women neither as pure victims nor as conniving strategists, but as complex individuals trying to navigate celebrity while under attack from a vicious and fast-changing media. Their portrayal has shaped the way that all women-famous or otherwise-are viewed today, and their experiences preempted the now-universal condition, especially thanks to social media, of living under the public gaze.

In this audiobook, Ditum brings readers back to a time before second chances and redemption arcs, and traces the ripple effects that came in the wake of spending a decade vilifying our idols. We'll see how these women's stories intersect with the birth of YouTube, the rise of Internet pornography, and the emergence of Donald Trump as a political force. It's time to come to terms with how those cultural events shaped the way we see ourselves, our bodies, our relationships, our aspirations, and our presence in the wider world. We are all products of the toxic decade.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Ditum’s prose is never overwrought, and she treats pop culture with a rare seriousness. She is right to do so. . . .Toxic, Ditum’s reframing of an era, suggests that the uproar. . . may have been just the beginning of a reckoning."

— Financial Times, "The best books of the week"

“Top-notch pop-culture commentary—a smart and entertaining look at female celebrity during a decade of immense change.”— Kirkus, starred review

“Readers will rethink what they thought they knew about some of the most publicized celebrity stories of the early 2000s.”— Publishers Weekly

“A necessary and incisive feminist reckoning with the aughts. Insightful, exhilarating—and horrifying. What were we thinking?”— Caroline Criado-Perez, author of Invisible Women

“Living through the ’00s, I never realized how casually cruel they were—how cruel we were— to famous women. Toxic is an incendiary page-turner that will make you reconsider the price of fame. . . and your opinion of Kim Kardashian. It’s a Molotov cocktail hurled at the feet of celebrity culture.”— Helen Lewis, writer at the Atlantic and author of Difficult Women

“Brilliant . . . [Toxic] really made me realize how no one has pulled back and given an overall story to the last twenty years . . . It’s clever because it makes me think about now.”— Adam Curtis, filmmaker

"When I discovered Toxic I was immediately taken by the depth of Sarah's dedication, research and writing."— Paris Hilton

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-10-24
A social critique in nine essays, each profiling a female star of the early 2000s.

London-based journalist Ditum begins with Britney Spears, whose debut album “…Baby One More Time” was released in 1998. The pop star’s appeal, the author argues, hinged on her combination of sultriness and innocence, as a former Mickey Mouse Club cast member who wore a purity ring. The issue of her virginity dogged Spears, culminating in a bizarre interview with Diane Sawyer in which she was reduced to tears on the subject of the number of people she’d had sex with. As the author writes, “intercourse was treated as a grave and somber matter for which she owed the nation an apology.” Ditum differentiates among celebrities such as Spears and Lindsay Lohan, who became famous before the digital revolution; Paris Hilton, who became a star during it; and Kim Kardashian, who rose to prominence after smartphones and internet pornography were commonplace. In the second essay, Ditum looks at Hilton, the heiress who burst on the scene in 1999 as a bubbly socialite with a famous last name. The author paints a portrait of an enterprising, flexible young woman who understood that “her role in public life…[was] to stand for privileged nothingness.” As for Kardashian, the author writes, “because she began to seek fame later in the decade, she was able to harness the internet rather than merely be ambushed by it.” Ditum is an engaging writer, and she wrings new insight from these well-known biographies. She is equally eloquent arguing that the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 created a need for both “idols and scapegoats” as she discusses the Black community’s evolving response to R. Kelly’s abuse of its young women.

Top-notch pop-culture commentary—a smart and entertaining look at female celebrity during a decade of immense change.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159207418
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/23/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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