Pub Date : 2022-12-26DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2159676
Suri M. Pourmodheji
{"title":"Millennials Killed the Video Star: MTV’s Transition to Reality Programming and Extraordinarily Ordinary: Us Weekly and the Rise of Reality Television Celebrity","authors":"Suri M. Pourmodheji","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2159676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2159676","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47337225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2159671
Renée Middlemost
ABSTRACT Following a range of supporting roles in the late 1980s, Hugh Grant’s breakthrough performance in Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994) established him as Britain’s ‘go-to’ romantic lead. And yet, a potentially career-ending sex scandal while on the verge of Hollywood stardom could be considered the making of the man. By analysing press coverage using analytical approaches and frameworks from celebrity studies, this article shows how several flashpoints in Grant’s personal life and subsequent ‘celebrity confessionals’ have been central to Grant’s enduring popularity and evolving star persona. As I argue, scandals across three decades, and subsequent confessionals are mirrored in Grant’s maturing onscreen persona – from commitment-phobic characters, to experimentation with satire and comedy for the American market, to his triumphant return in British biography/dramedies. This article considers Grant’s evolving and unique engagement with the media as a type of ‘reverse confessional’ – where Grant’s confessions subsequently expose the shifting nature of celebrity engagement with the media, and less desirable aspects of the (British) tabloid press. In sum, I contend the reverse narrative mode employed by Grant as an ‘image restoration strategy’ has allowed him to reclaim his own narrative and expose key truths about privacy, press coverage, and contemporary celebrity culture.
{"title":"Scandal maketh the man? The evolution of Hugh Grant and the celebrity confessional","authors":"Renée Middlemost","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2159671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2159671","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Following a range of supporting roles in the late 1980s, Hugh Grant’s breakthrough performance in Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994) established him as Britain’s ‘go-to’ romantic lead. And yet, a potentially career-ending sex scandal while on the verge of Hollywood stardom could be considered the making of the man. By analysing press coverage using analytical approaches and frameworks from celebrity studies, this article shows how several flashpoints in Grant’s personal life and subsequent ‘celebrity confessionals’ have been central to Grant’s enduring popularity and evolving star persona. As I argue, scandals across three decades, and subsequent confessionals are mirrored in Grant’s maturing onscreen persona – from commitment-phobic characters, to experimentation with satire and comedy for the American market, to his triumphant return in British biography/dramedies. This article considers Grant’s evolving and unique engagement with the media as a type of ‘reverse confessional’ – where Grant’s confessions subsequently expose the shifting nature of celebrity engagement with the media, and less desirable aspects of the (British) tabloid press. In sum, I contend the reverse narrative mode employed by Grant as an ‘image restoration strategy’ has allowed him to reclaim his own narrative and expose key truths about privacy, press coverage, and contemporary celebrity culture.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47673140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-22DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2159675
M. Hallet
ABSTRACT Hugh Grant’s career and persona have undergone a cultural, personal, and professional shift since the 2010s. During a period of semi-hiatus from acting, Grant became associated with politics as he campaigned for the protection of privacy and opposed Brexit. At the same time, his image has been reshaped through fatherhood, often depicted by the press as the reason behind his ‘comeback’. Since Florence Foster Jenkins in 2016, he has turned towards more ‘serious’ roles and distanced himself from his romcom persona. Focusing on his most recent roles in film and television, this article analyses the star’s performances and dissects the ambiguities and tensions at play in Grant’s ageing white ‘English’ upper-class image. Although inextricably associated with the romantic genre for years, I suggest that Grant’s acting style and persona are more in a state of perpetual flux, attached to the past yet increasingly layered with enjoyment for the craft as he ages. At the intersection of gender, ageing and star studies, this article shows how an ageing persona is (re-)established on screen, and how Grant’s characters within his films and television series might render a different image of white, privileged, English masculinity in contemporary times.
{"title":"Renaissance man: Hugh Grant’s performance of class, white Englishness, and joyfully mature masculinity","authors":"M. Hallet","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2159675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2159675","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Hugh Grant’s career and persona have undergone a cultural, personal, and professional shift since the 2010s. During a period of semi-hiatus from acting, Grant became associated with politics as he campaigned for the protection of privacy and opposed Brexit. At the same time, his image has been reshaped through fatherhood, often depicted by the press as the reason behind his ‘comeback’. Since Florence Foster Jenkins in 2016, he has turned towards more ‘serious’ roles and distanced himself from his romcom persona. Focusing on his most recent roles in film and television, this article analyses the star’s performances and dissects the ambiguities and tensions at play in Grant’s ageing white ‘English’ upper-class image. Although inextricably associated with the romantic genre for years, I suggest that Grant’s acting style and persona are more in a state of perpetual flux, attached to the past yet increasingly layered with enjoyment for the craft as he ages. At the intersection of gender, ageing and star studies, this article shows how an ageing persona is (re-)established on screen, and how Grant’s characters within his films and television series might render a different image of white, privileged, English masculinity in contemporary times.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42042212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-16DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2157296
L. Stead
{"title":"‘There’s more to middle age than a saggy belly’: gender, ageing, and agency in Kate Winslet’s post Weinstein star image","authors":"L. Stead","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2157296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2157296","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47473596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-15DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2154684
Claire Parkinson, Laraine Herring
ABSTRACT Acceptance speeches have long been used by celebrity activists as platforms from which to promote their personal, political or ethical agendas. The actor Joaquin Phoenix, an outspoken proponent for animal rights and veganism, dominated the Hollywood awards season in 2020 for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck in Joker and used his platform to address this cause. The reaction to Phoenix’s speech in the trade and mainstream press reveals much about the role of celebrity vegan activism in the contemporary cultural and political climate. This article analyses the critical reception of Phoenix’s Oscar speech across 37 US and UK trade press and mainstream news articles. In doing so, we highlight how gender and notions of hegemonic masculinity are managed and reproduced through the press discourse on celebrity animal rights activism. We argue that Phoenix’s star persona and celebrity advocacy complicate the gendered norms associated with vegan practice. Finally, we address the issues of authenticity by examining Phoenix’s performance of advocacy at the Oscars to argue that and the actor’s speech popularises an emergent redemptive narrative of veganism, which negotiates hegemonic masculine ideals.
{"title":"Vegan celebrity activism: an analysis of the critical reception of Joaquin Phoenix’s awards speech activism","authors":"Claire Parkinson, Laraine Herring","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2154684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2154684","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Acceptance speeches have long been used by celebrity activists as platforms from which to promote their personal, political or ethical agendas. The actor Joaquin Phoenix, an outspoken proponent for animal rights and veganism, dominated the Hollywood awards season in 2020 for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck in Joker and used his platform to address this cause. The reaction to Phoenix’s speech in the trade and mainstream press reveals much about the role of celebrity vegan activism in the contemporary cultural and political climate. This article analyses the critical reception of Phoenix’s Oscar speech across 37 US and UK trade press and mainstream news articles. In doing so, we highlight how gender and notions of hegemonic masculinity are managed and reproduced through the press discourse on celebrity animal rights activism. We argue that Phoenix’s star persona and celebrity advocacy complicate the gendered norms associated with vegan practice. Finally, we address the issues of authenticity by examining Phoenix’s performance of advocacy at the Oscars to argue that and the actor’s speech popularises an emergent redemptive narrative of veganism, which negotiates hegemonic masculine ideals.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48829066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-08DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2154685
Agustin Ferrari Braun
ABSTRACT This paper critically interrogates Elon Musk’s celebrity image through an analysis of Musk’s appearance in the podcast The Joe Rogan’s Experience. It shows that the billionaire’s public persona is a constitutive part of his corporate strategy, and introduces the concept of ‘celebrity management’ to theorise how the affordances of celebrity can be mobilised to create conditions for a company to operate. Combining celebrity studies with critical political economy, Musk’s stardom is situated in the context of financialised capitalism, addressing the systemic contradictions contained (and artificially solved) in his image, while also demonstrating that it is tactically deployed to further financialised logics of his companies.
{"title":"The Elon Musk experience: celebrity management in financialised capitalism","authors":"Agustin Ferrari Braun","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2154685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2154685","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper critically interrogates Elon Musk’s celebrity image through an analysis of Musk’s appearance in the podcast The Joe Rogan’s Experience. It shows that the billionaire’s public persona is a constitutive part of his corporate strategy, and introduces the concept of ‘celebrity management’ to theorise how the affordances of celebrity can be mobilised to create conditions for a company to operate. Combining celebrity studies with critical political economy, Musk’s stardom is situated in the context of financialised capitalism, addressing the systemic contradictions contained (and artificially solved) in his image, while also demonstrating that it is tactically deployed to further financialised logics of his companies.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41384377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-07DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2154686
Jeffrey A. Brown
ABSTRACT In every era, the Hollywood sex symbol signifies, in addition to the obvious trait of sexuality, a complicated matrix of social ideals, fantasies and prejudices. Central to many of the ideological issues brought to bear through sex symbols are notions of ethnicity and nationality. Actress Gal Gadot, most famous for her role as the modern Wonder Woman, consolidates and embodies specific ideas about gender and sensuality in relation to class and nationhood. Gadot is a version of the ‘Continental Exotic’, an alluring and dangerously fetishistic woman who reinforces specifically American insecurities when faced with an uncontainable other. The Continental Exotic bridges the gap between Hollywood’s tradition of whiteness as a cultural ideal of female beauty and Otherness as the domain of exciting but treacherous sensuality.
{"title":"The Continental Exotic sex symbol – Gal Gadot","authors":"Jeffrey A. Brown","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2154686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2154686","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In every era, the Hollywood sex symbol signifies, in addition to the obvious trait of sexuality, a complicated matrix of social ideals, fantasies and prejudices. Central to many of the ideological issues brought to bear through sex symbols are notions of ethnicity and nationality. Actress Gal Gadot, most famous for her role as the modern Wonder Woman, consolidates and embodies specific ideas about gender and sensuality in relation to class and nationhood. Gadot is a version of the ‘Continental Exotic’, an alluring and dangerously fetishistic woman who reinforces specifically American insecurities when faced with an uncontainable other. The Continental Exotic bridges the gap between Hollywood’s tradition of whiteness as a cultural ideal of female beauty and Otherness as the domain of exciting but treacherous sensuality.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42241614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-30DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2149346
E. Tincknell
ABSTRACT In this essay I explore two recent ‘reparative biopics,’ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019) and Seberg (Benedict Andrews, 2019), which share features found in the resurgent cycle of 1960s-set ‘back studio’ films that have appeared in the wake of feminist criticism of mainstream Hollywood. Although positioned very differently in terms of genre (as biopic and counterfactual history respectively) and in their creative engagement with the cultural and political history of the late 1960s, both are notable for the way they deal with the real female stars at the centre of their stories, Sharon Tate and Jean Seberg. While each film seems to be seeking reparation for the past, their approach ultimately recuperates the women into a mythic discourse of the ‘radical sixties’ in which masculine agency and homosocial bonds are privileged. I argue that these films rehearse familiar biopic conventions to depict the blonde female star as tragic victim, not only of history but also of her own inherent frailty.
{"title":"Tragic blondes, Hollywood, and the “radical sixties’ myth: Seberg and once upon a time in Hollywood as revisionist and reparative biopic","authors":"E. Tincknell","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2149346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2149346","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this essay I explore two recent ‘reparative biopics,’ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019) and Seberg (Benedict Andrews, 2019), which share features found in the resurgent cycle of 1960s-set ‘back studio’ films that have appeared in the wake of feminist criticism of mainstream Hollywood. Although positioned very differently in terms of genre (as biopic and counterfactual history respectively) and in their creative engagement with the cultural and political history of the late 1960s, both are notable for the way they deal with the real female stars at the centre of their stories, Sharon Tate and Jean Seberg. While each film seems to be seeking reparation for the past, their approach ultimately recuperates the women into a mythic discourse of the ‘radical sixties’ in which masculine agency and homosocial bonds are privileged. I argue that these films rehearse familiar biopic conventions to depict the blonde female star as tragic victim, not only of history but also of her own inherent frailty.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46139198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-03DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2140565
Yektanurşin Duyan
{"title":"From sacrificing sister to star sister: the history of queer celebrity in Turkey","authors":"Yektanurşin Duyan","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2140565","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2140565","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44438132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-31DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2022.2136008
Susanna Paasonen, Tanya Horeck
ABSTRACT This article inquires after the ethics of posthumous outing and networked forms of remembrance connected to public figures accused of, or having admitted to, sexual violence and domestic abuse. Focusing on the obituary politics surrounding the 2020 deaths of Kirk Douglas, Kobe Bryant, and Sean Connery, it explores the forms that a feminist ethics of disclosure and memorialisation might take in the #MeToo era. Contra the popular tendency of othering sex offenders as exceptional ‘monsters,’ #MeToo’s affective and discursive force lies in framing sexual violence as unextraordinary, banal, and ubiquitous. In what follows, we make a case for forms of remembrance acknowledging that a person can simultaneously be an accomplished professional, a loving parent, and a rapist, so that one aspect of one’s being and actions need not require silence over others. Reflecting on what it means to remember public figures in their totality, we flag the importance of attending to the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts that have contributed to the prominence, and subsequent remembrance of individuals. We argue that such a contextual move makes it possible to see the individual public figure within the social networks and hierarchies that have allowed, or disallowed, patterns of behaviour.
{"title":"‘Natalie Wood Day’: sexual violence and celebrity remembrance in the #MeToo Era","authors":"Susanna Paasonen, Tanya Horeck","doi":"10.1080/19392397.2022.2136008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2022.2136008","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article inquires after the ethics of posthumous outing and networked forms of remembrance connected to public figures accused of, or having admitted to, sexual violence and domestic abuse. Focusing on the obituary politics surrounding the 2020 deaths of Kirk Douglas, Kobe Bryant, and Sean Connery, it explores the forms that a feminist ethics of disclosure and memorialisation might take in the #MeToo era. Contra the popular tendency of othering sex offenders as exceptional ‘monsters,’ #MeToo’s affective and discursive force lies in framing sexual violence as unextraordinary, banal, and ubiquitous. In what follows, we make a case for forms of remembrance acknowledging that a person can simultaneously be an accomplished professional, a loving parent, and a rapist, so that one aspect of one’s being and actions need not require silence over others. Reflecting on what it means to remember public figures in their totality, we flag the importance of attending to the social, cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts that have contributed to the prominence, and subsequent remembrance of individuals. We argue that such a contextual move makes it possible to see the individual public figure within the social networks and hierarchies that have allowed, or disallowed, patterns of behaviour.","PeriodicalId":46401,"journal":{"name":"Celebrity Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2022-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47185664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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