1st Edition

Framing Celebrity New directions in celebrity culture

Edited By Su Holmes, Sean Redmond Copyright 2006
    384 Pages
    by Routledge

    384 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

    Section One: Fame Everywhere

    1. Sean Redmond, Fame Everywhere: Mapping the Field of Fame

    2. Su Holmes, It’s a Jungle Out There!: The Game of Fame in Celebrity Reality TV

    3. Deborah Jermyn Just Like Star-ting Over: SJP, Sex and the City and the Reconceptualisation of Television Stardom

    4. Philip Drake, Publicity Value and the Right to Privacy: ‘Owning’ the Celebrity Image

    5. Matt Hills Not Just Another "Powerless Elite"? When Fans Become Subcultural Celebrities

    Section Two: Fame Simulation

    1. Suzanne Rintoul, ‘You Might Recognise me from such Hyperparodies as…: Troy McClure’s Celebrity and the Evacuation of the Private Personality’

    2. Kristina Busse ‘"I’m Jealous of the Fake Me": Postmodern Subjectivity and Identity Construction in Boy Band Fiction’

    3. Andy Denhart ‘Ephemeral Stars: Weblogs, Reality Television and the Instant-Ordinary Celebrity’

    4. Judith Franco, ‘Langsters Online: kd lang and the Creation of Internet Fan Communities’

    5. Adrienne Lai, ‘Glitter and Grain: Aura and Authenticity in Celebrity Photography’

    Section Three: Fame Body

    1. David Magill, Spectacular Male Bodies and Jazz Age Celebrity Culture.

    2. John Mercer, Seeing is Believing: Constructions of Stardom and The Gay Porn Star in American Gay Video Pornography.

    3. Adam Knee, Celebrity Skins: Deconstructing the Nude Celebrity

    4. Rebecca Feasey, Consuming Celebrity: Fashion, Femininity and the Celebrity Body in Heat Magazine

    5. Ramona Coleman, The Black Body of Serena Williams.

    Section Four: Fame Damage

    1. David Schmid, Idol of Destruction: Celebrity and the Serial Killer.

    2. Stephen Harper, Narratives of Mental Illness in Celebrity Culture.

    3. Sheila Whitely, Fallen Idols: The killing fields, celebrity, sexuality and popular music.

    4. Rose Theresa, Michael Jackson the King of Melodrama: Innocent until proven guilty.

    5. Sofia Johansson, ‘It’s Only Fair the Tabloids Rip Into Them’: Responses to Celebrity Coverage in the Sun and The daily Mirror

    Notes on Contributors

    Biography

    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).

    "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