The Culture Of Celebrity
Joe Gillis
Almost as long as there have been movies, there have been movie stars.
By the '20s the celebrity dynamic would seem to be firmly in place, as
can be seen by the reaction to Valentino's death. It can even be seen
earlier in the crowds Chaplin, Fairbanks and Pickford drew to war bond
rallies. Indeed, Chaplin's whole film career can be seen an example of
the celebrity culture.
Hedda and Louella were well established gossip columnists by the
'30s.
In the early '50s, Mad Magazine ran a piece (written by the brilliant
Harvey Kurtzman) spoofing the NY Daily News. One of its running gags
had big news stories buried in small paragraphs while most of the page
is devoted to the antics of a Rubirosa-like playboy ("Zazi dumps Zazzy
to marry Zoozie!!").
In the '80s (I think) some magazine (Esquire?) ran an article looking
at the history of gossip. Two important events it listed were Walter
Scott's "Personality Parade" column in Parade magazine (1968) and the
startup of People magazine (1974). I remember People's first issue. It
was clearly seen as different from Time or even Life, especially in
who they would put on the cover.
Another key event IMO would be the debut of Entertainment Tonight in
1981 (ET also had a profound if little remarked-on impact on
moviegoing. They listed the 5 biggest grossing movies, something few
people outside the industry had cared about previously. This certainly
helped the entrenchment of the blockbuster mentality).
I think Elvis' death in 1977 should be listed, b/c it seemed to catch
the media off guard. No one expected the reaction that eventually took
place. CBS News did not even lead with the story. So when John Lennon
was killed 3 years later, they knew what would happen and were ready.
By the time of the death of Princess Di (who was truly a Boorstin
celebrity -- famous for her fame, well-known for her well-knownness)
in 1997, you have the ubiquitous 24/7 news channels, as well as a new
thing called the internet. Everything seems to be in place.
Steven
"Joe Gillis" <floating...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:114a69ec-b40a-493c...@x17g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> When, exactly, did it start?
About the time the the first cave man stood up and entertained the rest of
his hunter-gatherer tribe.
Arthur
> "Joe Gillis" <floatinginthep...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:114a69ec-b40a-493c...@x17g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>
> > When, exactly, did it start?
>
> About the time the the first cave man stood up and entertained the rest of
> his hunter-gatherer tribe.
"Ogg gets all the chicks"
FDR
Stone bangers no get chicks
John Hatpin
>"Joe Gillis" <floating...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:114a69ec-b40a-493c...@x17g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>> When, exactly, did it start?
>
>About the time the the first cave man stood up and entertained the rest of
>his hunter-gatherer tribe.
I doubt it. The default social position of a musician for most people
is just as a strange person who might make nice sounds if we let them.
Once you start playing, those who like your music start to view you as
an equal; those who don't, view you as pond scum.
The inevitable ending of belief in the Big Myth - that somehow
musicians enjoy an elevated social status in real life - probably
caused the breakup of more startup bands than the invention of the
cheap rehearsal studio. You don't get adulation, guys, any more than
you get a nice place to practice in, so you'd better believe in your
music, because that's all there is, and it's a long drive home at 3am
in a rusty van.
--
John Hatpin
http://uninformedcomment.wordpress.com/
Kingo Gondo
Mason Barge
<floating...@gmail.com> wrote:
>When, exactly, did it start?
[snip]
Very interesting article.
I think the key here is to measure two things with some sort of scale,
I'll make it a 1 to 10 scale:
Let "Talent" indicate the size of the talent or whatever makes the
person noteworthy in the first place. Obviously this can be something
other than talent: an action (Edmund Hillary), an achievement (Lance
Armstrong), a status (Prince Charles), etc.
Let "Celebrity" indicate how famous the person is.
So, we get a "celebrity toxicity" measured by dividing celebrity by
talent. The higher the number, the more toxic the celebrity.
I guess we could have a third factor, i.e. how much subjective value
we want to place on the Talent. If Mother Theresa is all over the
news, it is going to be a lot more tolerable than Paris Hilton. So
I'll just use a 1 to 2 scale for Worthiness, and divide.
If we look at Paris Hilton:
Talent: 2
Celebrity: 8
Worthiness: 1, since her talent is itself obnoxious, i.e. inherited a
lot of money, made a sex tape, and starred on a very cynical
television show.
So she gets a 4, which is highly toxic.
I'll do Meryl Streep:
Talent: 9 (the great movie actress of her generation)
Celebrity: 9
Worthiness: 1.5, being an actress is important but a bit frivolous
So she gets a 0.67, which is not bad. Anything under 1 has got to be
okay.
One more. Let's see, how about Michael Phelps?
Talent: 10 (all time best in a major sport, lots and lots of work)
Celebrity: 5 that gives us a base of .5, divided by:
Worthiness: 1.7 (it's a pretty "good" thing he did, but he gets lots
of endorsement money and athletics isn't curing cancer)
Phelps gets a 0.29, which is extremely non-toxic.
>By the time of the death of Princess Di (who was truly a Boorstin
>celebrity -- famous for her fame, well-known for her well-knownness)
>in 1997, you have the ubiquitous 24/7 news channels, as well as a new
>thing called the internet. Everything seems to be in place.
I think that's overstating the case just a little. Although the
entire British monarch thing is only one step up from "famous because
they are famous", it's still a status that is actually important to a
lot of people. Institutionalized celebrity.
Dave in Toronto
wrote:
> Don't forget the scandal sheets--coverage of Arbuckle and the like.
I seem to remember way back, in the fifties, there was a Hollywood
magazine called _CONFIDENTIAL_ which concentrated on printing gossip
items gleaned from all kinds of sources which showed celebrities in a
bad light. I recall there was at least one attempt on the publisher's
life - which brings me to the Peter Seller's movie _ THE NAKED TRUTH_
about a rogue publisher of a scandal sheet (Dennis Price) who gets the
lowdown on famous people then tries to blackmail them into paying him
money to supress the story.
Dave in Toronto
Bluuuue Rajah
news:0JWdnYyKmNCgiNfX...@giganews.com:
> Arthur wrote:
>> On Jun 30, 7:11 am, "Steven" <stevenma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "Joe Gillis" <floatinginthep...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>
>>> news:114a69ec-b40a-493c-8d69-5c84f33f41f6
@x17g2000yqd.googlegroups.co
>>> m...
>>>
>>>> When, exactly, did it start?
>>> About the time the the first cave man stood up and entertained the
>>> rest of his hunter-gatherer tribe.
>>
>> "Ogg gets all the chicks"
>
> Stone bangers no get chicks
They gettum dumb ones.
Opry phantom
> "Joe Gillis" <floatinginthep...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
When actors like Pickford and Chaplin realized a lot of folks were
asking for more films, the salary demands went UP. Sennett and the
momsers at Paramount, et al didn't like it, but they *had* to deal
with it.
Jim
>
> - Show quoted text -
It's all about mass communication, and what sells. With each new
invention to spread information more "stars" were born. Before that
word of mouth spread the gossip of your neighbors.
Somebody could set up a scandal sheet for your street and start
digging into your dirty laundry and spread it around if anybody would
"buy" it.
Jim
Bill Turlock
THere's another one for my archives. Thanks, John.
David Oberman
>Don't forget the scandal sheets--coverage of Arbuckle and the like.
I've been meaning to try to see a movie with Florence Lawrence.
Bluuuue Rajah
4624-a672-d...@p23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com:
IIRC, the people at the rag really did set up celebrities for drug busts,
as shown in the movie, LA Confidential.
Howard Brazee
<floating...@gmail.com> wrote:
>When, exactly, did it start?
Before history.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
tomcervo
in 1959's "A Touch of Larceny" James Mason is a RN commander who fakes
his defection to the USSR, gets lost long enough to allow the tabloids
time to speculate and then returns to sue them. It's a given in two
movies of the time that British tabloids can be counted on for libel,
so Murdoch didn't invent it--he just brought into the mainstream and
to the USA.
Michael O'Connor
celebrity tabloid journalism began to blur, where tabloids like the
National Enquirer and Globe were doing a lot of the legwork on the
case and gained some measure of journalistic credibility. It was a
case made for the 24/7 news media, as all the news networks kept a
number of legal reporters and other experts on retainer. It was the
first time a capital murder trial was beamed into our living rooms,
and for eight months you just couldn't get away from it; I watched a
lot of the trial as it was fascinating to watch a murder trial unfold
without being personally involved in it. Had the OJ case occurred,
say, in 1984, it is doubtful it would have gotten this kind of media
attention.
In the wake of the OJ story, the news networks got massive ratings,
and any type of scandalous case or missing white woman soon attracted
an undue amount of media attention. Also, all the news networks
started airing legal shows that focused on stories like Drew Peterson
or Chandra Levy as the legal experts who became famous from covering
the OJ trial like Greta and Nancy Grace were now rising stars. Also,
a number of the lawyers who tried the OJ case soon found themselves
hosting legal shows.
I feel sorry for the families of Natalie Holloway and Chandra Levy,
but their disappearances should not have been major national news
stories for months on end. There is also the gender and racial
elements to this, that we don't see wall to wall coverage of missing
men or missing females of other races. And the amount of media
attention focused on the death of Anna Nicole Smith was disgusting, a
celebrity most famous for being stoned all the time, and for marrying
an 89 year old billionaire. I have not logged any time with the media
coverage of Michael Jackson's death after the first half hour or so
when the story broke, but all the networks got high ratings from
covering and overanalyzing his death, and they will all be covering
his memorial service and funeral this week.
Frankly, there are a lot more important things going on whose coverage
is getting squeezed out by covering these celebrity-tabloidy type
stories because people would rather watch people speculate about what
drugs Michael Jackson had in system when he died as opposed to the
North Korea situation, or the Cap and Trade bill, or the hundreds of
murders occuring on our southern border because of the Mexican drug
cartels. It's a sad state of society.
treadleson
> I would think the OJ Murder case was where the line between news and
> celebrity tabloid journalism began to blur, where tabloids like the
> National Enquirer and Globe were doing a lot of the legwork on the
> case and gained some measure of journalistic credibility. It was a
> case made for the 24/7 news media, as all the news networks kept a
> number of legal reporters and other experts on retainer. It was the
> first time a capital murder trial was beamed into our living rooms,
> and for eight months you just couldn't get away from it; I watched a
> lot of the trial as it was fascinating to watch a murder trial unfold
> without being personally involved in it.
....
> Had the OJ case occurred,
> say, in 1984, it is doubtful it would have gotten this kind of media
> attention.
>
> In the wake of the OJ story, the news networks got massive ratings,
> and any type of scandalous case or missing white woman soon attracted
> an undue amount of media attention.
The Nesbit-Thaw-Sanford White trial of 1907-08 was big tabloid grist.
The defendant (Shaw) also got off. The grounds were insanity. They
called it "dementia Americana," a condition that causes jealous
American husbands to kill their unfaithful wives. In the modern era,
wouldn't the Clinton tabloid extravaganzas of 1992 involving scandals
with white women pre-date and possibly foretell the OJ media orgy?