Celebrity and voyeurism

Voyeurism is the act of seeing or gazing at something or some behavior that ordinarily one is not supposed to be looking at.  In ordinary life, we are supposed to avoid looking at those things deemed private by others.  Sexual activity in particular is supposed to be off limits.

 Yeah, sure.  Media allows us access to many things deemed private in the past.  Not only are the most explicit sexual activities available for viewing online but the advent of reality shows encourages us to look at the "psychsocial interior" of families and the interaction of strangers, often escalating towards anger or sexual interaction.  Put that together with the the fact that we also live in a surveillance society, with cameras everywhere, online activities easily traceable, etc. and it's clear to me that looking and gazing at the forbidden has become central to our culture (and not just popular culture). 

I was reminded f this the other day when I bought a copy of "Philadelphia" magazine which had what I thought was going to be an article on the Phillies and their prospects for the upcoming season (I am a very enthusiastic fan).  What I discovered when I opened it up were two articles.  The first was not so much an article as pictures of top members of team standing in the locker room, with a little celebratory paragraph next to each, singing their praises and how good they looked!  The second article was on the wives of (certain) players.  This was straight out of the fan magazines kind of stuff--what they did with their time, how they dealt with their husband/player's moods, etc.  It seemed trivial but I found myself fascinated.  Examining my own feelings, I began to wonder if this really was a kind of implicit voyeurism.  Was I hoping to hear about something more salacious?  Or was this giving me the opportunity to fantasize about the sex lives of these ball players?  Then I began to wonder about celebrity in general and whether it's fascination was based, at least in part, on the opportunity to fantasize about the sexual lives of whatever celebrity I'm focused on.

Well, of course, it can't be just that.  What I mostly fantasize about consciously is having the money and the stuff money can buy that many celebrities seem to have and what I would do if had that money and all that stuff.  But I suspect that voyeurism is always in the picture somehow.

Woops!

Sorry, here's the link for the previous post. 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/157188

Politicians as celebrities

The line between politics and entertainment has never been so thin.  If you can vote for candidates on American Idol, why not look at politicians as entertainers too?  President Obama, I think, actively seeks out venues for presenting himself that are typical celebrity outlets--People Magazine, the morning show on NBC, etc.  Bill Clinton's biggest media splash was when he appeared on the Arsenio Hall show wearing sunglasses and playing a few notes on his sax (he also was interviewed on MTV and was asked if he wore boxers or shorts [boxers]).  If this is a culture of celebrity, it makes sense to exploit people's interest in the "person behind the role".  Here's an interesting article on this topic:
 
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7873070275950175057

Effects of celebrity media coverage on celebrities

On an individual level, it's very interesting to me the range of responses people have to becoming media celebrities.  On one side of the dimension, there are celebrities (Paris Hilton) who court media attention and in fact who creatures of the media.  They wouldn't exist without continuous media exposure.  On the far other side, there are those celebrities who manage to maintain privacy and stay out of the limelight (the late Paul Newman comes to mind).  In the middle, are the majority of celebrities, achieved or created, who are ambivalent about media exposure, sometimes welcoming it and sometimes feeling angry, annoyed, disturbed about their privacy.  There's also the category of people who don't seem to be able to handle celebrity and what comes with it.  It puts me in mind of VH1's series,  "Behind the Music".  The narrative is almost always the same.  A young person gets famous quickly, can't handle it, falls into drugs and general overindulgence, is in danger of losing their career, but gets their act together (rehab, therapy, etc.) and at the end is back into their career.  The formula is a rapid rise, a quick fall, rehabilitation and finally redemption.  Then there's the group of celebrities who strike back at the media.  Maybe they sue in court for libel or defamation of character or perhaps they physically assault the paparazzi.  Of course, if they do that, it plays into the hands of the paparazzi who get paid bigger bucks for pictures of celebrities who assault the paparazzi.  In short, how do celebrities adapt to the celebrity ecosystem?

Good and bad celebrity narratives

Omorosa Mainigult-Stallworth--I've been trying to think why I'm so fascinated with this person.  Watching the Youtube video of her appearance on the Wendy Williams show (seeing the whole 10 minutes) I was struck by the way she reframes her abrasiveness or "disrespectfulness" in a narrative of Black female empowerment.  She connects her behavior, rationalized in her book "Bitch Rules", to the wider struggle of African-American women in American history, including herself and Wendy.  She encourages Wendy to be nastier, then complements her on being nice, then shows solidarity with her as two African-American women fighting the same battle.  It's a very canny and clever  way of presenting herself and plays very much into the master American narrative of self-reliance, doing for yourself, and achieving your goals through your own efforts.  It's also savvy celebrity politics and I'm not surprised that she formerly worked for Al Gore during the Clinton administration. I want to think some more about this "nasty" and "nice" performance and why it's attractive (see her web site here).