Lecture 7 29/11/2012
Celebrity Culture – Helen Clarke
The lecture looks at:
The history of celebrity
The relationship between
photography/film/tv and celebrity
The cultural significance of celebrities
How contemporary identity and celebrity are
intertwined
Contemporary icons as case studies
Julia Margaret Cameron
Celebrity portraits in the pictorialist
tradition – the period of the late 19th early 20th
century
A style that imitated painting: soft focus,
toing such as sepia, romantic/theatrical themes
The bride (1869)
“Mariana “she said I am aweary, aweary”.
(1875)
Sisters are often acting scenes from
mythology or religious themes
Christina and her sister Marie were well
known in society as beautiful, educated, and cultured women. Both sisters posed
for famous Aesthetic artists like Whistler and Victorian artists such as Dante
Gabriel Rossetti
English Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson
Male celebrities of the day were given a
different treatment photographically
The book represents his literary
achievements
More solid, less ethereal
Invention of moving pictures
Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince (born Metz,
28/8/1841 – vanished 16/9/1890) was an inventor who lived in Leeds who filmed
moving pictures on Leeds Bridge in 1888
Louis and Auguste Lumiere perfected the
Cinematography an apparatus that took, printed and projected film. They gave
their first show of projected pictures to an audience in Paris in December 1895
The “silent era” in film – from that date
up to 1927
Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975)
Baker costumed for the Danse Banane from
the Folies Bergeres production Un Vent de Folie in Paris in 1927
Her success coincides with Art Deco
movement which takes influence from African art
Golden age of Hollywood
Between 1927 and 1960 - the Jazz singer is the first feature – length
motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences
Mae McAvoy – classical styles invisible
editing where image and sound should not draw attention to themselves
Clark Gable
“King of Hollywood” starred opposite many
star actresses of the time in silent films and on stage
Bette Davis
Known for willingness to play unlikeable
characters
Mildred in of Human Bondage (1934) and
Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes (1941)
Married a
man who claimed he had never heard of her
Marilyn Monroe
Actress, singer
Relationships with Arthur Miller and the
Kennedys
Iconic as a ‘sex symbol’
Her death freezes this status as her image
will never disintegrate
Andy Warhol – Pop Art
Her face becomes a mask as it is endlessly
repeated in publicity, the news
The idea that there is a different woman
underneath ie. Norma Jean Baker prevails
Circumstances of her death seem to
confirm/not confirm this simultaneously as she becomes ‘myth’
Audrey Flack’s Marilyn (1977)
In the tradition of the 16th/17th
century vanitas painting where objects in the image have symbolic meaning
Photorealism – airbrush
Elvis Presley
Warhol uses an image of him acting the
classic American hero – the cowboy
Blurs our vision, reminds us that the image
is all we can see
His home Graceland is a place of pilgrimage
for fans, then a museum after his death
John F Kennedy
Celebrity politician – youth and good looks
TV speeches
Fashionable beautiful wife
His death in 1963 was not filmed by tv
cameras but by the public
Advent of TV
John Logie Baird’s demonstration of
televised moving images in 1926
“golden age” begins in the late 40s and
goes through to 60’s
Focus on drama as entertainment
Late 50s early 60s TV became commonplace in
UK and US homes
The Jacksons as a brand
Muscians/performers
1971 The Jackson 5 had an animated cartoon
on TV
1976 they star in a comedy where they act
as themselves
Michael Jackson
The changes in Michaels appearance are
interpreted as reactions to the abuse he and his family suffered at the hands
of their father
He looks less like a his father by reducing
his American features: nose, skin, colour, afro hair etc.
Madonna
Material girl 1985
Postmodern recucling of the Golden Era of
Hollywood
Pastiche of Marilyn’s performance of
Diamonds are a girls best Friend in Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)
A feminist statement: “If we don’t stand up
for our rights soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our
bones, and I’m not a piece of meat.”
Jana Sterbak (1987)
Dr Richard Noble, head of art department,
Holdsmiths College, University of London. “She appears to be referencing the
Canadian artist Hana Sterbak, who exhibited a ‘flesh dress’ made of meat.
Youtube
Created Feb 2005
Showcases self made celebrities eg. Amber
Lee Ettinger barely political known as Obama Girl from the video “I got a
crush… on Obama”
Barak Obama
‘Pop’ President
His eletion seems to offer progress in
American politics as he is the first black president
Young, good looking, musical
Employs graffiti artist Shepherd Fairey for
his election campaign
Princess Diana 1981
Represents innocence and beauty as the
truth of her marriage Charles emerges
Reinvents herself as fashion icon as they
begin to separate
The paparazzi
Seem to be to blame for Diana’s death in
1997 but our demand for ‘real life’ images of celebrities creates a market for
these images which command huge financial rewards
David Beckham
Contemporary ‘everyman’
Beckham’s as a brand
Cross worlds of sport fashion and music
Products include include underwear
fragrance as well as clothing
Overcomes private life scandals – he seems
invincible!
Pierre and Giles
Before photoshop used widely
Retouched/airbrushed images
Studio sets
Colours from =Indian religious posters
Jean Paul Gaultier 1990
Since 2006
We can follow celebrities
Details of their home and private lives
We can find out immediately of their latest
projects
Read their innermost thoughts
How do we ‘keep in touch with celebrities
lives?
Whereas untill recently we might have had
to wait for the magazine to come out now we have direct unmediated link to the
stars-
This lack of mediation means that stars
often make their own PR disasters
Ebay
Elvis’s Hair - $115,120 by selling a lock
from the famous black quaff back in 2002
Britney Spears gum $514
Scarlett Johanssons used tissue - $5,300
made for charity
during the golden age of hollywood fans
would have coveted a signature as it meant a real connection to the stars hand.
In the age of technology the signature has lost it’s power and authenticity,
it’s link to a unique identity.
Celebrity items on ebay- the price of a
piece of celebrity? We don’t want to
just dress like them. We want their DNA!
Guy Debord Society of the Spectacle
The spectacle is the inverted image of
society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between
people, in which “passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine
activity”. “The spectacle is not a collection of images,” DEbord writes
“rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by
images.”
“The more he contemplates, the less he
lives.”
Participants include George Clooney,
Angelina Jolie and Oprah winfrey and more
Spectacle vs Activism
One gathering in Vancouver had only 17
people; another in Brisbane had fewer than 50 attendees. In Canberra, several
Facebook groups resulted in a few fatherings of two or three people each;
Pierre Johannessen a “law girlm partner who runs a charity for disadvantaged
children”, disturbed around 3,000 posters to the groups to be put throughout
the city.In phoenix, 200 posters were put up by “college students and other
people in their teens and 20s”, along with a number of chalk and stencil
messages.
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