Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader

Description

This book brings together some of the seminal interventions which have structured the development of star/celebrity studies, while crucially combining and situating these within the context of new essays which address the contemporary, cross-media and international landscape of today's fame culture. At the core of the collection is a desire to map out a unique historical trajectory – both in terms of the development of fame, as well as the historical development of star/celebrity studies Contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: What’s in a Reader? Section I - Star and Celebrity Culture: Theoretical Antecedents 1 The Nature of Charismatic Domination 2 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 3 The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception 4 Myth Today ‘THAT-HAS-BEEN’; The Pose; The Luminous Rays, Colour; Amazement; Authentification 5 The Ecstasy of Communication Section II - The Analysis of Fame: Understanding Stardom 6 The Powerless ‘Elite’: Theory and Sociological Research on the Phenomenon of the Stars 7 Stars Heavenly Bodies 8 Stars as a Cinematic Phenomenon 9 Re-examining Stardom: Questions of Texts, Bodies and Performance 10 From Beyond Control to In Control: Investigating Drew Barrymore’s Feminist Agency/Authorship Section III - Fame – Remember My Name?: Histories of Stardom and Celebrity 11 The Emergence of the Star System in America 12 The Assembly Line of Greatness: Celebrity in Twentieth-Century America 13 ‘Torture, Treacle, Tears and Trickery’: Celebrities, ‘Ordinary’ People, and This is Your Life (BBC, 1955–65) 14 Celebrity and Religion 15 The Dream of Acceptability Section IV - Producing Fame: ‘Because I’m Worth It’ 16 The Economy of Celebrity 17 Sharon Stone in a Gap Turtleneck 18 Who Owns Celebrity?: Privacy, Publicity and the Legal Regulation of Celebrity Images 19 Celebrity CEOs and the Cultural Economy of Tabloid Intimacy 20 From the Altar to the Market-Place and Back Again: Understanding Literary Celebrity Section V - Made in Culture: Star and Celebrity Representations 21 The Face of Garbo 22 The Whiteness of Stars: Looking at Kate Winslet’s Unruly White Body 23 The Hollywood Latina Body as Site of Social Struggle: Media Constructions of Stardom and Jennifer Lopez’s “Cross-over Butt” 24 ‘Ozzy Worked for Those Bleeping Doors with the Crosses on Them’: The Osbournes as Social Class Narrative 25 Mobile Identities, Digital Stars, and Post-Cinematic Selves Section VI - Consuming Fame/Becoming Famous?: Celebrity and Its Audience 26 With Stars in Their Eyes: Female Spectators and the Paradoxes of Consumption 27 A Star is Dead: A Legend is Born: Practicing Leslie Cheung’s Posthumous Fandom 28 Doing It For Themselves? Teenage Girls, Sexuality and Fame 29 Media Power: Some Hidden Dimensions Index