Lecture looks at:
- history of celeb
- relationship between photography/film/TV and celeb
- the cultural significance of celebs
- how contemporary identity and celeb are intertwine
- contemporary icons as case studies
Julia Margaret Cameron
- celebrity portraits in the Pictorialist tradition
- late 19th early 20th century
- royals, poets, writers
- style that imitated painting: soft focus, toning such as sepia, romantic/theatrical themes
- The Bride (1869)
- Mariana "She said I am aweary, aweary" 1875
- sitters 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
- book on his knee, reference to poetry, pocket watch reference to status
- definite pose, less staged, less mythical
- portrait of the person
- male celebrities of the day were given a different treatment photographically
- the book represents his literary achievements
- more solid, less ethereal
- Graham Clarke argues this is about male treatment of male sitters, celebration of what they did more than how they looked
Invention of moving pictures
- Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince - inventor who lived in Leeds who filmed moving pictures on Leeds Bridge in 1888
- Louis and Auguste Lumiere perfected the cinematographe, an apparatus that took, printed, and projected film
- gave first show of projected pictures to an audience in Paris Dec 1895
- "The Silent Era" in film
The Artist, 2011
- contemporary film that portrays era of silent movie in silence
- subtitles and music
- story portrays rise and fall of actor and actress who play main roles
- examines inevitability of celebrities going in and out of fashion
Josephine Baker (1906-1975)
- Baker costumed for the Danse Banane from the Folies Bergeres produdction Un Vent de Folie in Paris 1927
- her success coincides with the Art Deco movement which takes influence from African art
- was attractive and made living from appearance and talent but also worked in WW2, spying on Nazis by using her position as a celebrity - helped resistance - two sides to public and private persona
- had a pet cheetah which sometimes escaped into the orchestra pit
- a muse for contemporary authors, painters, designers and sculptors including Dior and Picasso
Influences
- Beyonce, outfit based on Josephine Baker
- Fashion Rocks 2006, more than an event - we are a unique brand that transcends the worlds of fashion and music
- racial stereotyping or confirming racial stereotyping? re-use of bananas could be read either way
Golden age of Hollywood
- between 1927 and 1960
- The Jazz Singer is the first feature length motion picture with synchronised dialogue sequences
- Mae McAvoy
- classical style of 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
- US army Air Corps during WW1
- American hero - he himself has been in US army, on screen hero as well as off screen
- mixing of on screen and off screen personality
- sets celebrity up for a status, almost 'god-like'
Bette Davis
- known for willingness to play unlikeable characters
- Mildred in Of Human Bondage 1934 and Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes 1941
- seeks out roles where she's a less attractive character or an evil character
- attitude to fame made her marry someone who had never heard of her
- instigated strange canteen/restaurant which provided for US service men, they would be waited on by celebrities
- reversal of roles between the ordinary and celebrity
Marilyn Monroe
- actress, singer
- relationships with Arthur Miller and the Kennedy's
- iconic sex symbol
- the spectacle
- her death freezes this status as her image will never disintegrate
- have a sense of her private life coming through her life on film which is almost the thing that destroys her
- conspiracy theories about her death - suicide or people trying to get rid of her
Andy Warhol - Pop Art
- Marilyn's face becomes a mask as it is endlessly repeated in publicity/news
- image we can't get away from
- idea that there is a different woman underneath i.e.: Norma Jean Baker prevails
- circumstances of her death seem to confirm/not confirm this simultaneously as she becomes 'myth'
- romance between two characters which makes her compelling and mythological
Audrey Flack's Marilyn 1997
- in tradition of 16th/17th century Vanitas painting where objects in the image have symbolic meaning
- Photorealism - airbrush
- objects have meaning attached to them
- reminding us of the difference between the person and the repeated image
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
- Hollywood churning out stars, machine, factory of Hollywood, reminder that this is all about money
- Elvis - world of music, acting, looks, dance - everything collides, becomes this kind of superhero that sets up anticipation of his destruction
Warhols Factory photographed by Richard Avedon 1969
- space for alternative expression
- encourages subcultural characters to hang out at the factory
- mixture of arty/bohemian lifestyles
- everyone hanging out together
- irony of him calling it the factory is reference to creation of stars
- Warhol perhaps first person to think about turning ordinary people/low status people to stars by filming and photographing them, as well as through association to himself
- atmosphere created around parties, drugs and sex
- 60s vibe/sexual politics
- opposite to clean cut image of Elvis
John F Kennedy
- celebrity politician - youth and good looks
- television speeches
- fashionable beautiful wife who people want to dress, always in magazines
- become subject of Warhol's works
- his death in 1963 was not filmed by TV cameras but by the public, becomes most valuable film footage ever (according to Guinness Book of World Records)
- film donated but government ordered to pay family for it, valued at 16mil dollars
- drama of his destruction
- almost seems in-destructable but ends up being shot in public
Advent of television
- John Logie Baird's demonstration of televised moving images 1926
- "Golden Age" begins late 40s and goes through 50s and 60s
- focus on drama as entertainment
- late 50s early 60s TV became commonplace in UK and US homes
- celebrities in the home, in personal private space
- get space for TV to influence every day life
The Jackson's as a brand
- musicians/performers
- 1971 The Jackson 5 had an animated cartoon on TV
- 1976 they star in a comedy where they act as themselves even though it is scripted
- Michael emerging as star of show
Michael Jackson
- 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 his father by reducing his African American features: nose, skin colour, afro hair etc
Madonna
- Material Girl 1985
- postmodern recycling of Golden Era of Hollywood
- Pastiche of Marilyn's performance of Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend in Gentleman Prefer Blondes 1953
- wealth is celebrated instead of seen as bad taste
- mark of success to show your wealth quite openly
- Vogue 1990, lists female icons - dance in gay clubs in New York
- re-invention for every tour and every album
Lady Gaga - Brit Awards 2010
- references and recycles some of Madonna's ideas
- recycles her image every time she is seen in public
- no longer have a signature look, get mutability of several different selves portrayed through contemporary celebrity
- impossible to get in touch with real self
- just about spectacle not about her at all
- who's the most important? who's the most fashionable? who's the cooler?
But what does it mean? - Gaga's meat dress
- 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 am not a piece of meat."
- Chef Fergus Henderson, author of Nose To Tail Eating and someone who is noted for his use of offal and all cuts of meat, sees a similar hypocrisy in attitudes to eating meat: "People often don't want meat to look like meat. They want it neatly wrapped in plastic from supermarkets."
- perhaps it means nothing at all, perhaps there is no meaning behind it, just shock value
Jana Sterbak 1987
- Gaga referencing artist
Barak Obama
- 'Pop' president
- election seems to offer profess in American politics as he is the first black president
- young, good looking, musical
- employs graffiti artist Shepard Fairey for his election campaign
- access greater voting audience
YouTube
- created feb 2005
- showcases self-made celebrities e.g. Amber Lee Ettinger
- barelypolitical (reference to pornography) known as Obama Girl from video "I got a crush on Obama"
- politicians using pop culture to reach out to people but also sucking back the other way, politics distorted/amused for shallow self promotion
Princess Diana 1981
- represents innocence and beauty as the truth of her marriage to Charles emerges
- reinvents herself as fashion icon as they begin to separate
- status for us to look towards in a nationalistic way
- photograph by Mario Testino
- almost inevitable slide as her status elevates, can feel inevitability of it going wrong
- slide towards death in 1977, can't continue in position that she's in
The Paparazzi
- seem to be to blame for Diana's death in 1997
- but out demand for 'real life' images of celebrities creates a market for these images which command huge financial rewards
- mourn in the way that you would for someone close to you
- mass scale grief
- want to share in grief and drama of the 'end of it'
Whitney Houston's funeral 2012
- mass mourning repeated
- had to be broadcast on cable TV and shown online because so many people wanted to be part of the event
- idea of ownership and commercial value to celebrity deaths
- 27 of singles were expected to chart
- music industry aware that people will buy her music as reaction to her death
David Beckham
- contemporary 'everyman'
- as a brand
- cross worlds of sport fashion and music
- products include underwear, fragrance as well as clothing
- overcomes private life scandals - he seems invincible
- untouchable status that invites us to wait for it all to go wrong
Imitation of celebrity
- celebrity informs/shapes individual identity/mass identity
- comic versions, Elvis impersonators
- bands who imitate famous bands, Oasis tributes
- commercial value
- industry involved around celebrity market/preservation of celeb
Alison Jackson, Private 2004
- book
- apparently have celebs in compromising and questionable situations
- apparently caught in 'private' moments
- uses language of paparazzi in her photography
- use methods that apply long lens has been used
- looking from a distance
- language of 'spied on' moment
- celebrity moment observed
- uses look-a-likes and stages scenarios
- sets up scenes that are un-real but are kind of present in subconscious somewhere
- tapping into idea that we wanted to see un-decided celebrity
- providing us with voyeuristic thoughts
- imagined family scenes like portrait or Diana which plays on conspiracy theories that Diana was killed because she was pregnant with Dodi Al Fayed
As Seen on Stars
- celebrity translating to ordinary person
- ASOS
- you can wear a dress similar
- own the celebrity, become the celebrity
Pierre and Giles
- before photoshop used widely
- retouched/airbrushed images
- manipulation by hand
- studio sets
- colours from Indian religious posters
- very kitsch
- Jean Paul Gaultier 1990
David LaChapelle, Jesus is my homeboy
- tendency to worship celeb
Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow 1996
- seems prophetic of shooting to fame then destruction
John Stezaker from the Marriage series 2006
- recycles images
- juxtaposes and makes weird hybrid figures
- cuts and pastes images together, both male and female star
- third odd person that is neither one nor the other
- not identifiable as a star
- generic, robotic stars
Twitter
- way to get in contact with contemporary celebs
- can follow them
- details of home and private lives
- can find out immediately of their latest projects
- read their innermost thoughts
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