SEMINAR 4 - lecture catch up

- Summary of main points
- Link to theorists
- Some suggestions as to relevance of lecture in terms of graphic design

Lecture 7 - Celebrity Culture

Summary

1. History of celeb

- shift from the Victorian celebrity, who were men and women of the arts; to the Hollywood Era; through Andy Warhol's Factory and into the contemporary celebrity

- line between on-screen and off-screen life and personality and how this can lead to their destruction

2. Relationship between photography/film/TV and celeb

Female

- Julia Margaret Cameron - celebrity portraits in the Pictorialist tradition

- style that imitated painting: soft focus, toning such as sepia, romantic/theatrical themes

- sitters are often acting scenes from mythology or religious themes

Male

- male celebrities of the day were given a different treatment photographically

- celebration of what they did, more than how they looked

Film

- rise and fall of actor and actress who play main roles

- examines inevitability of celebrities going in and out of fashion

- mixing of on screen and off screen personality e.g. Clarke Gable

- reversal of roles between the ordinary and celebrity e.g. Bette Davis

TV

- celebrities in the home, in personal private space

- get space for TV to influence every day life

- private life coming through life on film which is almost the thing that destroys celebrity e.g. Marilyn Monroe

3. How contemporary identity and celeb are intertwined

- imitation of celebrity - celebrity informs/shapes individual identity/mass identity and industry involved around celebrity market/preservation of celeb

- ASOS - celebrity translating to ordinary person, opportunity to 'own the celebrity' and 'become the celebrity'

4. Contemporary icons as case studies

Lady Gaga

- 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

David Beckham

- contemporary 'everyman'

- as a brand

- overcomes private life scandals - he seems invincible

- untouchable status that invites us to wait for it all to go wrong

Whitney Houston

- idea of ownership and commercial value to celebrity deaths

Link to theorists

The Celebrity Culture Reader (2006) edited by P. David Marshall, Routledge