Notes On Celebrity Culture
I’m digging trough some websites, doing research for a thing that crossed my mind this morning. While I don’t necessarily agree with some things exposed by Spiked (It smells hippie there), I found that these articles were useful.
First: The Worst Celebrity Profile Ever Written? at Slate magazine:
But are all stories about celebrities really 9/11 stories? Well, maybe, but Angelina Jolie is really the quintessential 9/11 story because—he tells us—”in post 9/11 America, Angelina Jolie is the best woman in the world because she is the most famous woman in the world—because she is not like you or me.”
Second: Brad, Angelina and the rise of ‘celebrity colonialism’, at Spiked :
Brangelina’s security posse, in cahoots with the Namibian government and police, created what it called a ‘paparazzi-free zone’ around the Burning Shore resort. Some journalists have complained of harassment, including of the physical variety. It is reported that, in the run-up to the birth, some foreign photographers were warned to leave Namibia or face arrest.
Third: The people’s Republic of Bono, at Spiked again: (this paragraph made me laugh so hard)
Bono has become a one-man state; more than that, he’s a one-man cross-border supranational institution. He presumes to speak for millions, not on the basis of a democratic mandate but on the basis that he – mystically, magically, and because Africans are apparently too poor and destitute to speak for themselves – really, really knows what Africans want. Thus we have the utterly bizarre spectacle of a rock star putting pressure on leaders who were elected by millions of people to do what ‘I WANT’ in Africa. British newspaper columnist Rod Liddle refers to him as ‘the People’s Republic of Bono’, and wonders how long it will be before he is given ‘a seat on the United Nations security council’ or makes an announcement that ‘he is developing nuclear weapons’ (16). Well, at least then he could back up his demands of the G8 with some real firepower. Bono really does see himself as a state-like phenomenon: in the current issue of Vanity Fair he boasts that his (Project) Red charity initiative donated more to the Global Fund for Africa last year than ‘Australia, Switzerland and China…combined’, the implication being that he is at least the equal of, if not even more powerful than, these states in international debates about aid (17). They used to call it colonialism when a white man from over here decided that he represented the interests of the black hordes over there. Now they call it ‘passionate and serious crusading’ (18).
Enough celebrity bullshit for today. God, I feel sick.
