Celebrity Culture Lecture 007 Notes

Celebrity Culture has a mass impact on our lives!

Photos of popular celebrities can differ between how the photo is shot (soft focus, sepia tones)

Films: 

• The Artist, 2011
• The Jazz Singer (Golden age of Hollywood)

Celebrities through film: 

- Josephine Baker (1906-1975)

• Helped out in the second world war as a spy using her celebrity status to gain her access
• She had a pet Cheetah which sometimes escaped into the theatre pit
  Influences: 
  Beyoncé - Used the same banana skirt in a concert and photo shoot. 

- Clark Gable ("King of Hollywood")

• US army air corps during WWI

- Betty Davis

• Known for willingness to play unlikable characters
• Films: 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 - the spectacle 
• Her death freezes in history because there are so many conspiracy theories!

Art:

Andy Warhol - Pop art

Audrey Flack's Marilyn (1977)
Andy Warhol - Elvis Presley

Andy Warhol - The Factory, Photographed by Richard Avedon (1969)

Politicians: 

- John F Kennedy

• Young for his post
• Good looking 
• stunning wife who dresses well, which in turn makes women want to dress like her
• His death in 1963 was not filmed by TV cameras but by the public - Film valued at $16 Million! 
• Comes into popular consciousness because he is one of the first faces to be broadcasted on Television! 

-Barak Obama

• Young
• Good looking 
• 'Pop' President
• Having famous artist Banksy help with his promotional poster to become president.

Television Fame: 

- Michael Jackson 

• First seen on the famous show 'The Jackson Five'
• He set a lot of social trends 
• His plastic surgery kept him in the lime light of television

- Madonna

• Material Girl 1985
• Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)
• Vogue (1990) - both make us relate back to Marilyn Monroe
• Post modern icon
• re-invents herself in ever album

- Lady Gaga

• Post post modernism - Brit Awards (2010)
• Re-invents herself every time she is seen in public
• She relates to artists and other musical artists (Madonna) in her stage outfits 
• Her meat dress - Maybe its a feminine statement? or Hypocrisy in attitudes to eating meat? - It relates back to Jana Sterbak - Meat dress (1987)

- David Beckham

• Contemporary 'everyman'
• Beckham as a brand
• known as a superhero (un-touchable)
• Keeps the public waiting for everything to go wrong! 

Royals: 

- Princess Diana (1991)

• Re-invents herself as a fashion icon once she leaves her husband and it starts to subside
• Her death in 1997 had a lot of conspiracy theories to weather it was an accident or was a purpose thing to happen because she could stand being in the position she was in anymore - The Paparazzi were to blame for her death in some cases.

Imitation of Celebrity - We all  buy costumes to make us look like these famous celebrity some times to prove a point sometimes just for the laugh (take the piss out of the person we are dressed up as) 

We try to become the celebrities by dressing like them!