Late Post Modernism. Illustrate your essay with specific examples.

This piece requires an examination of the concept of celebrity in the Twenty First Century. In order to carry this out it will assessed whether Graeme Turner’s (2004;) contention that, ‘The consumption of celebrity has became a part of everyday life in the Twenty First Century’, is true. (Turner 2004; p. 84) In order to put modern celebrity in its context the concept of celebrity in the past will be examined. Then the reasons for celebrity will be analysed. The third paragraph will involve case studies of contemporary media and its treatment of celebrities. This will then be compared to an overview of contemporary examples where reality television and personal life events will be highlighted.
Marsha Orgeron (2008) identifies the origins of the modern concept of celebrity with the motion picture industry at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The film industry followed on from vaudeville acts of the the previous century. The entertainment industry has its own system of patronage; the highest form of which was recognition. PD Marshall (1997) explains, ‘In its affiliation with vaudeville, the film industry was part of an already established and successful cultural industry that possessed its own system of fame, prestige and celebrity.'(Marshall 1997; p. 80) Following vaudeville traditions variety papers, the pre cursor of today’s celebrity magazines, the highest achievers in the profession were deigned by having their pictures on the front covers of the paper, ‘Variety, the trade newspaper for most of the vaudevillian performing arts in the early part of the Twentieth Century, regularly displayed large photos of the vaudeville stars on the first page.'(Marshall 1997; p. 80) The modern celebrity is reliant on the visual representation of the individual, a reason for the movies being so vital for the rise of the celebrity culture. Orgeron (2008) identifies the notion of celebrity existing in the 1850’s, however a rise occurred with photography. Orgeron says, ‘The proliferation of photography at the turn of the twentieth century enabled individuals with recognizable names to become even more familiar through the distribution of their images.’ (Orgeron 2008; p. 18)
At this time however, there was a hierarchy of celebrities that, where even a motion picture star, the highest of the celebrity order today, was seen as being low down the order. Moving Picture World in 1907 described stars of the highest grossing films as ‘picture performers.’ (Marshall 1997; p. 81) The reason this denotes hierarchy is described by Marshall, ‘To perform was understood to connote a display of natural action. To act had the connotation of creating the resources of character, the artifice of becoming the person one was playing.’ (Marshall 1997; p. 81) Greta Garbo was one of the pre-eminent early film stars who created a celebrity persona, ‘She removed mysteriously distinct from the mortals (her audience) both in her screen presence and in her lifestyle in her grand Hollywood mansion.’ (Marshall 1997; p. 81) It will be shown later how that gap between the celebrity and the real person has been reduced to nothing, however, in this early stage celebrity was a construct. ‘The character in the film may set the heroic type that the star embodies, but the relationship to the real person behind the image completes the construction of the celebrity.’ (Marshall 1997; p. 85) The rise of the movie industry celebrity marked a difference in its identification with the masses. Before, well known public figures would have been in the literary field such as Charles Dickens, however, the film industry allowed the masses to identify with their ‘talent.’ Kevin Starr argues, ‘There was literally no precedent in American history for the capacity of Hollywood stars to speak directly to the dream life of the masses.'(Orgeron 2008; p. 25) This identification of the audience with the film stars helped to create a change in the notion of celebrity, whereby a clamor was created amongst the public for more information about the private lives of the stars, ‘The concept of the star began to involve the player’s existence outside of his or her involvement in film; private lives emerged as a new site of knowledge, that took on increasing importance, sometimes to the point that this knowledge overshadowed the players roles in the films themselves.’ (Orgeron 2008; p. 28) Professor Lawrence W. Levine (2006) shows us the cultural and societal reasons for this. In an age of mass immigration, this influx shows us the cultural and societal reasons for this. In the early Twentieth Century there was a high entrance of immigrants into the States. It was in this influx that mass culture was brought to the States, and the nation became far more interested in this notion of celebrity culture. Importantly the cultural elite felt threatened by the massive changes in society, and therefore said that personality was what marked out the ‘upper crust’ of society form the ‘masses.’ Amy Henderson adds, ‘In a culture preoccupied with personality, ‘celebrity’ became a measure of success.’ (NY Inquirer 2006) This original notion of celebrity was a construct, which leads to today’s world where people construct a celebrity, without the identifiable talent. However, back in the vaudeville/Hollywood era the celebrity was based upon being at the top of that profession. (Orgeron 2008; p. 17)
Therefore, despite being reliant on personality, there had to be a level of achievement to be a celebrity, in that an actor had to reach the top of their profession in order to be on covers, or enter the public consciousness. Charles Marowitz (1994) is one writer who argues that the consumption of celebrity today has become too vast. He compares it with a ‘golden’ past, ‘In the old days, fame was the result of achievement. After a body of work, performing artists acquired a certain status, which was the natural consequence of accumulated excellence.’ (Gamson 1994; p. 40) Celebrities such as these still exist today. The new relationship of the former England and Tottenham Hotspur forward Gary Lineker is an example of the modern low brow coverage of celebrities, but the celebrity is based upon talent outstanding achievement in a particular field. A report on modern celebrity, by Fitch (2006) described the change as such, ‘The stars of our parents’ generation were entertainers, beauty queens and sports heroes; today’s celebrity ranks are swollen with “experts” from TV programs that tell us how to remodel and redecorate our homes, train our pets and overhaul our wardrobes.’ (Fitch 2006; p. 1) PD Marshall (1997) highlights how celebrity being reliant on just being known, and being on the cover of magazines means that it has no objective reason. He argues, ‘As opposed to the political sphere of leadership politics, or the rational rhetoric that envelops business discourse, the entertainment industry celebrates its play with affective, emotional, and sentimental in its construction of public personalities.’ (Marshall 1997; p. 186) This can be shown by the following of the decline of the singer’s Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse and their respective health and drug addiction problems. The rise of reality shows and their subsequent celebrity has shown the ultimate conclusion of this that people are now celebrities because they carried out their day to day lives in a house fixed with cameras. Former Big Brother Housemates who go on to achieve celebrity as glamour models are on the front cover of daily tabloids constantly. The extent to which this form of celebrity has reached a height that in 2005 feminist author and intellectual Germaine Greer went on the show. The following year denoted leader of the anti war movement in Parliament, Labour rebel and left wing Respect MP George Galloway went on to Celebrity Big Brother in order to reach younger voters. In addition former Labour MP and prominent anti European political figure Robert Kilroy Silk, and Liberal Democrat candidate for Major of London and former Police Man Brian Paddick went onto the 2008 edition of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here. This provides persuasive evidence that celebrity is consumed so greatly in the early Twentieth Century, that it was believed by some politicians that the only way to engage with the general public was for intellectuals and politicians to become ‘celebrities.’ This marked the ability to construct celebrity without being the top of an existing show business profession.
Contemporary examples show the extent to which we consume celebrity. The first case study will be the 12 November edition of the Daily Mail (2008). The main headline on the website was a story of a kidnapped girl, who had sparked a giant man hunt that year, ‘Shannon Matthews ‘drugged and kept on leash with noose in mother’s plot to kidnap her and claim £50,000 reward.’ (Brooke & Greenhill 2008, p. 1) However, given equal size and attention next to it on the next page were the story of the choice of dress of a early morning news television presenter titled, ‘Kate’s shocking see through dress on z- list night out.’ In addition the story of the response of the Head of the Bank of England was given a lower status titled, ‘Bank of England: We’ll slash interest rates to zero to rescue the economy.’ (Rawstorne, 2008, p. 3) Given higher status on the website were the following two headlines, ‘X Factors Diana caught out on Bonfire Night while sick’, and the line up for the latest series of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here. (Trombetta2008, p. 10.) The proliferation of the internet and the need to fill 24 hour news, and update internet sites continuously, means that news outlets are less discriminatory as to what they consider newsworthy or not. On the website of the tabloid newspaper The Sun (2008), the largest selling newspaper within the United Kingdom, stories on the website included a story of some embarrassing dancing by Hollywood film star Harrison Ford at a party, a new photo shoot by a page 3 glamour model who once appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and the story of Rod Stewart getting into a cramped car and almost getting kicked in the face by a fellow traveller.
This progression has seen a growth in consumption of celebrity, but also a change in tone as a wider variety of texts on celebrity grew. An American magazine called Spy came out in the late 1980s based on the rise of paparazzi style celebrity journalism that is seen as marking a massive rise in celebrity consumption. Their ironic and mocking tone showed that their opinion was that there was an over consumption of celebrity. Joshua Gamson, (1994) describes it as thus, ‘An April 1989 cover story on ‘celebrity garbage’, offers, ‘coffee grounds of the rich and famous- a scientific, sanitary and not at all unseemly SPY investigation.’ Another 1990 story gave a sarcastic ironic guide to becoming and maintaining your celebrity status, ‘What Americans think about celebrities, what celebrities will do to keep themselves celebrated, what nobodies will do to become famous.’ (Gamson 1994; p. 49) The contention of Turner (1994) in the introduction was that celebrity consumption has become an everyday occurrence in the Twenty first Century. This has been shown by the increasing role of celebrities in consumption itself literally. Hamish Pringle launched a study of the use of celebrity endorsements in advertising, and found that one in five advertisements featured a celebrity endorsing the product being advertised. This was quoted as being an increase of one hundred percent over a ten year period. Mohan K. Menon and Hudson P. Rogers (2001) argue that the consumption of celebrity in the early Twenty First Century has become so great that celebrity endorsements were found in their investigation to work. Menon and Rogers said that the results suggested that the effect on the public was as follows, ‘Marketers also claim that celebrities affect the credibility of the claims made, increase the memorability of the message, and may provide a positive effect that could be generalized to the brand.'(Menon & Rogers 2001; p. 1, Millward Brown 2006; p. 1)
Celebrity as we would understand it has been recorded as far back as 1850, however the origins of our idea of celebrity would be seen as existing in early Hollywood. The transition from vaudeville to Hollywood transformed the theatrical notion of the highest achievers in the industry being placed on the front cover of the industry magazines. The photograph and moving picture were vital to the consumption fo celebrity. Modern celebrity still has examples of achievement leading to celebrity, such as footballers. However, private lives, such as Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse, lead to celebrity as much as achievement in the field of music. In addition the consumption of celebrity has been so great that intellectual feminist such a Germaine Greer, or MPs such as George Galloway go on base level reality shows such as Celebrity Big Brother because they believe its is the only way to attract the attention of the general public, especially the young. Case studies of contemporary newspapers show how celebrity stories and the reporting of reality television shows were given equal prominence to stories of murder or economic woe. The over consumption of celebrity has been shown by the media magazines that helped given rise to it taking an ironic, mocking or sarcastic tone. Consumption of celebrity has reached such a stage that modern celebrity aids literal consumption, playing a large role in the advertising of products. Therefore, in the final analysis, Graeme Turner was correct to argue that, ‘The consumption of celebrity has become a part of everyday life in the Twenty First Century.’ (Turner 2004; p. 84)