Celebrity Society by Robert van Krieken

Author:Robert van Krieken [van Krieken, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781136298554
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-06-13T14:00:00+00:00

Fandom and self-formation

In addition to gossip, central to the structure of the relationship between celebrities and their audience is the construction of oneself as a ‘fan’, whereby the relationship with a smaller range of celebrities, often only one, becomes a key aspect of identity and self-formation. In many respects, being a fan can be a kind of celebrity-at-one-remove; as Braudy observes, one can set about ‘gathering reflected glory by carefully monitoring the rise and fall of those more avid for the absolute prizes, but allaying the ambition to be personally great by assuming a pose of involved detachment from their triumphs and tragedies’ (Braudy 1986: 589–90). The extent of incorporation of one’s ‘enthusiasm’ for a musical band, actor or actress, sportsman or woman, composer, writer and so on, can be regarded as an indicator of whether one should be seen as a ‘fan’ or a ‘connoisseur’, although often the distinction is tied to that between low and high culture. Rebecca Pearson (2007), for example, explores how one would distinguish between ‘Bachies’ and ‘Trekkies’. The weight and significance of the role played by celebrity in the constitution of identity over one’s lifetime (Harrington & Bielby 2010) increases with the degree of self-perception as a fan and the extent to which the relationship with the celebrity can be understood as a social relationship operating alongside real-life relationships.

Imitation of stage personalities is not especially new – Cheryl Wanko points out how in eighteenth-century London, leading actors and actresses would have distinctive aspects of their appearance imitated by fans – well before Jennifer Aniston, women’s hair was ‘Catlified’, copying singer and dancer Anne Catley’s (1745–89) hairstyle, and Frances Abington’s (1737–1815) headdress became known as the ‘Abington cap’ (Wanko 2009: 217). Highly visible figures such as actors and actresses operated as guides to fashion, and aristocratic patrons sought out the company of stage celebrities because, as Wanko points out, such company constituted public confirmation of their taste and style (Wanko 2009: 219–20). In the age of motion pictures, Jackie Stacey’s (1994) study of women’s experience as viewers of Hollywood films in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s indicates a similar, albeit more emotionally laden relationship between celebrities and their fans, and celebrities’ central pedagogical role in the acquisition of cultural competence, character, style and overall image. Films were relatively infrequent, and had no competition from DVDs, television films, or the Internet, so women’s emotional experience of film stars was particularly intense, and Stacey’s respondents can vividly remember the core elements of how Doris Day or Lauran Bacall dressed, their shoes, accessories and haircuts, how they carried themselves and behaved, all of which was incorporated into their own identity and self-presentation to a greater or lesser extent. ‘I think we all liked to identify with our favourite entertainers’, observes one respondent. ‘Why else did we copy their styles and clothes. During the forties there were thousands of Veronica Lakes walking about’ (p. 203).

It was not just a matter of appearance, but character as well, with actresses

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