Lectures

 

 

Celebrity Culture

 

Celebrity Culture is an essentially modern phenomenon that emerged amid such twentieth-century trends as urbanization and the rapid development of consumer culture. It was profoundly shaped by new technologies that make easily possible the mechanical reproduction of images and the extremely quick dissemination of images and information/News through such media as radio, cinema, television, and the Internet.

Thanks to publications such as People, tabloids such as Star and The National Enquirer, and talk shows where both celebrities and supposedly ordinary people bare their lives for public consumption, there is a diminished sense of otherness in the famous. Close-up shots, tours of celebrity homes such as those originated by Edward R. Murrow's television show Person to Person, and intimate interviews such as those developed for television by Barbara Walters and by shows such as Today and 60 Minutes have changed the public's sense of scale with celebrity. Americans are invited, especially through visual media, to believe they know celebrities intimately.

Celebrity culture is a symbiotic business relationship from which performers obtain wealth, honors, and social power in exchange for selling a sense of intimacy to audiences. Enormous salaries are commonplace. Multimillion dollar contracts for athletes pale in comparison to their revenues from advertising, epitomized by basketball player Michael Jordan's promotion of footwear, soft drinks, underwear, and hamburgers. Celebrities also parade in public media events as they receive honors and awards ranging from the Cy Young Award for baseball, the Grammys for recording stars, and the Oscars for movie stars. Although it is certainly difficult to measure the social power accruing to celebrities, Beatle John Lennon's controversial assertion that "The Beatles are] more popular than Jesus," suggests something of the sort of grandiosity that celebrity culture fosters.

For the fan, celebrity culture can produce intense identification at rock concerts, athletic arenas, and other displays of the fantasy object, whether live or recorded and mechanically reproduced. Such identifications can lead to role reversals where the fan covets the wealth, honors, and supposed power of the celebrity. Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon in 1980, thought he was the real Beatle and that Lennon was an imposter. In 1981, when the Secret Service interviewed John Hinckley Jr., shortly after he shot President Ronald Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster, the object of his fantasies, he asked: " Is it on TV?" Toward the end of the twentieth century, the excesses of celebrity came into question, notably in the examples of Princess Diana possibly pursued by paparazzi to her death in a car accident, and of the notoriety surrounding President Bill Clinton's relation-ship with congressional aide, Monica Lewinsky, a notoriety that threatened to eclipse any other reason for Clinton's celebrity status. (Encyclopedia.com, n.d.) 

 

 

Equality in Performance

 

One lecture detailed the subject of equality in performance. There are many aspects of life in which can be discriminated, however within the film industry there are certain areas that cannot be discriminated against. The Equality Act of 2010 prevents anyone from discriminating against anyone because of Age, Disability, Gender Reassignment, Race, Religion or Belief, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Marriage and Civil Partnerships and Pregnancy. 

 

Musical Halls in the 19th and 20th century Britain did not conform to equality on stage, race and gender amongst other areas were highly discriminated against. There were various artists that performed comedy whilst donning makeup to make themseleves appear as a different race or gender. One such artist was G.H. Elliott, he wore black makeup and sang and danced for comedy and performance. Women were a minority in the music halls, however there were some. A woman called Vesta Tilley would act as a man for comedy. All of the performers on stage were white and British, this was due to the lack of equality and simple things such as the expenses that were required in order to perform. In the USA racial segregation was still a very common issue. 

 

Silent Film which was in it height in the late 1800s had many issues with equality. The Stanford White Murder occured after an affair between White and Harry Thaw's wife Evelyn Nesbit. It confirmed that it was unwholesome for women to be the object of desire and lust for men. It was deemed the trial of the centuryby many. This murder confirmed that women did not belong in the film industry. The women were more popular than the male stars, they would always play the good character, never evil. Florence Turner was the first female star to be employed by a studio.

 

The Golden Age of Film occured in the 1930s-1960s. It was the time of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and Jimmy Stewart. There was still discrimination against black actors, there were very few balck actors and those that there were, would be cast as servants or butlers. Sidney Poitier was a ground breaking balck actor, he appeared as the main character a teacher in the film 'To Sir With Love' which became very popular. Women were still primarily cast as the aid to the main male, the wife or girlfriend. The first Academy Award was given to Loretta Young in 1948. 

 

On Television Nan Winton was the first female news reader in the 1960s, she complained about the way the males on the crew treated her, casuing discomfort in her job position. Barbara Walters was an American news reader, she received $5 million for her job. Many comedians of the time joked about race and gender, one such was Baernard Manning. The television show Love Thy Neighbour was such a programme displaying discrimination in 1970. 

 

Fashion and Editorial 

 

The supermodels, Naomi Campbell and Iman called for black diverstiy within the fashion world. They tried to get more black model's involved in the fashion world. Campbell appeared on the front cover of French Vogue in 1987. The size '0' is seen as 'normal' within the fashion world, this implements the discrimination against women in society, through the constant portrayal of the perfect women in media. Black or Asian models are not used often in advertisment and there are no adverts with disabled models. Jean Paul Gaultier uses a variety of body types in his shows. 

 

 

 

 

Hollywood. The idea of age is also an issue, once a woman has

reached a certain age she cannot act in the media anymore, whereas

men can continue to work until very old. They will contine to play the

romatic lead, whereas women will fade into the background as they

are not considered beautiful anymore. There are very few actors with

disabilites, and even when the role requires a disabled character, one

is not used. An example is Rust and Bone, the female character loses

a leg in a whale training accident, however the film decided to use an

actress with both legs and digitally remove the leg. More actors are

becoming known in film and television with disabilites, one example

is in the television show Silent Witness.  Stereotypes of the indstry list

villains as black, women as housewives and gay men as camp. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken shed theatre company teaches anyone that wants to learn performance, with or without disability. They have an all inclusive policy that allows anyone to join. Performance is becoming more and more diverse, however it still has a long way to go before it can be considered fully diverse. 

 

Programmes that have shown diverstiy in performance include Brookside for the first lesbian kiss, Coronation Street a disabled character and The Accused where sean bean plays a man dressed as a woman in a non comedical sense. 

 

 

 

Concepts of Beauty: Face Facts, Personal Taste or Unviersal Rules

 

This is the question, is beauty personal taste or is there a predefined face of beauty created by society?

 

Throughout life on earth there have been many different definitions of beauty. In Roman times plumper ladies were considered more attractive, in the 1920s flat chested women were the height of attraction the change is dramatic, not only in time but also place. What people from the western world find attractive may not be considered attractive in Africa or Asia. 

 

Cleopatra 

Cleopatra is an iconic image, she has a vastly famous portrait that most people would recognise. However her portrait is not accurate of how she actually looked. Egypt is in Africa, therefore it is unlikely that she would have been white, the skeleton of Cleopatra has ben scanned and scientists have created a facial reconstruction of what they believe she would look like, in comparison they look nothing alike. This therefore begs the question when were the standards of beauty created and have they always been the same. 

 

Bioshonen

Bioshonen is a Japanese cultural idea of beauty, it is an androgynous look blending the genders. Bioshonene when translated means beautiful youth boy, therefore enforcing the idea that youth is a key factor of beauty, as humans age they lose the qualities which are found attractive. 

 

Bleaching

Bleaching is the practise of dark skinned people making their skin appear lighter in colour. It is called bleaching because some people actually used bleach in an attempt to lighten the skin. A prime example of this is Michael Jackson, born black, however he had multiple surgeries to change his skin colour to white. People have done this in an attempt to look western. In the eastern world the lighter someone's skin the more beautiful they are deemed, they take care to try and not become darker looking after their bodies with many products. 

 

Surma/Mursi

The surma/Mursi women cut their lower lips and insert large plugs which can gradually be expanded to larger and larger sizes. This stretches the skin. The larger the plug in the lip the more beautiful the woman is perceived. 

 

Kayam Tribe

The Kayan tribe use bars aroud their necks to elongate the structure creating a longer shape, these are begun at a very young age, therefore as they grow the neck is stretched. A long, small neck is deemed beautiful. 

 

Ted Talks 

 

Every year there are conferenes held called Ted Talk, they host a variety of speakers all trying to convey a message, some of these concern the ideas of beauty and what society deems beautiful. Two such ladies are Cameron Russell and Eva DeVirgilis. Russel is a model and talks about the discrimination in fashion and beauty. We cannot change the way that we look, 'I won a genetic lottery and I am a recipient of a legacy' she says that for the last two centuries defined beauty as health, youth and symmetry. Beauty is tall, slender figures with femininity and white skin. She states the there were 677 models in fashion week and only 27 (4%) of these were not white. The photographs that we see are professional constructions. In New York 140,000 men were randomly stopped and searched in the streets, 86% of these were latino or black men. 78% of girls at the age of 17 siad that they dont like thier bodies. 

 

De Virgilis talks about how women constantly put themseleves down and need to be more confident in their looks. She tlaks about how women constantly apologise for their bodies, how their perceive themseleves. Devirgilis asks what it takes to find out that you are beautiful, does it take old age or life threatening illness? She also says, yes the world does look for beauty in things, looking at symmetircal faces creates a primal sense of pleasure, but is it necessary to correct imperfections in the face to be deemed beautiful by others. 

The two videos are displayed below: