Are Celebrities the heroes of today? A contemplative approach from Modernism to Postmodern times

Résumé du document

"President John F. Kennedy had a significant impact on my life. I practically worshiped him. His charm, grace, and simplicity made me aware of the essential qualities of a person. I cherished his words and wisdom and complete absence of flaws. I have hoped in my own mind that the man I end up with will resemble the image I hold of Kennedy." During the modern and postmodern times, a few theories have been developed on celebrity and stardom. As time passes it seems that some theorists believe that the celebrities of today are viewed as heroes and the cult of personality seems far from being forgotten. In his research on identity, Klapp was concerned with the impact of celebrities on our modern society. He believed that this new kind of hero, were not exceptional, but they had the ability to fulfill the dreams that one had for himself but could not realize. On Hero worship, he says that it's a "get away from himself by wishing or imagining himself to be like someone else whom he admires". According to the dictionary, a celebrity is defined as a "famous person" but the definition of Daniel Boorstin seems to be more accurate in the context, one is trying to explain.

Extraits

[...] “Films, he says, are representation of “things lost and things desired”[12]. Films are, as far as he is concerned, an artistic way for producers to reflect their society and to communicate with others and by films, one can suppose that he is also including the movie stars. Independent as much as blockbuster movies represent the world in which one evolves and depicts the contemporary civilization. A few years later, in 1964, Herbert Marcuse wrote “One-Dimensional where he, too, emphasises the idea, that films and stars are, at this time, produced to represent the everyday life. [...]

[...] People are living in a world of Hyperreality”.[25] Everything is a model or an image without depth. He implied that a sign used to be a surface indication of an underlying reality but if now a sign is not showing an original reality but some other sign, then it should be called a simulacrum. The simulacrum is one of the most important and controversial concepts of Baudrillard's theory. There once existed a specific class of objects that were allegorical, and even a bit diabolical, such as mirrors, images, work of art (and concepts?); of course, these too were simulacra, but they were transparent and manifest they had their own style and characteristic savoir faire. [...]

[...] Actors are not themselves anymore, but produced by the cinema industry to entertain and be loved by the mass audience. “Talented performers belong to the industry long before it displays them; otherwise they would not be so eager to fit Celebrities are created to be popular and appeal to the bourgeoisie and the working class. They are seen as ideal of what is natural in this field of activity, and its influences become all the more powerful, the more technique is perfected and diminishes the tension between the finished product and everyday life”[10]. [...]

[...] As he observed, the theorists of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research were the first to take in account the effect of mass communication on modern society. b. Adorno and Horkheimer In the mid-1940s, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, influenced by the writings of Marx and Weber on the cultural transformation of their age, have developed an essay on the culture industry. They were horrified by the turn culture was taking and how commercial and standardized it was getting. Culture had for them become another capitalist industry fabricated to be appreciated by the mass audience modern culture industry represent ‘average' life for purposes of pure entertainment or distraction as seductively and realistically as possible.”[5] Adorno, in his various essays on the culture industry, had already made it clear that he was utterly opposed to any kind of contemporary art. [...]

[...] David Marshall, Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) Marc O'Day, "Postmodernism and the television," in The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, ed. Stuart Sim (London: Routledge, 2005) Lois McNay, Foucault (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) P. David Marshall, Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) Philip Barker, Michel Foucault (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998) Philip Barker, Michel Foucault (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998) Michel Foucault, The subject and Power; quoted in Lois McNay, Foucault (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994) Severine Ferrer, folie des Dossiers VIP, NRJ Adrienne Lai, "Glitter and grain, Aura and authenticity in the celebrity photographs of Juergen Teller," in Framing Celebrity: New directions in Celebrity Culture, ed. [...]