Celebrity Culture: Lecture Notes

Photos of 'celebrities' has existed since the advent of photography:

 Contemporary cinema still references the beginnings of cinematography (The Artist, 2011). This film is about the rise and fall of fame and celebrities.

Beyonce is referencing an old 'fashion' dress by Josephine baker in a post modern way. This image is taken from Fashion Rocks.

Clark Gable the 'king of Hollywood'  starred opposite many star actresses. Served in the US army. On screen. off screen personality sets the person up with a successful celebrity status.

Bette Davis, known for playing unlikeable characters

Marilyn Monroe - Iconic sex symbol, mixes her private life with her life on film and ultimately becomes the thing that destroys her. These events freeze her status in history

Andy Warhol takes her face and repeats it over and over, making it into a mask suggesting that it is difficult to know the person underneath when they are so often in the public eye.

He does a similar thing with Elvis,

John F Kennedy is a celebrity politician:

youth and good looks, television speeches

His death is followed by lots of conspiracy theories, the public play a great part in his life.

The Celebrity status is accelerated by the advent of television, everybody has an insight and ease of access to celebrity culture.

Michael Jackson

The changes in Michaels appearance are interpreted as reactions to the abuse he and his family suffered at the hands of their father. He looks less like his father by reducing his African American features: nose, skin colour, afro hair etc

Madonna makes herself an icon by reminding us of marilyn monroe and linking herself to the classic celebrity female icon.

Gaga changes her image ever time she is seen, which becomes her image and reflects her persona, unlike previous celebrities that have stuck to a trademark image.

Gaga referencing madonna

"If we don't stand up for our rights soon were going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones"

Youtube propells regular people to fame and celebrity

Whitney houstons funeral was broadcast online and on tv, 

There is a commercial aspect to the death of a celebrity - increased record sales and merchandise after the death.

 Look at celebrity status elevated into god like figures:

 Access to celebrity private lives:

Forestry Comission

The brief is asking that something is designed to attract 16-25 year olds and convince them that a day out in a forest can be fun and worthwhile.
They say that this has been a difficult market to break into in the past. I think that it is this kind of cliche'  and embarrassing imagery that will be putting this age range of having any association with the forestry commission:

When designing for this brief I want to avoid any expected approach that has been done a million times before and doesn't appeal to the new target audience.

I am going to focus on these activities as they are better suited to the audience that the brief wants to address and forestry walks and pricey BBQ's just aren't going to cut it for a bunch of young people,

Extreme mountain biking, treetop adventure, orienteering, forest segway and watersports are definately aspects that can be aimed towards 16-25 y/o's. 

The brief asks that you don't directly promote third party businesses that use the land owned by the forestry commission- Go Ape, bike rental etc.

Rather, it should communicate everything that is on offer by the forestry comission.

Various other outdoor cliches:

Web Workshop - Domain

Cheap domains at 123-reg.co.uk

To make the website live:

 

Website that offers Content Management System so that the client can edit the 'editable regions' within the website without having to deal with any coding.

Critical postitions on Popular Culture

What is Culture?

"One of the two most complicated words in the English Language"

Intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development of a society

Base: Forces of production - materials  tools etc.

          Relations of production - employer / employee

Superstructure: Social Institutions - Legal, politica, cultural

Culture is a direct product of our society,  Capitalism produces capitalist culture.

Definitions of popular:
well liked, inferior kinds of work, work deliberately setting out to win favour - populism, culture made by people themselves.

What is popular culture and high - snobby culture:

Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane: questioning why more common things done by people aren't classed as culture:

Culture stolen by Popular culture:

There is a distinct divide between culture and pop culture

1900's: heavy industrialisation, process of urbanisation and a growth of the city, development of industrial capitalism. This brought about clear class divides, it is clear who are the workers and who are the bosses. 

Prior to this there was a shared common culture, this culture was produced by the rich. In response to this illusion of a shared culture, the working class made there own culture for themselves. 

New forms of music and literature.

This brings about a backlash by the people that used to define culture- Matthew Arnold writes 'Culture & Anarchy' to put a label on culture.

• Study of perfection
• Attained through disinterested reading, writing and thinking.
• Culture is beautiful and everyone should read poetry, go to the opera etc.
• And that the world would be better if everybody liked this
• This makes a clear divide between high and low culture.

Leavis- wants culture to return to the high, upper class, elite 

On low/ mass culture:

‘This form of compensation… is the very reverse of recreation, in that it tends, not to strengthen and refresh the addict for living, but to increase his unfitness by habitutaing him to weak evasions, to the refusal to face reality at all’ 

Frankfurt school:

Defined the culture industry as homogeneity and predictability

-lack of creativity

-similar to mass produced products

-Film industry churns out the same product over and over

People are fed the same old stuff that is sold as something new and different

Marcuse says that this lack of diversity reduces peoples ability to develop individuality.

Culture Industy:

Churning out cultural commodities:

X Factor etc.

radical ideas about changing the world are reduced to a neutral acceptation of culture

Adorno 'On Popular Music' 

All pop culture is rubbish, it programs us and tells us what to like.

• Standardisation
• Social cement- gluing the system together

The masses collectively decide what is good and bad within culture, whereas in the art world it is decided by an elite group of tastemakers. 

Cultural movements start off as anarchy and revolution but most often end up as common pop culture and is bought and consumed mindlessly.