The star as icon : celebrity in the age of mass consumption / Daniel Herwitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Herwitz, Daniel Alan, 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fame.

Celebrities.

Celebrities in mass media.

Aesthetics.

Popular culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (173 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Princess Diana, Jackie O, Grace Kelly-the star icon is the most talked about yet least understood persona. The object of adoration, fantasy, and cult obsession, the star icon is a celebrity, yet she is also something more: a dazzling figure at the center of a media pantomime that is at once voyeuristic and zealously guarded. With skill and humor, Daniel Herwitz pokes at the gears of the celebrity-making machine, recruiting a philosopher's interest in the media, an eye for society, and a love of popular culture to divine our yearning for these iconic figures and the role they play in our lives.Herwitz portrays the star icon as caught between transcendence and trauma. An effervescent being living on a distant, exalted planet, the star icon is also a melodramatic heroine desperate to escape her life and the ever-watchful eye of the media. The public buoys her up and then eagerly watches her fall, her collapse providing a satisfying conclusion to a story sensationally told-while leaving the public yearning for a rebirth.Herwitz locates this double life in the opposing tensions of film, television, religion, and consumer culture, offering fresh perspectives on these subjects while ingeniously mapping society's creation (and destruction) of these special aesthetic stars. Herwitz has a soft spot for popular culture yet remains deeply skeptical of public illusion. He worries that the media distances us from even minimal insight into those who are transfigured into star icons. It also blinds us to the shaping of our political present.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

One. The Candle in the Wind

Two. There Is Only One Star Icon (Except in a Warhol Picture)

Three. Therefore Not All Idols Are American

Four. A Star Is Born

Five. The Film Aura: An Intermediate Case

Six. Stargazing and Spying

Seven. Teleaesthetics

Eight. Diana Haunted and Hunted on TV

Nine. Star Aura in Consumer Society (and Other Fatalities)

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [145]-149) and index.

ISBN:

9780231518581

0231518587

OCLC:

818856329