Claims to fame : celebrity in contemporary America / Joshua Gamson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gamson, Joshua, 1962- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Celebrities--United States--History--20th century.

Celebrities.

Popular culture--United States--History--20th century.

Popular culture.

United States--Social life and customs--20th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [1994]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Moving from People magazine to publicists' offices to tours of stars' homes, Joshua Gamson investigates the larger-than-life terrain of American celebrity culture. In the first major academic work since the early 1940s to seriously analyze the meaning of fame in American life, Gamson begins with the often-heard criticisms that today's heroes have been replaced by pseudoheroes, that notoriety has become detached from merit. He draws on literary and sociological theory, as well as interviews with celebrity-industry workers, to untangle the paradoxical nature of an American popular culture that is both obsessively invested in glamour and fantasy yet also aware of celebrity's transparency and commercialism. Gamson examines the contemporary "dream machine" that publicists, tabloid newspapers, journalists, and TV interviewers use to create semi-fictional icons. He finds that celebrity watchers, for whom spotting celebrities becomes a spectator sport akin to watching football or fireworks, glean their own rewards in a game that turns as often on playing with inauthenticity as on identifying with stars. Gamson also looks at the "celebritization" of politics and the complex questions it poses regarding image and reality. He makes clear that to understand American public culture, we must understand that strange, ubiquitous phenomenon, celebrity.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction. Explaining Angelyne

1. The Great and the Gifted: Celebrity in the Early Twentieth Century

2. The Name and the Product: Late Twentieth-Century Celebrity

3. Industrial-Strength Celebrity

4. The Negotiated Celebration

5. Props, Cues, and the Advantages of Not Knowing: Audiences in the World of Celebrity Production

6. Hunting, Sporting, and the Willing Audience: The Celebrity-Watching Tourist Circuit

7. Can't Beat the Real Thing: Production Awareness and the Problem of Authenticity

8. Believing Games

Conclusion: Celebrity, Democracy, Power, and Play

Appendix: Theoretical and Methodological Notes

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Okt 2020)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780510083530

9780520914155

0520914155

9780585299761

0585299765

OCLC:

1198931862