Does the celebrity culture come before the celebrity?

Questions of this ilk are some of the hardest to answer. If you ask what makes celebrity culture, one of the answers must surely be 'celebrities'. But if you ask what makes a celebrity, you could rightly assume they are made by the culture they are thrown into.

Perhaps it is the relationship between the paparazzi and consumers of media that creates celebrity culture. We are bombarded with photos and “news” about celebrities and therefore we have no choice but to know who these people are. Without all of this, fame wouldn't really be a thing. The lifestyles of celebrities would certainly be a lot different.

 Lindsay Lohan fends off photographers

'Paparazzi' got their name after the release of the 1960 film La Dolce Vita which is said to be based on one of the original opportunistic photographers, Felice Quinto. According to his obituary posted here in 2010, “he pioneered some of the aggressive tactics that celebrity photographers use to this day.” It also includes a quote of his from 1997: "People are human, they want to see these pictures, and there is too much money to be made." 

Felice Quinto

Celebrities already existed but the idea of celebrity culture did not. Paparazzi are most likely responsible for the shift in culture and so are we for buying into it. They came to realise that there was money to be made from exploiting any candid moments had by these Hollywood stars. Lo and behold, a culture was created.

References

Felice Quinto Obituary, 16 January, 2010, Retrieved 31 August, 2012 <http://www.legacy.com/ns/obituary.aspx?n=felice-quinto&pid=139629237>

Lindsay Lohan image source: <http://www.celebritysmackblog.com/2008/09/15/lindsay-lohan-punches-paparazzi/>

Global media & local identities

Identity is a hard enough concept to understand in relation to a singular person let alone a whole group of people belonging to one area. However, there are 'local identities' and they may be threatened by global media.

Of course there is the idea that one global media identity will override any local identities and they will all become the same. This assumption is fair enough but Richard Wilk offers the view that "we are not all becoming the same, but we are portraying, dramatizing, and communication our differences to each other in ways that are more widely intelligible." (Wilk 1995, p. 118). So following this train of thought, it is healthy for us to be exposed to other identities. Although, it is possible that one of these identities will have the most influence over global media so one identity might have more impact shaping the rest. 

Wilk could be right. Global media across all identities is a way to share cultures and ideals with other people. It is a way for us to learn about the rest of the world. It keeps our minds open to other ways of life and ways of communicating. Having the local identities converse with each other through global media seems like an ideal situation in terms of allowing cultures to continue developing. Local identities can still exist like this as long as global media is not favouring one 'identity' over others.



References

Wilk, R 1995, ‘Learning to be local in Belize: global systems of common difference’, in D Miller (ed.), Worlds apart: modernity through the prism of the local, Routledge, London.

image source: theglaringfacts.com