Democratized celebrity?

Peter J. Leithart, May 13, 2007

With YouTube, American Idol, blogs, and a host of other new outlets for "talent," it appears that celebrity is being democratized. Appearances are deceiving, according to a new book by Jake Halpern, Fame Junkies.

Halpern points out that, though American Idol and similar shows make new celebrities, old celebrities serve as the gatekeepers of fame. Nor is the rabbles' relationship to the famous truly reciprocal. According to the TLS reviewer (May 4), "Halpern notes that our relationships with celebrities can easily become uniquely, even weirdly, 'para-social.' We daydream about giving our favourite pop singer a new song idea or coo at the television stars on the screen; but, Halpern says, they don't hear us. It is only we who hear them, via the mass media."

Halpern's book focuses on those who aspire to fame or are close to the famous - parents who try to win a modeling contract for their kids, personal assistants to the famous, truly fanatical fans. he concludes (again in the reviewer's summary) that "the more you identify with celebrities, the more you will wonder why they're the celebrities and you're not." There is no real circulation of celebrity; there are new ones, but few of the old ones fade away. Celebrities remain an elite, and few are able to elevate themselves into that stratum of society.

The reviewer, Andrew Stark, suggests that celebrities themselves are eager "to pay deference to democratic norms." They speak in "we's" instead of "I's," implicitly acknowledging that their career is tied to their fan base. They allow themselves to be photographed doing everyday things - shopping, playing with their kids: "behind what seems to be their elitist hauteur, celebrities might be haltingly, half-consciously, trying to reassure themselves, and us, of their democratic credentials."