Part 1:
What were two points from this week’s reading that stood out to you as particularly important and interesting?
Why so?
Two points from this week's reading that stand out to me as particularly important and interesting are celebrities, celetoids, and celebrities as texts: Ideology.
Although the idea of a celebrity has been around for a long time, over the years the meaning of a celebrity has changed. In general, a celebrity is someone who is famous, especially in the entertainment business, celebrity is celebrated by people in society, and their personality, private life, and public appearance attract media attention. Besides, celebrity status is in a sense a sign of power and influence over the media and all sections of society (Celebrity Culture, 2010). In contrast, celetoids refer to celebrities whose short-lived fame is not based on merit, such as viral meme characters or contestants from reality TV school shows.
In addition, celebrities represent ideologies. Celebrities are the people that honor because they stand for and exemplify the principles, identities, and beliefs that they strive to uphold. Celebrities serve as symbols of a country's, a gender's, and a culture's identity.
Part 2:
What impacts do celebrities have on how you understand society and yourself?
Choose a celebrity text (e.g a magazine cover) and briefly describe it i.e a denotation (remember, you must not include copyrighted images in your Adobe Portfolio). Briefly analyze this text taking:
An ideological approach
A political economy approach
Celebrities have a significant impact on how we understand society and ourselves. In fact, celebrities can have a positive influence, they act as role models, directing us to good values in society. Celebrities use their influence to contribute and influence the audience's opinion or thinking about society. For example, charity work, donation, calling for people to speak up about a certain social issue... Especially Miss Hen Niê, after becoming the top 5 at the Miss Universe contest, During the pandemic, she carried rice, delivered goods, coordinated vaccines, sponsored orphans with COVID-19, and sold agricultural products online to people in Dong Thap province and all over Vietnam (Culturemagazin, 2022). What celebrities do helps me understand more about society, about difficult situations, have a more positive outlook on life, and how good people are still willing to help each other in society. Besides, celebrities also showed me the view of many harmful problems still happening in society that we need to speak out for and change.
In addition, celebrities also help us discover and better understand ourselves. Celebrities are the people who society honors because they stand for and exemplify the principles, identities, and ideologies that we try to imitate, aspire to, and adore (Ilan Kapoor, 2015). Celebrities act as role models, helping us to study and strive to become the ideal people we want to be. At the same time, they also influence how we personally think about how to see and love ourselves. For example, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Melissa McCarthy, and Jennifer Lawrence have spoken out against the ideals of beauty promoted by the entertainment and fashion industries and instead urge people to love the color itself and his people (Newport Academy, 2022). They also point out that it is important to know each of us best, as it is the first step that helps shape our later development.
Kendall Jenner became the face of the latest campaign of Maison Messika - a leading diamond jewelry brand in France (Mamić, 2022). With the image of a young girl, beautiful and charismatic, wearing luxurious diamond jewelry, Kendall is featured on billboards and in major magazines. As designers choose to hire famous models, they are deciding to expand couture fashion to the public. With the image of an elegant and glamorous woman, Kendall broadens the brand's vision of free and represents strong, victorious, and radiant women, like the heroines of ancient mythology. These things are evident in Kendall's lifestyle, and ideology through her positive energy, youthful enthusiasm, and passion for fashion. She represents a new cultural ideology, inspires younger generations, and shares her thoughts on the image of an enterprising American girl, unleashed with passion and always trying. Try to fulfill your dream.
This alliance not only helps Kendall's name go up but also is a great deal because Maison Messika has one of the hottest supermodels and beauties in the fashion and beauty industry to market the products its products more widely in the world market. This benefits both as Kendall is the laborer in the entire campaign of Maison Messika helping the brand's name to be known more and boost sales, while Kendall Jenner is also promoted image and gets paid by the brand, the percentage of sales that are marketed to the product and guaranteed to be profitable. This not only boosts the celebrity's own economy but also provides a source of revenue for businesses, access to the political economy, and economic resources for a country.
References:
CultureMagazin, How H’Hen Niê’s love and compassion has charmed the country, 27 January 2022, viewed 29 November 2022.
Frank Furedi, Celebrity Culture, 23 September 2010, viewed 24 November 2022.
Ilan Kapoor, Celebrity Humanitarianism - Book, 31 October 2012, viewed 25 November 2022.
<https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203082270/celebrity-humanitarianism-ilan-kapoor >
Newport Academy, How Celebrities Influence Teens and Why it Matters, 28 August 2022, viewed 29 November 2022. Mamić, KENDALL JENNER, THE NEW FACE OF 2022 MESSIKA CAMPAIGN, 18 January 2022, viewed 29 November 2022.
