
The history of celebrity: from Bernhardt to the Kardashians - apollinaire
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/modern-celebrity-history-kardashians/
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rshnotsecure
Highly recommend Leo Braudy’s “Frenzy of Renown”. Basically considered the
default text in the field of celebrity studies.

Braudy’s hypothesis is the celebrity has always been an inherently quasi-
religious phenomenon. Religious only in the sense though of being post-death
or of having an afterlife. Attaining celebrity is a transcendent goal in each
generation a few can reach.

Every era of society has a means of attaining life in the next world. This is
often seen as the ultimate purpose / highest goal one can achieve. The best
way to attain this is being known in eras beyond the one you live in.
Sometimes this is via extreme piousness (sainthood), military and political
conquest (history), or in modern conceptions, being so extremely known in the
present it simulates a forever-knowing effect through everyone-knowing.

Wish I could describe it better, but here is the book:
[https://www.amazon.com/Frenzy-Renown-Fame-Its-
History/dp/067...](https://www.amazon.com/Frenzy-Renown-Fame-Its-
History/dp/0679776303)

~~~
nabla9
There is sometimes direct connection. In some places if India, actors who play
deity roles in TV-series based on Hindu mythology, get treated like gods by
the poor people. In the US Oprah has clearly moved towards becoming spiritual
guru/leader, "The Church of O".

Certain actors, like Keanu Reeves. Tom Hanks etc. first get a good guy
reputation, then they become like celebrity saints. First they probably were
just a good guys, but now it has become a marketing angle that affects their
actions.

~~~
geodel
Also In India people treating as literal deities the movie stars like Amitabh
Bachchan / Rajnikanth. One of my Indian friend would bow down to poster of
Arnold Schwarzenegger in all seriousness and call him 'Shakti ke devta
(English: God of Power)'

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hos234
"What was the nature of MTV? For me it was insatiable desire. That's the very
nature of Americans. We want what we don't have. One of the characteristics of
the consumers in the early 80's was Shop till you drop. 'I want it. I don't
know what it is but I want it.' \- Dale Pon, Advertising exec part of the MTV
launch campaign in Aug 1981 [From the book I Want My MTV - Tannebaum & Marks]

With MTV giving birth to Micheal Jackson and Madonna the Celeb-industrial
complex understood its potential. And here we are 40 years later with a large
part of the world run by Celebrities.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
MJ must have had half a dozen albums, a movie or three, and half a dozen years
of solo career outside the Jackson 5 - who he was singing with for about a
decade - by the time MTV got around to launching. All the Thriller video did
was boost sales of albums from the already-a-celeb worldwide. His celebrity
was launched by being young, cute, and part of a _very_ famous family.
Basically being born into that family was enough.

~~~
hos234
Please go and watch music videos before MTV and after. Music videos changed
what stardom was.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Course they did, but that wasn't MTV's doing. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody
invented the music video as we know it, _in 1975._

That was the groundbreaking event that changed everything. The video was as
important as the single. Every act from that day on wanted to duplicate or
surpass "that video". The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star", was a hit in
1979. It was used unchanged in MTV's launch transmission two years later.

Music programmes were increasingly built around videos and clips, rather than
performances. You'd get mostly videos with perhaps just one or two acts miming
along to their single, or playing in the studio. By 81 all significant
releases came with a video. MTV was just a place to play them back to back.
Videos were very well established and expected by then. Which is no doubt
_why_ MTV launched.

Video certainly changed style over the 80s, and every other decade, just as
they had 1975-81, but what doesn't evolve over a decade? The 80s brought more
emphasis on production and direction. By the mid and late 80s videos were
being shot on film, ran longer with far bigger budgets. Acts were starting to
be created for video first, and with MTV and other music programmes in mind.

~~~
soylentcola
As I understood it (obviously with some exceptions), music videos were an
expense for the band/label that fell under the general purpose of promotional
material (like posters, magazine ads, etc.)

Of course they were a chance to be creative and have fun as well, but that can
be the case for any promo material. The thing with MTV was that it was such a
low cost concept for a network. Instead of paying for programming like most
TV, music videos were essentially free (if not sold to the network in a
reversal of the typical TV transaction).

It was like a paid infomercial for bands and albums, except actually
entertaining in its own right.

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cafard
"The alpha Kardashian is as skilled at capitalizing on transgression as
Bernhardt was at playing Phèdre or Tosca."

A safe assertion, I guess, given the number of the living who have seen
Bernhardt perform.

~~~
labster
Yeah, I do feel somewhat sorry for Bernhardt though -- she couldn't get the
same eternal recognition that people a generation later could in the movies.
From the reviews, it seems she had the kind of personality that would surely
make her a movie star.

I hadn't even been aware of Sarah Bernhardt until a couple of months ago, when
I visited the Alphonse Mucha museum in Prague. It was she who essentially
launched his career in art, by commissioning him to make posters for her
performances. And through his art, I could feel her personality reaching
across time to me. I'm not sure if I'd actually like her performances, but she
felt like someone with skill at holding attention, that's for sure.

