Celebrity Culture and the American Dream

Celebrity Culture and the American Dream

Author: Karen Sternheimer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1317689682

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Celebrity Culture and the American Dream, Second Edition considers how major economic and historical factors shaped the nature of celebrity culture as we know it today, retaining the first edition’s examples from the first celebrity fan magazines of 1911 to the present and expanding to include updated examples and additional discussion on the role of the internet and social media in today’s celebrity culture. Equally important, the book explains how and why the story of Hollywood celebrities matters, sociologically speaking, to an understanding of American society, to the changing nature of the American Dream, and to the relation between class and culture. This book is an ideal addition to courses on inequalities, celebrity culture, media, and cultural studies.


Fabricating the Absolute Fake

Fabricating the Absolute Fake

Author: Jaap Kooijman

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9053564926

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A fascinating exploration of how global cultures struggle to create their own "America" within a post-9/11 media culture, Fabricating the Absolute Fake reflects on what it might mean to truly take part in American pop culture.


American Dream Machine

American Dream Machine

Author: Matthew Specktor

Publisher: Tin House Books

Published: 2014-04-15

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1935639455

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty; a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood and, by extension, American life. American Dream Machine is the story of an iconic striver, a classic self-made man in the vein of Jay Gatsby or Augie March. It's the story of a talent agent and his troubled sons, two generations of Hollywood royalty. It's a sweeping narrative about parents and children, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood, and by extension, American life. Beau Rosenwald—overweight, not particularly handsome, and improbably charismatic—arrives in Los Angeles in 1962 with nothing but an ill-fitting suit and a pair of expensive brogues. By the late 1970s he has helped found the most successful agency in Hollywood. Through the eyes of his son, we watch Beau and his partner go to war, waging a seismic battle that redraws the lines of an entire industry. We watch Beau rise and fall and rise again, in accordance with the cultural transformations that dictate the fickle world of movies. We watch Beau's partner, the enigmatic and cerebral Williams Farquarsen, struggle to contain himself, to control his impulses and consolidate his power. And we watch two generations of men fumble and thrive across the LA landscape, learning for themselves the shadows and costs exacted by success and failure. Mammalian, funny, and filled with characters both vital and profound, American Dream Machine is a piercing interrogation of the role—nourishing, as well as destructive—that illusion plays in all our lives.


American Idols

American Idols

Author: Bob Hostetler

Publisher: B&H Publishing Group

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 080544078X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Feeding off the frenzy of fleeting fame and image overload, Hostetler takes anecessary look at the false gods in modern society. This timely book can helpreaders realize and overcome their own idolatries.


Celebrity Culture and the American Dream

Celebrity Culture and the American Dream

Author: Karen Sternheimer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-12

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1317689674

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Celebrity Culture and the American Dream, Second Edition considers how major economic and historical factors shaped the nature of celebrity culture as we know it today, retaining the first edition’s examples from the first celebrity fan magazines of 1911 to the present and expanding to include updated examples and additional discussion on the role of the internet and social media in today’s celebrity culture. Equally important, the book explains how and why the story of Hollywood celebrities matters, sociologically speaking, to an understanding of American society, to the changing nature of the American Dream, and to the relation between class and culture. This book is an ideal addition to courses on inequalities, celebrity culture, media, and cultural studies.


The American Dream

The American Dream

Author: Jim Cullen

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0195173252

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Cullen particularly focuses on the founding fathers and the Declaration of Independence ("the charter of the American Dream"); Abraham Lincoln, with his rise from log cabin to White House and his dream for a unified nation; and Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of racial equality. Our contemporary version of the American Dream seems rather debased in Cullen's eyes-built on the cult of Hollywood and its outlandish dreams of overnight fame and fortune.


Stars for Freedom

Stars for Freedom

Author: Emilie Raymond

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 0295806079

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From Oprah Winfrey to Angelina Jolie, George Clooney to Leonardo DiCaprio, Americans have come to expect that Hollywood celebrities will be outspoken advocates for social and political causes. However, that wasn’t always the case. As Emilie Raymond shows, during the civil rights movement the Stars for Freedom - a handful of celebrities both black and white - risked their careers by crusading for racial equality, and forged the role of celebrity in American political culture. Focusing on the “Leading Six” trailblazers - Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dick Gregory, and Sidney Poitier - Raymond reveals how they not only advanced the civil rights movement in front of the cameras, but also worked tirelessly behind the scenes, raising money for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legal defense, leading membership drives for the NAACP, and personally engaging with workaday activists to boost morale. Through meticulous research, engaging writing, and new interviews with key players, Raymond traces the careers of the Leading Six against the backdrop of the movement. Perhaps most revealing is the new light she sheds on Sammy Davis, Jr., exploring how his controversial public image allowed him to raise more money for the movement than any other celebrity. The result is an entertaining and informative book that will appeal to film buffs and civil rights historians alike, as well as to anyone interested in the rise of celebrity power in American society. A Capell Family Book A V Ethel Willis White Book


Claims to Fame

Claims to Fame

Author: Joshua Gamson

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 0520914155

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture

Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture

Author: Michael D. Garval

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9781409406037

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first English-language monograph on the French dancer and model, Cléo de Mérode and the Rise of Modern Celebrity Culture explores the haunting legacy of this intriguing and glamorous figure, an international celebrity at the dawn of our star-struck modernity. Situating Mérode at a pivotal moment in the history of fame and visual culture, this study probes the neglected prehistory of a visual culture obsessed with celebrities and their images.


Stardom and Celebrity

Stardom and Celebrity

Author: Sean Redmond

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2007-10-02

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1446202380

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Acts as a concise introduction to the study of both contemporary and historical stardom and celebrity. Collecting together in one source companion an easily accessible range of readings surrounding stardom and celebrity culture, this book is a worthwhile addition to any library." - Kerry Gough, Birmingham City University "Absolutely wonderful. The inclusion of seminal works and more recent works makes this a very valuable read." - Beschara Karam, University of South Africa "An engaging and often insightful book." - Media International Australia This book brings together some of the seminal interventions which have structured the development of stardom and celebrity studies, while crucially combining and situating these within the context of new essays which address the contemporary, cross-media and international landscape of today's fame culture. From Max Weber, Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes to Catherine Lumby, Chris Rojek and Graeme Turner. At the core of the collection is a desire to map out a unique historical trajectory - both in terms of the development of fame, as well as the historical development of the field.