WEBVTT - The History of Fame 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:10.879 All presidents are sociopaths or at the very least psychologically unusual. Yeah. 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:12.719 I look in the mirror every morning and say, there 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.000 is no one else one. There's three hundred and fifty 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.840 million who can do the job I can. This is 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.439 a relatively new field, in part because of the growing 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.880 awareness that dogs weren't just pets, but the dogs also 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:35.120 have some real and tangible benefits. Willie Mays and Babe 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:40.479 Ruth athletes who weren't able to monetize themselves in the 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:42.680 way that they should have been able to. You know, 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:47.240 Serena is different. We've heard this so many times over 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.840 the years. When Diane and Charles divorce, the monarchy was over. 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.480 When Harry and Meghan gave the interview for OPRAH, people said, 0:00:54.480 --> 0:01:00.520 the monarchy is over. Welcome to One Day University talks 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.880 with the world's most engaging and inspiring professors discussing their 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.520 most popular courses, the ones that students line up to hear. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.520 The One Day University podcasts gives you a front row 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.240 seat to learn on your schedule. I'm Steven Schragis. Fifteen 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.360 years ago I founded One Day University to present top 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:23.880 performing professors on stages across the country. There's no homework, exams, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.440 or student loans. It's learning for the sake of learning. 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.240 In each episode, I'll sit down with a different professor 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.080 to talk about one of their highly rated lectures. No 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.600 matter your interests, We've got you've covered. Our conversations will 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:41.680 include politics, history, science, music, arts, sports, and pop culture. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:45.200 Our first episode falls into the pop culture category. The 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:49.560 ninety fifth Academy Awards were held last weekend, with Everything Everywhere, 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.720 All at Once winning Best Picture and six other Oscars. 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.640 Millions of people tuned in to see some famous faces, 0:01:55.800 --> 0:02:01.160 including Lady Gaga, Nicole Kidman, Steven Spielberg, and Rihanna. Fans 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.080 of Tom Cruise may have been disappointed to learn that 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.520 he was a no show, even though his film Top 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:10.880 Gun Maverick was nominated for Best Picture. Professor Susan Douglas 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:15.000 has studied our relationship with the rich and famous. She 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.480 has a lecture for One Day University titled a History 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.200 of Fame The Power of Celebrity. She teaches communication and 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.760 Media at the University of Michigan, and she's written several 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.280 books on gender and mass media. With the Oscars behind us, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.800 I was curious if Susan believed that movie stars still 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.359 even exist, or if they are a relic of the past. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.679 I think it was a very unusual Oscar season. But 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.080 I do think we still have movie stars. But here's 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.919 the hitch. A lot of them have gone to television, 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.160 you know, in part because streaming has offered so many 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:59.880 opportunities to a list actors, Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Jane Fond, 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.880 what could go on and on. And this started with 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.520 the entrepreneurial work of Netflix and Amazon, and then COVID 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.079 hit and people stopped going to the movies. And so 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.720 I do think there are still movie stars. There are 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.680 more independent productions that are getting more attention, and maybe 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:24.160 people whose names we didn't quite recognize this Oscar cycle, 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:29.040 we'll become more recognizable in the future. But I don't 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.760 believe that Tom Cruise and a few others are the 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.760 only movie stars left. Let's start at the beginning with 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.280 the origins. Where did the word celebrity come from? Do 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.080 you have any idea. I'm not sure where it came from, 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.760 but it was certainly in use by the eighteen forties. 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:50.520 By that time, there were theatrical stars in the United States, 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.400 and so you began to get the emergence of the 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.840 notion of celebrity by mid century. Then why was there 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.240 this interest and need for celebrities and how responsible was 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.240 the media for this rise of celebrity culture. Then you 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:13.040 had a symbiotic relationship between the rise of inexpensive newspapers 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:17.719 meant for the general public, not expensive political papers, and 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:24.760 they needed content, and you had the ever expanding entertainment industry. 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.159 You know, first it was theaters, and then the circus, 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.760 and then by the late nineteenth century you had vaudeville, 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:37.120 and vaudeville wanted to promote its stars. Newspapers wanted content, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.760 and so they worked together with each other. And of 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:46.440 course the media played a major role in producing which 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.200 stars were the best, you know, behind the scenes with 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.440 the stars, all of that, and they were fed a 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.920 lot of stuff by first vaudeville entrepreneurs and of course 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.560 then later and most famously, you know, the producers of 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.360 movie Okay, then let's talk about two types of stars. One, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:08.640 you mentioned sports stars and movie stars. Specifically, I'm thinking 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.760 of Babe Ruth and Mary Pickford. These two were really important, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.400 and in fact, movie studios were at first sort of 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.640 reluctant to even let this all happen. You want to 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.040 tell us about that, Yeah, sure, movie studios, you know, 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.039 very early on, this is the Nickelodeon period, you know, 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.920 from roughly nineteen oh five to round nineteen eleven, they 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.280 didn't want to put the names of the players on 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.080 the screen because they thought they would demand more money. 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.479 But what they found out is that viewers began to 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.840 respond to specific actors like Mary Pickford. Everybody referred to 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.200 her as the girl with the curls, and people wanted 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.440 to see more of the girl with the curls, for example. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.839 So they began to realize by nineteen eleven it was 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:02.480 good box office to put people's names out because those 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:07.040 stars could then promote movies. So that's when the shift 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.400 begins to happen. And Babe Ruth was he really the 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:15.000 first sort of gigantic sports celebrity. He was. Yes, you know, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.640 there were boxing stars, but boxing was very controversial at 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.720 the beginning of the nineteenth century because of interracial clashes 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.919 around who should be the world champion. But Babe Ruth, 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.560 I mean, let's remember Babe Ruth when he was with 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.400 Red Sox. He was a great pitcher, and a great hitter, 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.039 like who can do that? And so he obviously had 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.279 enormous talent. And then when he went to the Yankees 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.919 and you kept hitting homer after homer and helping them 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:51.719 win World Series. By this time, baseball was not only 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:56.320 being covered in newspapers. By the nineteen twenty, star is 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.400 being covered by radio, and that enhanced his star them 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.520 even more. Okay, Susan, you mentioned radio. One part of 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.960 your talk, which I had found fascinating because I never 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.560 really thought about it before, was your explanation about how 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:15.160 it was radio that created many African American stars. Yeah. 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.880 So this really relates to the great migration that occurred 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.960 during World War One. There was a great need for 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:28.200 workers in cities and up north, and you had sixty 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:33.640 thousand African Americans migrate into Chicago. And some of those 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.200 migrants were jazz musicians who have been playing in the 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:42.720 bordelos in New Orleans. But the bordellos were shut down 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.880 as like a national security issue in New Orleans. So 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:50.120 people like Louis Armstrong ended up in Chicago. So you 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.920 had something that's very important in Chicago. You had a 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:58.360 market for black music and independent companies arose producing what 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.520 was called race music, and they were mostly recording either 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.040 blues Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, but they were also recording 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:12.080 what was called hot jazz. And this music became hugely 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:17.480 popular and white listeners loved this music. And so even 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:22.680 though radio was, like all the media, very segregated, very 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:30.680 discriminatory against black performers, nonetheless, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.640 they all became stars on radio. And we have to 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:38.520 remember radio is a medium that denies sight to its audience, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.720 and so it was easier for black stars to become 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.599 stars on a medium like that. Let's move on to 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.960 something very different. Walter Winchell and the rise of gossip. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.560 Who was he and why was the gossip industry so important? 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:57.520 So gossip columns had started in the nineteen twenties and 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.680 they basically kind of fell on the heels of the 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:04.400 rye of movie magazines. You know, movie magazines starred in lateeens, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.600 early twenties. So Winchell started out, you know, as a 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.800 newspaper gossip columnist, and he moved to radio in the 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.200 early nineteen thirties, and he had this rat tat style 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:22.280 of delivery, and he mixed news with celebrity gossip and 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.240 celebrity dirt. And he had a way of inventing all 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:32.720 kinds of language in terms to stand for divorce, romantic liaisons, etc. 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:41.400 And so what Winchell did is he melded legit news 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:46.160 with gossip, bringing gossip into broadcasting for the first time, 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.760 and he became enormously influential because of that, he could 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.160 make or break careers. I mean, hardly anybody has heard 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.920 of Walter Winchell now, but Walter Winchell from the nineteen 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:04.120 thirties until the early nineteen fifties was a superstar and enormously, 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.199 enormously influential, and you know, forty million people listened to him. 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.680 So if he wanted to condemn your career, he could. 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.840 It seems to me that People Magazine has been around forever, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.200 but as you point out, it hasn't. That's not true. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.160 Why was People Magazine so important in this area of fame? Okay, 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:30.400 So the story about People Magazine is that Time Magazine 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.120 was doing focus groups, doing research on you know, people's 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.080 engagement with Time magazine, and what they found was that 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:44.280 whenever somebody got Time Magazine, the first section they went 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.320 to was in the back of the book People, and 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.320 they said, Aha, let's start a whole magazine. This was 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.120 in nineteen seventy four, and of course it became a 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:59.880 smash hit, and the early People magazine had a mix 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.599 of celebrities and everyday people that they wanted to profile. 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.360 And during this period in the nineteen seventies, you begin 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.079 to get the early metastasizing of celebrity culture because you 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.760 get People, and then you get Us Weekly, the imitator. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.200 You get Barbara Walters specials in the mid nineteen seventies, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.600 you know where she starts interviewing celebrities. By the early 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.319 nineteen eighties, where you're getting Entertainment Tonight and then Lifestyles 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.600 of the rich and famous. So you're beginning to get 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:35.480 this kind of rolling building up of celebrity culture. Tell 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.880 us a little bit more about what you called the 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:42.000 blurring of the lines between news and entertainment. Why did 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.880 news expand its coverage of celebrities so much? Well, you know, 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.880 as I noted earlier, this really started with Walter Rinchell 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:54.040 bringing gossip into news, and for a while, when television 0:11:54.080 --> 0:12:00.000 news was establishing its credibility, we didn't have much coverage 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:05.079 of celebrity in the nightly news. That began to change 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:09.280 in the nineteen eighties and beyond. One of the reasons 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.520 is that the news divisions of the networks in the 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.480 late nineteen eighties were spun off of the entertainment divisions, 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.720 meaning that the entertainment divisions which were making all this money, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.640 were not carrying the news divisions anymore. Now the news 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.960 divisions had to make it on their own, and they 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.760 had to have good ratings and all the rest. And 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.720 so you began to see like Dan Rather on the 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.560 nightly news covering the divorce of Mike Tyson and Robin Gibbons, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:41.800 and you're like, what is that? And then of course 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.920 you have the proliferation of cable, first cable news and 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:51.240 then cable shows, and so cable twenty four hour cable. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:56.960 There's a twenty four seven maw that needs to be filled, right, 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.360 and there isn't that much politics all the time. And 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.679 also foreign news bureaus were cut, so you fill that 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:10.560 with stories about Britney spears. Celebrity news is cheap, you 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.360 can recycle it, people flock to it, and at the 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:21.000 same time we start to get more and more politicians 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:26.520 being treated like celebrities. And of course, the ultimate blurring 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:32.360 moment is twenty sixteen when you have the star of 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:37.400 a reality TV show transform that into becoming president of 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.760 the United States. So, you know, we're at a really 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:47.280 odd moment now where politics is as much or more 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.640 entertainment as it is public policy and politics. This has 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:57.320 been a long process and here we are. After the break, 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.800 we'll explore social media's impact on fame and the religious 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:08.679 undertones of celebrity worship. You described three different types of 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:14.880 celebrity ascribed, achieved, and attributed. So what's the difference between 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:20.680 those three? So achieved is obvious, You've earned it, Lebron James, 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:26.040 Meryl Street, the Rolling Stones. You know, people admired for 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:32.120 their obvious talent and achievements. Ascribed is you were born 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.160 into it. And right now we have a very prominent 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.720 ascribed celebrity, Prince Harry with the number one bestselling book 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.400 Spare And so you're a child of a celebrity, You're 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:46.960 born into the royal family. You had nothing to do 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:52.560 with it. Some ascribed celebrities remain celebrities and others don't. 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:59.040 And then attributed is it happens to you, usually through 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.800 US scandal or some kind of other event. Nobody knew 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.920 who Monica Lewinsky was right until the scandal of her 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.000 relationship with Bill Clinton comes out, and all of a sudden, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.760 she is famous. She is well known simply because she 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.840 is caught in a scandal. Some other examples, if attributed 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.840 can be one hit wonders, a lottery winner can be 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.560 famous for a short period of time and it goes away. 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:33.120 Often attributed celebrity is the one that most rapidly fades. 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.400 The notion of what is and who is newsworthy has 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.520 changed dramatically. Seems like anyone can be a star. You 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.200 want to talk a little bit about that. Yes, there's 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.480 a term for this called the demotic turn, which comes 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:51.400 from the word democracy. And this really began around the 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.840 year two thousand. So there were stars of big hit shows, 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:00.600 friends er. The shows were doing incredibly well. The stars 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.760 kept demanding more money because they were making a lot 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.280 of money for the networks at the time. And after 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.920 a while, the networks were getting fed up with it 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.640 because they wanted to keep their profit margins high. And meanwhile, 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.240 there had been this little show on MTV called The 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.320 real World. He throw seven people together an apartment, see 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.360 what happens. That started in nineteen ninety two. By the 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.560 late nineties, it was doing very well for MTV. So 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.680 then we get this show called Survivor. The first episode 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.240 of Survivor was a smash hit, and that led to 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.560 more and more reality TV. Now why was reality TV 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.400 produced on MOSS It was so much cheaper to produce 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.000 than scripted shows. You could get people who would be 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.440 on those shows for free because they wanted to be 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.920 on television, and so you were cutting your costs way down, 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.120 and boom you get the explosion of reality to V. 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.119 And then, of course this intersects with the rise of 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:10.120 social media, right and people beginning to think, you know, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:15.000 maybe I can become a star on Instagram. And of course, 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.359 more recently we now have TikTok stars and we have 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:25.440 YouTube stars, people who have basically crafted themselves into personalities 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:31.040 through social media. So when this term demotic turn was coined, 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:37.680 it barely anticipated the rampant democratization of celebrity in our culture. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.880 Here's another phrase I learned from your lecture that sounded 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:46.760 very scientific to me. Parasocial interaction. What's that all about? Yeah, 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:51.400 it's a complicated term for something we all do. So, Steve, 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.520 have you ever sat in front of your television set 0:17:56.200 --> 0:18:00.960 and yelled at a newscaster as if he or she 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:05.600 could hear you, or in a horror film, don't go 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:11.480 in there, don't go in there. Parasocial relationships refer to 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:17.800 us having imagined relationships with people as if we know them, 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.160 as if they can hear us, when, of course it's 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.719 a very asymmetrical relationship. You know, we may know a 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.560 ton about Jennifer Aniston, she has no idea who I am, right, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:33.719 and so parasocial relationships are the relationships that we form 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:39.120 with stars, and so some people can have very strong 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.760 parasocial relationships, you know, be very devoted fans. A parasocial 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.919 relationship can also be negative, right, I could have a 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:53.439 very strong negative parasocial hatred of somebody famous. So, but 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.120 that's what it refers to, is that connection that every 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.960 day people have often powerful with as people. Can you 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.200 comment on some of the privileges and power of celebrity 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.560 and and some of the drawbacks for both celebrities and 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.360 for the people who become so invested in their lives. So, look, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:19.680 celebrities have a wider voice in the world than we do. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.080 They go to the front of the line. I don't 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:27.399 imagine Tom Cruise ever having to go to the Division 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.320 of motor vehicles and waiting, you know, two hours to 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.440 get as light as renewed. They go to the head 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.800 of the line. So you know, those are some of 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:42.199 the privileges that they get downfall or you know, the 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:48.440 anti privileges is really loss of privacy. Many celebrities really 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.320 hate the loss of privacy. They are under scrutiny all 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:57.280 the time. One slight mistake and especially now in the 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.840 era of social media. Boy, you know, can you get 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.760 banged up on on one slip of the tongue or 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:07.320 one mistake. And I will say in particular really worrying 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.760 about the privacy of your children, which has become a 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.560 big deal for a lot of celebrities. Those are some 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.680 really quite serious downsides. There's what some people would would 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:24.600 actually call a religious aspect to celebrity fascination, including pilgrimages 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.000 to important sites like the one in Memphis, and you 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.639 know what I'm talking about. So Grace Land is of 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:36.080 course a complete monument to Elvis and his grave is there, 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.200 and I went there with some colleagues on an off day, 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:46.639 and there were fans laying flowers on the grave. So 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.880 in terms of religion, there is, you know, a hypothesis 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:56.760 that celebrity worship is kind of a substitute for religion. 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:01.960 And if you've been to any rock concerts recently, think 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.840 about how the stars are beautifully lit on the stage, 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:13.200 almost haload. They are above us, they are illuminated. We're below. 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.800 Maybe we're holding candles, you know, to pay tribute to them. 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:21.560 We sing along with them. They're above us. They're like gods. 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:27.199 The way that musical stars in particular are staged is 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:35.280 very godlike, and people can become obsessed with what we 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:39.679 call reliquaries, you know, a shock of somebody's hair, a 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.560 piece of Michael Jackson's clothing, whatever. So some have argued 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:49.760 that there is a religiosity to celebrity worship and celebrity culture. 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:54.280 There were two Oscar nominated films that focused on past 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.960 movie stars, Elvis and Blonde, which was about Marilyn Monroe. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.560 Why do you think they're still making movies about those 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:07.439 two and others so many decades later. There are certain stars, 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:13.360 especially those who've died young, who've died tragically who are 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:19.320 preserved forever in their use. And James Dean is another one. Right, 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:24.000 we go back and revisit these stars in their youthful beauty, 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:30.560 and what these stars kind of symbolize for us is 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:36.159 a kind of immortality, because yes, Marilyn Monroe is long gone, 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:41.920 Elvis is long gone, but we have posters of them, 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:47.840 we have their music, their films, They live on in 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:53.080 all kinds of imagery and sound. It appeals to some 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:59.879 notion of not really ever dying. That again ties in 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:05.520 with our fantasies about and relationship with stars. Okay, Susan, 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:10.200 one last question. Do you think the existence of celebrities 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:16.520 has an overall positive or negative effect on society and culture? Well, Steven, 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:18.960 I'd like to turn that question around a little bit 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:24.159 and ask what do celebrities provide? What do they take away? 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:29.040 What do they justify? And so celebrities in if you 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:34.240 want to go with a positive route, they provide everyday 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:39.919 people with role models. They provide everyday people with aspirational 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:45.120 stories about success. They provide everyday people with a kind 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.959 of social glue. So you know, if I am sitting 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.400 next to you on an airplane and we start talking, 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:56.520 and there's been a political scandal and a celebrity scandal. 0:23:57.080 --> 0:23:58.720 The last thing I'm going to do is talk to 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:01.159 you about the political scan given the part as a 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:04.720 nature or politics right now, but a celebrity scandal, you 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:08.480 and I can be experts on that have a moral 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:13.480 compass about it, and in our conversation we affirm our 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.919 own morality about right and wrong. I think some of 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:23.600 the damaging things about celebrity culture is they enact standards 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:28.280 of beauty and slimness and youth that very few people 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:31.320 kind of achieve, yet too many people seek to measure 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:38.440 themselves by. They justify hierarchies of race and class, They 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:45.040 make hierarchies seem thrilling. They justify having way too much money. 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:50.200 And I think there are some problems with celebrity culture, 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:55.240 and they kind of legitimate a notion of who deserves 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:59.439 what and who doesn't deserve certain things. Susan, thank you 0:24:59.520 --> 0:25:02.199 so much again for doing this. We really appreciate it. 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:05.919 With such an interesting subject and an unusual subject, I 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:08.600 learned a lot. I hope our listeners did too. Thanks 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:11.159 for joining us, Thanks for having me, it was great fun. 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:15.440 Thanks for joining us here. At One Day University. Sign 0:25:15.520 --> 0:25:18.439 up at our website one dayu dot com to become 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:21.800 a member and access over seven hundred full length video 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:25.880 lectures from the world's finest professors. You could also download 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:29.040 our app. There you can learn more about today's episode 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:33.479 and watch University of Michigan Professor Susan Douglas's lecture on 0:25:33.600 --> 0:25:36.439 fame and Celebrity, as well as her talks on the 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:41.480 history of radio pagism and more. Join us next time 0:25:41.800 --> 0:25:44.440 when we talk about the Biden presidency. I would put 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:49.080 his legislati accomplishments up against almost anyone's since Franklin Roosevelt 0:25:49.160 --> 0:25:51.879 or Lyndon Johnson for the first two years of his presidency. 0:25:52.080 --> 0:25:55.639 One Day University is a production of iHeart Podcasts and 0:25:55.800 --> 0:25:58.720 School of Humans. If you're enjoying the show, leave a 0:25:58.760 --> 0:26:01.200 review in your favorite podcas gust Out. You can also 0:26:01.320 --> 0:26:05.719 check out other Curiosity podcasts to learn about history, pop culture, 0:26:05.800 --> 0:26:19.680 true crime, and more. School of Humans