New Blog: American Idol and Celebrity Familiarity

First and foremost, the word "celebrity" is being used very loosely when talking about American Idol -- it is more appropriate to call them celetoids because their fame is most often compressed and concentrated. More brilliantly put (thanks to Chris Rojek), "celetoids are the accessories of cultures organized around mass communications and staged authenticity." But that is not the purpose of this blog post. It's to talk about the idea of celebrity and familiarity as it relates to American Idol. As I sat watching American Idol last night I realized that the show is not necessarily about singing talent. Presumably as the judges whittle the contestants down to the 24 finalists, they all have some degree of talent. But as I watched last night's two-hour episode (thank god for the DVR!) I realized how little singing there was and how much "back story" there was or humanizing the contestants. So we hear more about the girl who has brothers with Down Syndrome or the guy whose wife delivered a baby while hew as away at his audition for American Idol. Which begs the question: Why do we care?

The answer is that in our culture we have a desire to "know" celebrities -- which is why there is no shortage of entertainment media that look at the minutiae of a celebrity's life so we can see how they are "just like us" -- except more talented and wealthier, but they're just like us! But what we never (or rarely) consider is that these people (through the producers of American Idol) are framing their celebrity for us. The theory is that we are more apt to buy music from (or at least vote for) this person if we know that they overcame some adversity or if they are a "good guy or gal." But as we have seen on several occasions when dealing with the celetoids of American Idol, long lasting fame is often fleeting. Anyone remember Tamyra Gray from Season 1 or Latoya London from Season 3? How about John Stevens, also from Season 3? All have released records and none have achieved anything that could be called success as singers. (Tamyra Gray is allegedly writing and producing and Latoya London was in The Color Purple -- it seems theatre/Broadway seem to be the refuge of Idol contestants -- see Diana DiGarmo, Ace Young, Taylor Hicks, Fantasia, Ruben Studdard, Frenchie Davis, Clay Aiken and probably a ton more that I can't remember.

New Blog: Joe the Plummer was Used, Used I Say!

Sam Wurzelbacher (a.k.a. Joe the Plumber) has come to the realization that he was used by John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign. And in the vein of all attention-seeking fauxlebrities (I'm looking at you Kate Gosselin), he feels the need to "speak out."

There are two issues at play here. First, I can't imagine that he is vapid enough to just have come to the realization that he was merely a mascot for John McCain's campaign. But second, and perhaps more importantly, the general premise of his argument doesn't hold water. Had John McCain not "used" him, he wouldn't be a fauxlebrity and he would be just another guy trying to make it in tough economic times. So, to trash John McCain (and Sarah Palin) is disingenuous, at best.

Third, Joe the Plumber "speaking out" illuminates another issue we have with media and our cultural obsession with celebrity. Media reports on these seemingly inane stories for our mass consumption. Theoretically, the media is giving us what we want because if they reported it and no one watched or read or otherwise paid attention, they'd move on to something else, but we've never really been good at consuming what is good or right for us.

Framing Phobias

Whether we will admit it or not, media, at its core, works to frame events for us. Most often, news media works to frame blackness as a symbol of deviance, destruction and generally all things horrible. And as sociologist Herman Gray notes in his fantastic book Watching Race, "... the demonization of blackness -- welfare queens, the aggressive black female, the menacing black criminal -- in the public sphere of media spectacle... enables[s] the mobilization of counterimage of blackness -- the figure of individuality, competence, exceptionalism -- as difference." (See Harry Reid's comment about President Obama for more on how educated blacks are framed as different than "others."

In addition to this framing of blackness as menacing, the news media also work to frame phobias for us. Erica Chito Childs, in her book Fade to Black and White, asserts that the media frame fear of interracial relationships for us and that whenever these unions occur three things happen:

1) The relationship is often doomed from a long-term perspective;
2) The white person in the relationship is shown to be somehow deviant; and
3) The opposition to the interracial relationship is centered on black opposition rather than white opposition.

It's this third point that is most important for the purposes of this post. This framing can also be used as a way to look at homophobia. There is, without a doubt, homophobia that exists among white people. We see it nearly everyday in evangelicals and conservatives using scripture to denounce gay rights or by using "slippery slope" arguments about how gay rights will create a social Apocalypse. And one can either agree or disagree on their position by saying they are right or wrong -- and it is largely determined on where you stand on social issues. But it's the framing of black opposition that is sometimes the most telling.

While the video embedded below does not feature blacks, it's important to know that most people (particularly Americans) make no distinction for black skin and blacks are thereby implicated by the video. In addition, while homophobia among whites is framed as being either a religious issue or one related to income or education level, all blacks are often stereotyped as being homophobic. Despite efforts like the ad campaign launched last week on Long Island, there is still a long way to go to get the media to stop framing events so that we can stop relying on stereotypes to label people.

The Importance of the Written and Spoken Word

In school we were told that the construction of survey questions is very important. We're told to focus the questions, make them as brief and clear as possible. And while there isn't a ton of emphasis put on the actual words you're using (other than to say that you must use words that most people would be able to define) the results of this survey by New York Times/CBS shows researchers that they might want to pay a little more attention to word selection. You see, the approval for allowing gay or homosexual people to serve in the military depends on what you call them. The poll found that 70 percent of those polled favor (either strongly favor or somewhat favor) allowing gay men and lesbians to serve in the military while only 59 percent of respondents favor (either strongly favor or somewhat favor) allowing homosexuals to serve in the military.




I heard Michelangelo Signorile posit that the numbers could be lower because the word "homosexual" mentions the word sex and makes respondents think about sex between two men (because that presumably is where the mind goes for images of repulsion, rather than lesbian sex). I'm not so sure that I completely agree with his argument, but what I think the real takeaway for researchers as well as people in general is that words matter. We have to be a lot more careful about the words we use in order to clearly convey what we really want to say. Some people brush things off as being purely about semantics, but as this poll shows, it's not just semantics, some words truly rub people the wrong way and cause them to react more negatively.

Follow up to Marriage Equality Post

This video is really disturbing because it really points (again) to the sheer arbitrariness of the government sanctioned definition of marriage.

Is this the Institution of Marriage We're Supposed to be Protecting?

Marriage equality seems to most often be a fight happening in the courtrooms and at the ballot boxes in America. And we've had seen celebrities like Sarah Silverman say that she will not get married until all people are allowed to get married. And on one hand, it's a very noble stand to take. However, I have to take my hat off to an Orlando artist, Brian Feldman, who simply said he was willing to marry any woman who showed up at the courthouse to shed light on the idiocy of excluding gay men and lesbians from the institution.

There is no way that he can legally be stopped from marrying a total stranger who is also a woman. There (presumably) is no mention of love or no mention of him being selective in any way. He didn't say the woman needed to be attractive, needed to want to start a family or anything -- just be willing to get married to him. Is it a publicity stunt, sure. But the best publicity stunts are the ones that make us laugh and then make us think. If two complete strangers can go get a marriage license and then get married, what is really the harm in allowing to adults of the same sex to do so as well?

Many will argue that marriage is the building block of the family structure to which I have two counterpoints: 1) there are children born every day to single women and are often raised without contact from their biological father; and 2) there are couples who simply choose not to have children even when they are married. In fact, according to a 2007 Pew Research Center survey, Forty-one percent of Americans said children are "very important" to a successful marriage -- down from from 65 percent in 1990.

Lastly, and I think this is the most important point of all, who does it really bother and how are individuals affected? If there are hundreds of thousands of gay and lesbian married couples in the world, how does that affect any of us? If we are heterosexual, does allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry destabilize our relationships? I don't think it logically can (unless you were married to a person who had same sex attraction to begin with).

The Duggars and Celebrity Culture

I've never watched the Duggars on television or really even read an article about them, but like Jon & Kate, the Kardashians and a host of other reality show stars, they manage to work their way into our collective pop culture conscience. While in Target yesterday, I saw a story on People Magazine that said (in all caps) that the Duggars were Under Fire! and asked "How Many Kids are Too Many?"  So, the first question I was compelled to ask is why is it anyone's business?  From all accounts the Duggars don't seem to be relying on any form of public assistance to raise their children.  Nor do they seem to be an unfit job at raising the children they already have.  The second question I am compelled to ask is why are the Duggars even on our cultural radar?

The brilliant Chris Rojek explains the reason that we have so many, what I like to call "fauxlebrities" and he calls celetoids in our culture.  He says 1) Democratization has simultaneously expanded low and middle brow taste cultures and enlarged the pool of celebrities; 2) everyday life has been commodified so much that information about celebrities is always present; and 3) religion has declined and we now worship celebrity in a way that approximates religion.  

Which brings me back to my initial question about why we know about the Duggars in the first place? Afterall, they're just a family with 19 children.  Why does that warrant celebrity status being bestowed upon them?
The short (and honest) answer is that it doesn't.  But in a country where most people have two or three children, having 19 stands out (freakishly so) and as Americans we love nothing more than a spectacle.And as soon as we grow tired of the Duggars and their "act" of having 19 children, we'll be on to the next freakish act and the Duggars (and their 19 children) will be long forgotten.