phrasing not yet specified
Remember J.G. Ballard's 'surgical fictions', where he pasted a celebrity name into the text of a medical journal article? Jane Fonda's Augmentation Mammoplasty, Princess Margaret's Facelift, Queen Elizabeth's Rhinoplasty, etc. These pieces succeeded on two levels, namely satirizing the cult of celebrity by reducing larger than life figures to the subjects of surgery, highlighting their flesh and bone bodies instead of constructed and managed public persona: bodies are mediums, celebrity is message. But Ballard also pokes fun at our own hunger for the minute details of these contemporary demi-gods: their relationships, their finances, their scandals, their embarrassments. Ballard knows that having celebrity reduced, abased, titillates us, allows us to feel secure and contented in our own lives, our own bodies. Thus, Ballard attacks both the media's deification of celebrity and our own desire for said deification. A feedback loop of triviality and boredom: LOL AMY'S GONE TO REHAB NO NO NO.
Celebrity has become a dumping ground for our fears, anxieties, hopes and delusions, as evinced by any number of snarky gossip blogs, among myriad other indicators. Whether we glory in their failings or live vicariously through their questionable achievements, we need a figure on which to visit our own pronounced lack. Celebrities are to be sanitized or humiliated depending on one's tastes, but the social role they occupy, their niche in the dessicated ecosystem of capital, is itself unquestioned. They are something larger we situate ourselves in relation to, lives bigger than ours. In this respect, one could even offer that celebrity is the religion of late capitalism, which would go along way to explaining J.G. "Myths of the Near Future" Ballard's ongoing fascination with it.
TL; DR: J.G. Ballard predicted the Talk: Gary Glitter page on Wikipedia: Gary Glitter ejaculates on a teenage girl's breasts, the minute-by-minute account of Elvis' gastrointestinal pains, the brand of heroin Robert Downey Jr was arrested with, the nature and variety of Buddy Holly's skull fractures. Some want the gory details removed (the faithful), others want them included (the heathens), but everyone agrees on who (if not what) is 'noteworthy'. Raoul? "Pissing on the altar is still a way of paying homage to the Church." Heathen and faithful and the shaky edifice they, together, have built.
Celebrity has become a dumping ground for our fears, anxieties, hopes and delusions, as evinced by any number of snarky gossip blogs, among myriad other indicators. Whether we glory in their failings or live vicariously through their questionable achievements, we need a figure on which to visit our own pronounced lack. Celebrities are to be sanitized or humiliated depending on one's tastes, but the social role they occupy, their niche in the dessicated ecosystem of capital, is itself unquestioned. They are something larger we situate ourselves in relation to, lives bigger than ours. In this respect, one could even offer that celebrity is the religion of late capitalism, which would go along way to explaining J.G. "Myths of the Near Future" Ballard's ongoing fascination with it.
TL; DR: J.G. Ballard predicted the Talk: Gary Glitter page on Wikipedia: Gary Glitter ejaculates on a teenage girl's breasts, the minute-by-minute account of Elvis' gastrointestinal pains, the brand of heroin Robert Downey Jr was arrested with, the nature and variety of Buddy Holly's skull fractures. Some want the gory details removed (the faithful), others want them included (the heathens), but everyone agrees on who (if not what) is 'noteworthy'. Raoul? "Pissing on the altar is still a way of paying homage to the Church." Heathen and faithful and the shaky edifice they, together, have built.