Kerry O. Ferris - Stargazing: Celebrity, Fame, and Social Interaction

The sociology of fame and celebrity is at the cutting edge of current scholarship in a number of different areas of study. Stargazing highlights the interactional dynamics of celebrity and fame in contemporary society, including the thoughts and feelings of stars on the red carpet, the thrills and risks of encountering a famous person at a convention or on the streets, and the excitement generated even by the obvious fakery of celebrity impersonators. Using compelling, real-life examples involving popular celebrities, Ferris and Harris examine how the experience and meanings of celebrity are shaped by social norms, interactional negotiations, and interpretive storytelling.

Kerry O. Ferris is associate professor of Sociology at Northern Illinois University. She works toward a sociology of fame using ethnographic methods and a symbolic-interactionist approach. Her work has been published in Symbolic Interaction, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and Human Studies. Her current project examines small-market newscasters experiences of local celebrity.

Scott R. Harris is associate professor at Saint Louis University. His research centers on social interaction and social constructionism. His books include What Is Constructionism? Navigating Its Use in Sociology (Lynne Rienner 2010) and The Meanings of Marital Equality (SUNY 2006).

Edited by Valerie Jenness , University of California, Irvine and Jodi OBrien , Seattle University

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Celebrity, Fame, and Social Interaction

Kerry O. Ferris
Northern Illinois University

Scott R. Harris
Saint Louis University

First published 2011
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.

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The right of Kerry O. Ferris and Scott R. Harris to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

2011 Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ferris, Kerry.
Stargazing : celebrity, fame, and social interaction / Kerry O. Ferris, Scott R. Harris
p. cm. (Contemporary sociological perspectives)
ISBN 9780415884273 (hbk.)ISBN 9780415884280 (pbk.) ISBN 9780203831342 (ebook) 1. FameSocial aspects. 2. Celebrities. I. Harris, Scott R., 1969 Sept. 16 II. Title.
BJ1470.5.F47 2011
302'.1dc22
2010032826

ISBN 0-203-83134-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13: 9780415884273 (hbk)

ISBN13: 9780415884280 (pbk)

ISBN13: 9780203831342 (ebk)

As its title suggests, Stargazing is a book about looking at stars! The look is through the lens of a sociological perspective and the stars are celebrities. By utilizing a microsociological perspective to make sense of modern day celebrity and our relationship to those the media render highly visible and (seemingly) newsworthy in our celebrity culture, this book provides compelling sociological answers to a slew of interesting questions: Why do people take an interest in the lives of celebrities? Why do we tolerate law-bending paparazzi behavior that we perhaps wouldnt tolerate from others? Why are the majority of the magazines at the check-out stand hawking voyeurism? Why do people look even if we dont want to? Why do people pay to look at impersonators of celebrities? Why does fame sometimes provoke obsession?

To address these interesting questions, Ferris and Harris provide a detailed analysis of celebrity-focused interactions, such as the thrills and the risks of fans contact with the famous, the fun of watching celebrity impersonators perform, and the phenomena known as celebrity stalking. Beyond the fun of reading about celebrity and our relationship to it in a social context in which fame is a commodity, this book provides an example of symbolic interaction in action. Ferris and Harris deftly draw on accessible examples and rich data to make sociological sense of how meaning-making occurs through real and imagined engagement with celebrities; more generally, the focus is on norms, negotiations, discourse, and recurring generic social processes that cut across many types of social interactions. The result is a compelling assessment of celebrity that simultaneously serves to demystify fame and our relationship to it, demonstrates the application of the sociological imagination, and renders visible social processes and structures that create lived realities we so often take for granted.