Karen Sternheimer - Celebrity Culture and the American Dream: Stardom and Social Mobility

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Celebrity Culture and the American Dream

This second edition of Celebrity Culture and the American Dream considers how major economic and historical factors shaped the nature of celebrity culture as we know it today, retaining the first editions 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 todays 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.

Karen Sternheimer is a sociologist at the University of Southern California, where she is a distinguished fellow at the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching. She is also the author of Pop Culture Panics: How Moral Crusaders Construct Meanings of Deviance and Delinquency (2015), Connecting Popular Culture and Social Problems: Why Media is Not the Answer (2013), Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Todays Youth (2006), and Its Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Cultures Influence on Children (2003), and is the editor and lead writer for everydaysociologyblog.com. She has provided commentary for NPR, CNN, MSNBC, The History Channel, and Fox News.

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Second edition published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 Taylor & Francis

The right of Karen Sternheimer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Routledge 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sternheimer, Karen.

Celebrity culture and the American dream: stardom and mobility/

by Karen Sternheimer.Second edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Social mobilityUnited States. 2. Social classesUnited States.

3. CelebritiesUnited States. 4. American Dream. 5. FameSocial

aspectsUnited States. I. Title.

HN57.S774 2015

305.513dc23

2014026117

ISBN: 978-1-138-02394-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-02395-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77617-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Adobe Caslon, Trade Gothic and Copperplate Gothic
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

For my parents,
who did everything to ensure that I would make it big.

CONTENTS

Stardom and Social Mobility

Love it, hate it, or love to hate it, celebrity culture is one of the hallmarks of twenty-first century America. Never before has it been so easy to know so much about so many people, even people we might not want to know about. We seem to be on a first name basis with them, give them nick-names, and sometimes even feel as if we know all about them. We hear about their romances, their escapades, and, of course, their failures. Entering this fishbowl does not require any unique skill or talent; in fact, many people join the celebrity realm by just allowing the public into their lives (or their bedrooms), as the Kardashians and the cast of the Real Housewives series have done.

What Does Celebrity Culture Tell Us about American Society?

Rather than simply superficial distractions, celebrity and fame are unique manifestations of our sense of American social mobility: they provide the illusion that material wealth is possible for anyone. More than simply changes in taste or style, the fluctuating nature of celebrity culture reflects and reveals the so-called American Dream itself, a dream that continues to evolve and change along with our expectations about what it means to achieve success in America.

Using examples from the first celebrity fan magazines of 1911 to those of the present, Celebrity Culture and the American Dream considers how major economic and historical factors shaped the nature of celebrity culture as we know it today. Rather than simply hypothesize about the effect celebrity behavior might have on the rest of us, this book uses a sociological lens to examine how celebrity stories serve to reinforce the prevailing notion of success. Celebrities seem to provide proof that the American Dream of going from rags to riches is real and attainable.

The goal of this book is to use a sociological imagination to take an in-depth look at our culture of celebritysomething familiar to all readersand understand its broader sociological importance. While I primarily focus on the connections between celebrity culture and concepts of social mobility, this book also provides an opportunity to examine issues such as consumption, social change, and social structure. Celebrity culture also reflects shifts in gender, marriage, families, relationships, and race relations in addition to political and economic changes, and this book can be used in a wide variety of courses about American society.

Books by and about celebrities dominate the trade market today, and dozens of academic titles about celebrity culture have been published over the past two decades. Most of these books are written primarily for a scholarly audience, offering comprehensive theoretical discussions that would be difficult for lay readers and undergraduate audiences to connect with. This book aims to avoid academic jargon in order to provide a straightforward discussion about the role celebrity culture plays in American life.

The second edition of Celebrity Culture and the American Dream includes updated examples from the world of celebrity, more discussion of the role of the internet and social media in celebrity culture today, as well as an expanded theoretical discussion in the first chapter. The book:

• explores the relationship between celebrity culture, consumption, class, and social mobility;

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