Celebrity Culture and the Mechanics of Fame
There’s a section of Sharon Marcus’s wonderful new book, The Drama of Celebrity, in which she examines the dizzying appeal of actress Sarah Bernhardt: “Why did hundreds of thousands the world over, including drama critics hired to be professional skeptics, find [Bernhardt] so powerfully attractive and so attractively powerful?” Marcus describes how Bernhardt—praised even by Henry James—had a “superlative management of her own body.” Marcus settles into a meticulous and fascinating discussion of how contemporary audiences and critics pored over Bernhardt’s every turn, pause, flail, and thrust.
The Drama of Celebrity is full of these moments; part interesting anecdote, part revealing analysis. The idea of celebrity is at once everywhere and difficult to understand, but Marcus offers a robust consideration of charisma, fandom, and media. Marcus teaches at Columbia University, where she is the Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature. A founding editor of Public Books, she is the author of Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England and Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London.
We spoke about defiant celebrities, the parallels between religion and fandom, and who might be to blame for celebrity culture.
The Millions: In your introduction to the book, you explain that traditionally, media scholars have thought that there are three origins of celebrity, each competing with the others. First, that “celebrities themselves charm the media and wow the public.” Second: “the public decides who will be a star.” Third: “producers, publicists, and journalists determine who will be a celebrity.” Can you summarize your new theory of celebrity culture—and why you think readers should pay attention to the creation of celebrity in America?
All of the theories cited above are wrong—because all of them are right. No one group has groups: media producers, members of the public, and celebrities themselves. All three groups have agency, so all three groups influence the tales we tell about celebrities and fans, with none exercising full control. Stars aren’t always (or even often) pawns; members of the public aren’t all dupes all of the time; journalists and publicists are rarely omnipotent Svengalis. It’s the interactions of media, publics, and stars that create celebrity culture, and those interactions are dynamic and unpredictable. Publics engage with celebrity both as onlookers and as active participants—and have been doing so for a long time.
