A bold new account of how celebrity works
Why do we care so much about celebrities? Who decides who gets to be a star? Do celebrities deserve the outsized attention they receive? Sharon Marcus challenges everything you thought you knew about our obsession with fame. Drawing on scrapbooks, diaries, and vintage fan mail, she traces celebrity culture back to its nineteenth-century roots, when people the world over found themselves captivated by celebrity chefs, bad-boy poets, and actors such as the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt, as famous in her day as the Beatles in theirs. The Drama of Celebrity reveals how journalists, the public, and celebrities themselves all compete to shape the stories we tell about celebrities and fans, resulting in a high-stakes drama as endless as it is unpredictable.
- ISBN10 0691210187
- ISBN13 9780691210186
- Publish Date 11 August 2020 (first published 25 June 2019)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Princeton University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 328
- Language English