Notes on Blake Lively and Leonardo DiCaprio
Subtitle: Why is this relationship so barfy?
I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel this way for the last three weeks. The first time I heard about Blake Lively “spending time” with Leonardo DiCaprio — and then photographed hugging at Cannes — I thought WHOA, GOOD PUBLICIST, LIVELY.
But then, as it became clear that this was really a thing, I realized that I HATED it. Some potential couplings make you happy (this mostly happens when two people you liked seeing together in a movie get together in real life — see especially McGosling (The Notebook), Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries), Bill and Sookie (True Blood, I don’t even know Bill’s real name, bygones), KStew and RPattz (Twilight). We like (most) of these romances because their existence in real life somehow authenticates the fictional romance. See, Edward and Bella do love each other! (Or, alternately, an off-screen romance suggests that the fictional love story IS JUST SO POWERFUL that anyone involved in the filming of it would just naturally fall in love). Simply put, real life romances make us feel less silly for investing/feeling moved/relying on certain scenes of The Notebook to carry us through 99% of hungover/post-breakup mornings.
When the couple has nothing to do with making us feel better about our relationships with fictional characters, then it’s all about how we feel about two images and their fit. As for their actual interactions, the way they challenge each other, or the fact that love doesn’t always make sense to people outside of the relationship, none of that matters. Again, it’s not about a relationship between two people, but a relationship between two images — and the way we feel about the resultant image, the “relationship” image as it were. Just like a star image is the sum of its signifying parts — the way the star appears at premieres, in actual films, in sweats at the supermarket, in advertisements, in interviews — so too is the relationship the sum of the couple’s appearances (or lack thereof) in public, the way they speak of each other in interviews, the way they produce (or don’t produce) children.
A couple like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a tremendously popular/palatable relationship image. Their individual star images compliment each other (both have images whose dominant meanings are “sexy,” “talented,” “aloof”), and their relationship image is still sexually charged, yet also maternal/paternal, charitable, intelligent, savvy, and highly cosmopolitan/global.
Now, I know I’m not the only person who feels this way about Lively and DiCaprio, as many readers and Facebook followers of the blog have voiced their agreement. But what is it that makes this relationship so offensive?
Let’s do a quick run-down of their respective images.
OUR BOY LEO:
*Child star of inordinate talent and promise
*Heartthrob to millions worldwide (babyface makes him all the easier to love)
*Hollywood playboy with “Pussy Posse” of close male friends in his late teens/early ’20s (although this part of his image isn’t as well known)
*Survives transition to adulthood to became star in cerebral and/or politically engaged thrillers and Scorsese’s new muse (in other words: a big, respected star that draws both male and female audiences)
*Managed to transform his boyish cuteness into visceral hotness (see especially sex scene in The Departed)
*Dates supermodels; long-term on-and-off-again relationships with Gisele (pre-Tom Brady) and Bar Raefli. (No inclination towards long-term commitment or marriage; no children)
*Becomes involved in environmental causes; appears on cover of Vanity Fair Green Issue
*Longterm star who has paid his dues and has a firm grasp of both his image and his career. Well-respected both within the industry and amongst his audience, despite lack of “traditional” romances.
OUR GIRL LIVELY:
*Teen star of dubious talent. ”Break-out” role in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she attracts an older (college age!) soccer coach and (big sigh!) loses her virginity.
*Best known for role of “Serena” in Gossip Girl, a show that manages to have disappointing ratings yet tremendous cultural influence. Obviously the weakest link of the show (perhaps second only to Little J) despite having the best hair.
*Becomes known for great legs, great hair, and great boobs, about which there is much speculation as to their real-ness.
That is some good hair.
*Long-term relationship with her co-star (and sometimes on-screen boyfriend) Penn Badgley.
*In part due to her character’s expansive and innovative wardrobe, becomes a “muse” of the fashion industry. Karl Lagerfield loves her; calls her “America’s Dream Girl.” Face of Chanel bag line. Anna Wintour puts her on the cover of Vogue. TWICE. Named to Vogue’s “Best Dressed” list.
*Small supporting role in Ben Affleck’s The Town, in which she plays a trashy Bostonite. Mumbles through her lines.
*Nude cell-phone self-portraits leaked on the internet. Lively denies that they’re her, but they pretty obviously are. Boobs looking quite fake.
*Supporting role in The Green Lantern universally panned.
Now, most of what I’d like to conclude about Lively’s overall image has already been said by Molly Lambert in her amazing Grantland piece from last week, which I simply cannot recommend highly enough.
The best bits:
lake Lively is “rich pretty.” So is Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s a kind of prettiness that’s bound up with showing off how much money you’ve spent. Designer labels only, flat-ironed/wavy hair with lots of upkeep, super skinny, sensibly nice tits.1 Blake Lively in a Forever 21 dress is just another beautiful girl. Blake Lively in Chanel is a different creature, an idea called “Blake Lively.” An excuse for the fashion industry to promote boring standards of beauty and wealth through an aspirational avatar…..
….Blake Lively would actually make a great Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s terrible idea for a Great Gatsby movie.3 Daisy is the American archetype of an unattainable rich girl. Pretty, vapid, prone to dancing drunk on tables. Equal parts Paris Hilton and Paris Review. Daisy is not a great character of fiction, because she isn’t much of a character, really. She’s just a collection of fetishistic feminine and WASP traits, with a laugh that sounds like money….
…..Lively is positioning herself as A-List without having any real A-List credentials, besides her part in The Town, which she is still banking on to suggest that she is suited for A-List roles. It’s very Internet age of her to publicly declare herself A-list when evidence of her acting talent is still scant at best. It is an extremely calculated series of superficial career moves that lead to being the Green Lantern’s girlfriend, Leonardo DiCaprio’s staged-photo dream date, and on several covers of Vogue…..
And most importantly:
But how is Blake Lively positioning herself for the long-term? Are any people really “Blake Lively fans”? Could Blake Lively open a movie on her own? Will she start taking Kate Hudson’s terrible romantic-comedy leftovers? At least Kate Hudson has Almost Famous to remind us that she can be a very good actress. What does Blake Lively have? A TV show on which she plays the sympathetic main character’s richer, prettier, more vapid best frenemy Serena van der Woodsen, spiritual heir of Daisy Buchanan?
Now, I realize I just cribbed about 50% of that article. That’s how good it is — and how much I want to direct you to its home to read the rest. But part of the reason it’s so good is because Lambert gets to the heart of what’s offensive and unlikable about Lively: she’s playing above her pay grade. She skipped a step (or five) and is suddenly dating A-Listers, fancying herself an A-Lister. Lots of A-Listers lack in talent — John Travolta — but have, without doubt, paid their dues, and earned their place on the A-List. But skipping ranks? That’s downright unAmerican.
Someone can become solidly B-List by being horrible in films, appearing in television shows, or being pretty/having a nice body. Megan Fox, I am so talking to you. But A-List requires some sort of distinguishing talent, longevity, or enduring cultural resonance. And Blake Lively seems wholly devoid of actual talent, which is why the idea of “rich pretty” is so salient. She is the sum of her beautiful body parts, but none of them are in any way unique or distinguishing. There’s no Angelina Jolie lips, no Reese Witherspoon heart-shaped face. Indeed, all of her beautiful parts could be yours with a personal stylist, trainer, hairdresser, and plastic surgeon. She never says anything witty or interesting in interviews. Her clothing is beautifully tailored to fit her body and always interesting — but always seems very much like it was chosen by someone else, and she’s just modeling it. I mean, Angelina Jolie may pick some hideous dresses, but there’s very rarely the feeling that she’s someone else’s Barbie. There’s just an overwhelming sense that this girl is a blank slate of a body and performer, attempting to define herself through her association with others. I realize that this is not unique, but it does account for my general dislike.
Lambert’s piece has effectively guided me towards an answer to my initial question. Why do I hate this relationship? Most obviously, their individual images don’t mesh. Despite his womanizing past, DiCaprio’s dominant image is that of a well-respected A-Lister, someone who has worked his way through Hollywood and matured as an actor, activist, and individual….even if his relationships with women have not been exactly “solid.” Importantly, and perhaps because he’s a man, the parts of his sexual/relationship history that are less flattering are easily ignored. Lively, by contrast, is young, immature, and playing above her level. Even with the respect of the fashion communities and legions of lusty dudes, she’s still just a body, not a star. Plainly put, her image doesn’t “deserve” DiCaprio’s. She’s being uppity. She needs to date some more CW stars before she climbs the ladder to Oscar nominees.
As for their relationship image, it’s still in its early stages. The first photograph of them as a couple was a brilliant maneover on the part of their publicists: grainy, obviously paparazzi (although they were almost certainly tipped off), with an obvious connotation of an “intimate” moment not meant for public consumption.
Of course, this moment was absolutely meant for public consumption — if they were actually being careful and didn’t want the relationship public, they wouldn’t hold hands in public, even if it was Europe. But the photo’s aesthetic strongly suggests that the relationship is not a publicity stunt, forming a sharp contrast to, say, the first pictures of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Since then, DiCaprio and Lively have apparently been gallivanting around the rest of Europe and the United States, sightseeing in Verona and going to Disneyland. This seems very clunky to me. Verona?!? As in the site of Romeo and Juliet? As in the setting of the movie in which Blake Lively probably saw him when she was still, oh, 5? AND DISNEYLAND? Brangelina can go to Chuck-e-Cheese’s and I think it’s great; these two at Disneyland makes me feel the same way I did when Ryan Gosling took Olivia Wilde to the aquarium.
Whatever happens with this relationship, I don’t know how much it will actually affect DiCaprio’s image, other than bolster the notion that he can attract some of the most beautiful women in the world. As for Lively, she might ride this for increased gossip visibility, a handful of Us and Life and Style covers, and enough buzz to make people forget how horrible she was in The Green Lantern. But will it make her an actual A-Lister? If she has no fans, no charisma, and no talent, how will she remain relevant? Or is the power of the beautiful, albeit “rich beautiful,” body enough to sustain her stardom?
Serena Van Der Woodsen would just go find a professor or a Prince to marry. But what will Blake do?
What are these teen moms doing on the cover of my gossip magazine?
When I was in the supermarket yesterday, I was struck by the two covers of the major fan magazines. US Weekly featured two ‘stars’ of Teen Mom - the third time the magazine has put the reality stars on its cover this summer/fall, while People reports the “TEEN SUICIDE TRAGEDIES: DEADLY BULLYING.”
Before I delve into the historical and industrial motivations for these covers, I do want to acknowledge that Teen Mom is a rich, if troubled text: as Mary Beltrán points out, it should be called “White Teen Mom” and regularly ignores the socio-economic factors that lead to these young women’s status as ‘Teen Moms,’ but it does not shy from portraying the isolation, despair, and decidedly unglamorous life that most often accompanies teen pregnancy. But there’s also something truly touching about the show that separates it from other reality programming - for Amanda Klein, the mixture of sadness, regret, poor parenting, and inter-personal drama render it irresistible.
When US Weekly made the teen moms into cover girls, it was straightforward to critique the magazine for glamorizing these moms and their choices. The implicit message: impressionable young girls would follow their example in hopes of achieving the cover of a glossy weekly. Of course, most girls are smart and wouldn’t, oh, have a child in order to become famous. But I do see how many girls, especially those who feel mired in poverty, might see pregnancy as an avenue as commonsense as any if it allows them to escape their circumstances.
What’s more, by discussing the suicides of bullied teens, I don’t mean to trivialize the issue. Part of the reason these covers sell is because people are genuinely moved, worried, or feel anxiety about the issues they represent — but that doesn’t mean that these aren’t real people, with real families, and their stories are real, not fabricated tragedies. Whenever I discuss a celebrity — whether loving or hating them, disparaging them or admiring their skill — I’m not talking about the actual person, but the mediated IMAGE of that person. It’s easy to forget with stars, as their very vocation is to be available for that sort of commentary. With “real people” without star or celebrity personas, as the victims of bullying are, this distinction becomes muddled, and reminds of the pain and difficulty that must accompany unintentional celebrity. Just to be clear.
But why would “gossip magazines” be running stories about bullying and teen pregnancy?
First off, Historical Precedence.
Time Inc. began developing what would become People Magazine in 1973, ostensibly as a replacement for Life, which had been shuttered for unprofitability at the end of 1972. Time Inc. didn’t want a gossip magazine — Photoplay, Modern Screen, and Motion Picture were all in the twilights of their runs; due to shifts in coverage and unabashed tactics of scandal-mongering, the label of “fan magazine” was everything that People wanted to define itself against. This new magazine would feature a Hollywood star or two, but its more explicit focus would be PEOPLE — everyday people, political people, people whose will triumphed in the face of adversity, people who were cute, people who played sports well, people who had interesting stories.
The strategy was a brilliant, economically — it expanded the pre-existing content pool, limited to Hollywood stars, Jackie-O, and select music and television personalities TO THE ENTIRE WORLD. If you were a person, you could be featured in People. Scratch that: if you were a cute dog, you could be featured in People. All you needed was a skilled Time Inc. writer to render your story into the stuff of melodrama.
People was incredibly, breathtakingly successful. Part of this had to do with the fact that it could have a “comprehensive launch” due to its placement within the Time Inc. publishing empire. But it also offered a type of coverage — “personality journalism” — that was enormously palatable, went down easy, and was attractive to a nation with “serious issue fatigue” following Vietnam and Watergate. This wasn’t the news, it wasn’t gossip, it was just stories about people! The backlash was immediate: Jimmy Carter decried it, cultural critics framed it as the downfall of engaged journalism. It could be read in one sitting; its stories were the perfect length to read during a commercial break. It could avoid the label of gossip or scandal magazine — which is why it’s collected by public libraries. It was the first mass audience magazine to succeed in nearly half a century.
Of course, People immediately spawned imitators, including US, first published by the New York Times company. Rupert Murdoch attempted to combine the success of People with the format of the equally succesful National Enquirer in the form of a glossy Sun. Even Entertainment Tonight was sold as “People in television form.” Yet none of the knockoffs would be able to compete with People — US passed to various owners and various iterations, and languished as a monthly, neither a true gossip nor industrial magazine in the vein of Entertainment Weekly. In 2000, the magazine became a glossy weekly with a new name: US Weekly.
In 2003, Janice Min took the post of editor-in-chief, and US Weekly began its attack on People in earnest. In some ways, US is to People as the old school Red Sox are to the Yankees: US lacks, or at least lacked, the cash base to pay for photo and story exclusives available to People, with its deep conglomerate pockets, extensive subscription base, and “storied” history with advertisers. Under Min, US was scrappy — they’d attack People, use clever covers and photo-montages to go head-to-head with People exclusives, and generally play the role of feisty, unflappable dog yapping at People‘s heels. And while US still trails People in overall circulation, its readership numbers of increased exponentially since the early 2000s, especially in the much-coveted teen/under-30 market, with an overall circulation of 1.95 million in 2010. (People is still the uncontested leader in the gossip/personality journalism race, with 3.65 million in circulation in 2010).
This roundabout history trip is meant to show that the magazines were founded on the editorial philosophy that people, not just stars, could generate good gossip. Of course, all stars are people - and the really juicy gossip is never related to things they do that seem super-human (buying jewels, jet-setting, looking beautiful — it’s all good copy, but it’s not bestselling material). Rather, when celebrities’ humanness — their fraility, their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities, their compassion, their base desires — shine through, that’s when they’re most interesting.
But again, this is a question of economics. Real people are cheap, if not free, to cover.
It’s nice to think that People covers the story of bullying because they truly view it as a problem plaguing America’s youth. And, given the fact that they clearly had an exclusive interview with Mel Gibson’s ex-wife Oksana Grigoreva, as featured on the top of the cover, it would appear that they were choosing to cover a social issue over a salacious one (although, it should be pointed out, Gibson’s abuse of Grigoreva, and domestic abuse in general, is no less grave or systemic a social ill than bullying). But magazines sell on covers — this is a simple, well-known fact. Magazines make their money through newsstand sales, and people pick magazines on the newsstand based on covers. For this particular week, the ardent human interest story promised more drama, not to mention cultural resonance, than an exclusive interview with a woman whose claims went public months ago.
But there’s also the matter of payment. People undoubtedly paid Grigoreva — that’s why they were able to call it an “exclusive.” But there’s no exclusive rights to covering a public tragedy. Anyone can put the yearbook photos of these teens on their covers. This cover was not only more culturally resonant, but its profit margin was wider. (In general, you can spot a slow gossip week by the presence of a public interest story on People‘s cover.)
The “stars” of Teen Mom would be paid, but again, this number would be (relatively) small — I’m guessing between $5,000 - $10,000, if that, for exclusive photos and interviews per cover. (If anyone has information on the specifics, please let me know). Again, compared to what they would be required to pay a star, or even a reality star like the Kardashians, this is a GREAT DEAL.
And it’s an even greater deal if they can hook readers on the story of these girls. Us has proven particularly adept at “changing the conversation,” as Don Draper would say, when they can’t play on the big boy playground. So they can’t get an interview with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, or pay for baby photos of another A-List celebrity? Just come up with an alternative narrative, much cheaper, that they can control. They’ve done this with Teen Mom; they did it with Jon and Kate Gosselin; they did it three years ago with Heidi and Spencer. If you say it’s a story, and worthy of a reader’s attention, it becomes one. And if you’re good at using the cover, photos, and captions to create ongoing drama, you can milk it for several, even a DOZEN, issues. Take, for example, the cover detailing Catelynn’s Maci’s “second chance at love.”
A few things to note: first of all, Maci is obviously the most photogenic of the bunch. None of these girls are drop-dead gorgeous - they are, after all, NORMAL PEOPLE — but she is skinny, has clear skin, and is white. You’ve got those things, and you can be a celebrity, no prob. Her “real life” narrative, including the back-and-forth with the father of her child/ex-fiance and new love, is, in the hands of a skilled gossip writer and/or reality television editor, a good melodrama. Her story is just as “tearful” and “tortured” and filled with “hostile exes” as any other celebrity or star — and leads readers to come back for more in future issues.
(As a side note, I’d kill to know the specifics of the contracts these girls and other reality stars sign when they agree to appear on the cover. Does Us stipulate exclusive access? Is it like signing on for a movie with potential sequels, where if the first one hits, you’re obligated to appear in two more? With the three aforementioned examples, Us has proven so adept at changing the conversation that People was forced to play catch-up, printing their own, belated overage of the dramas. The People teen mom cover featured a mom who had not theretofore appeared on Us, so this exclusivity contracts seem likely.)
So that’s why the Teen Moms and the bullying victims are on the cover of your gossip magazines. Whether or not it’s a culturally productive practice — that’s another question altogether. But it’s a brilliant financial strategy, and one that has fueled the success of “personality journalism” in its myriad forms for decades.
Brilliance, as we well know, is not always ethical, nor is it necessarily responsible. But no one ever accused the gossip magazines of being morally sancrosanct. The argument that they’re simply reflecting our morally jaundiced society is a weak one — as I emphasize above, they’re very good at determining what readers will care about, and then feeding demand for more information about that subject. But when a story hits, as this Teen Mom story so obviously has, or even Jon and Kate did before it, it’s not simply because the editors behind the scenes have done a good job of crafting a story. It touches on something — some anxiety, some worry — and amplifies it, embodies it, allows reader to think about these girls’ specific problems instead of systemic problems that lead to teen pregnancy and, in many cases, lives of poverty. The backlash against the covers wasn’t really about whether or not these girls’ lives were being glamorized, but about how gossip and celebrity culture — and consumption of fan magazines — seems to turn every issue, no matter how banal or tragic, into fodder for glamour. The backlash wasn’t against Us, per se, but against larger issues long-percolating around reality television and its celebrification of “real” people — and the unspoken reality that a reality show and celebrity cover might be the only way for the babies of these teen moms to have, say, a college fund, or for their mothers to not have to work several jobs while taking care of the child and trying to go to school. The real issue is class — it’s just not easy to say.
Ultimately, the problem is that personality journalism makes problems digestible - so minced up, re-dressed, and re-situated that they no longer bare any resemblance to the original issue. Indeed, as People‘s first editorial proclaimed, the magazine wasn’t about ISSUES, but PEOPLE. And this neglect of issues — and our national hesitance to deal with them head-on — is the real problem cultural illness. Teen Moms on the cover of US Weekly is just one of many symptoms.
John Mayer Mis-plays the Celebrity Game…..Or Does He?
If you’re at all in the generation and reception of celebrity, stop what you’re doing, reserve ten minutes, and read this somewhat lengthy and admittedly explicit Playboy interview with John Mayer.
The release of the interview on Playboy’s website has made major waves: everywhere from USA Today to Huff Post, from TMZ to Perez Hilton, from ABC to US Weekly is excerpting and covering the reaction to the piece. Mayer added fuel to the fire earlier today when he Tweeted (to his 3 million followers) to apologize for using the ‘n’ word — in what he claimed to be an attempt to ‘intellectualize’ the word. (Details here; see John Mayer’s Twitter feed here).
There’s no doubt that what Mayer said in this interview was offensive. Inappropriate. Guilty of kiss-and-tell. Weirdly and obsessively honest. Borderline repulsive. Racist, sexist. This is all made very, very clear not only in this particular interview, but in Mayer’s other interviews — see, for example, last month’s equally odd and frank interview with Rolling Stone.
But more interesting, at least in terms of the celebrity paradigm, is the way in which this particular interview functions to produce Mayer as a very certain — and discourse-worthy - type of celebrity. While I do not condone or agree with the behaviors, word choice, or attitudes that he espouses throughout the interview, as one who studies celebrity culture, I find his disclosure and image generation absolutely genius. Disagree if you will, but consider the following:
1.) He’s generating a tremendous aura of authenticity.
Richard DeCordova, following Foucault, argued that the disclosure of sexual secrets is equated, at least in our culture, as the disclosure of the ‘real,’ authentic self. Usually these sexual secrets are disclosed without the consent of the subject — think Fatty Arbuckle, think Tiger Woods — but even when the subject is doing the disclosing himself, it’s still the rawest, most honest, most ‘real’ path of access to the star.
So when John Mayer extrapolates, at length, on his masturbation habits, and reveals that Jessica Simpson is “crack cocaine” for him (“sexual napalm”!), it’s so apparently honest, so apparently not the sort of thing that you’re not supposed to publicly disclose, that it can’t be anything but true. Let me rephrase: because ‘normal’ people, whether celebrities or laymen, are not supposed to talk this way, let alone talk about sex this explicitly, when Mayer does it, breaking those taboos, it is de facto taken as truth.
Which is part of the reason that the anger towards Mayer — at least the anger towards his sexual disclosure — is, at least on some level, amusing. He could be making this up just as easily as he could conjure a tale of him buying roses, making dinner, massaging feet, going on romantic walks, writing poetry, or “sneaking moments,” a la Jennifer Garner’s own disclosure last week concerning her and Ben Affleck’s “romantic” relationship. Mayer’s disclosure reads as pure truth — because who would lie and make themselves look like a douche? — when, in reality, it’s absolutely part of image production. Mayer says over and over again that he just wants to be real, transparent, honest. And isn’t that just as much of a constructed image as a star who puts himself forward as romantic, needy, giving, head over heels in love?
But so what? So he’s ‘real’? Isn’t everyone ‘real’ in the age of reality television? Sort of, but not quite. ’Authenticity’ has long been privileged in the celebrity game — look to Richard Dyer’s seminal essay on Judy Garland and the generation of authenticity — and it often has much to do with a certain coherence between extratextual life and textual narratives. In this way, Mayer’s confessional songwriting style certainly affirms this interpretation. But I think it has far more to do with the fact that Mayer is…
2.) …Playing the celebrity game for the 21st century.
Part of which is, of course, the generation of authenticity and transparency in an era when everything can be digitally enhanced or otherwise manipulated. Mayer generates his authenticity through traditional means of disclosure, e.g. the tell-all interview, which has long been a fixture in a star’s strategy to “set the record straight” or “show my fans the real me.” But he is also a faithful user of Twitter, which, as I’ve argued both here and here, is equated with the star’s unmediated voice. When you read a John Mayer tweet, it’s really him — whereas a quote in a magazine can be doubted, as it’s going through the filter of an interview, an editor, etc.
Mayer, like Ashton Kutcher, understands the ways in which Twitter can, in Kutcher’s words, “take back our own paparazzi.” It’s his means of setting the record straight, of establishing the real and authentic self that will, and should, take precedence over any mediated or unauthorized versions. In his words,
With Twitter, I can show my real voice. Here’s me thinking about stuff: “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could download food?” It has been important for me to keep communicating, even when magazines were calling me a rat and saying I was writing a book.
Indeed, the fact that Mayer even used Twitter to “set the record straight” about this very interview only further authenticates the process. Even more interesting, however, is the way that Mayer contrasts his understanding of celebrity with that of Aniston, who rose to stardom during a very different period. His take:
One of the most significant differences between us was that I was tweeting. There was a rumor that I had been dumped because I was tweeting too much. That wasn’t it, but that was a big difference. The brunt of her success came before TMZ and Twitter. I think she’s still hoping it goes back to 1998. She saw my involvement in technology as courting distraction. And I always said, “These are the new rules.”
For me, such a comment underlines the divide in celebrity culture today — those who know how to play by the new rules, and those who try and play by the rules of the 1990s and before. Tom Cruise obviously had no idea how the new game was played, and Mayer points a fine point on the only means for Cruise to return: I said, “Tom Cruise put on a fat suit.” That pretty much sums up the past decade: Tom Cruise with a comb-over, dancing to Flo Rida in Tropic Thunder. And the world went, “Welcome back, Tom Cruise.”
When the interviewer asks if Jennifer Aniston maybe bittorrented his completed album, he even responds “if Jen knew how to bittorrent I would eat my shoe.” He’s not making fun of her, per se — indeed, he tries to emphasize how much respect and love he has for her throughout the interview — but it underscores the fact that Aniston, and her cohort, have no idea how to operate within the incredibly mediated, networked word. None of them — apart from Demi Moore — know how to use Twitter correctly. Tom Hanks signs all of his Tweets ‘Hanx’ for goodness sakes, which is just like the way that all of my relatives and friends on Facebook over the age of 40 use a salutation at the end of a post, as if it were a letter. (Sorry, over-40s, but you totally do). Mayer knows how his actions will be amplified and proliferate across the internet at a moment’s notice. He knows how Perez operates; he knows how TMZ operates. Which leads me to the conclusion that…
3.) …Mayer is much smarter than you think.
Sexism and bigotry are not smart. But sexism and bigotry are by no means mutually exclusive with intelligence — and celebrity intelligence in particular. Mayer will get flack for this interview; it may or may not alter his overall star text (really, it does little save confirm what most already thought of him). It will most likely not significantly affect the sales of his new album. This is the guy whose most popular songs are “Your Body is a Wonderland” and “Daughters.” Those two images might seem discordant, but such songs only help to diffuse comments such as ”My d*** is sort of like a white supremacist” in reference to his lack of experience with black women in bed.
But when it comes down to it, his name is all over the internet. He’s only heightened interest in his album, his Twitter account, and his celebrity brand. It may be negative attention, but it’s attention nonetheless, and as the maxim goes, all publicity is good publicity. Obviously, he’s a douche. As Lainey Gossip says, he’ll always be that fat nerdy kid on the inside, desperate for you to know that he does, indeed, attract women. But he’s also playing the game better than Brange, and certainly better than Aniston herself, whose staged Mexico getaway photos with upcoming co-star Gerald Butler scream manipulation and desperation. He’ll be around a long time — and I’m not just saying that because I have a secret thing for that “Georgia Why” song from his first album. He’s cunning and adaptable, dynamic and compelling, quotable and effusive — characteristics that describe some of the most durable and enduring of celebrities.
And don’t forget that this is Playboy. There are reasons the interview was framed the way that it was. John Wayne made himself an uncontestable bigot in its pages in the 1970s, and John Mayer, facilitated by its editorial policies and interviewer questions, continues the tradition today.
Tiger's Big, Nasty, Clumsy Mess
Golden Child No More
P.R. Mess, that is.
As anyone reading this blog is aware, Tiger Woods was involved in what was termed “a serious accident” on Thanksgiving night. He had driven his SUV into a tree at some point in the early morning and sustained injuries to the face — and that was all that was known, or at least all that was released.
When I first read the news bit, I knew something was fishy. First of all, there was no denial of intoxication. Perhaps even more importantly, there was no discussion of intoxication whatsoever — they didn’t even say “it is not known whether or not Mr. Woods was intoxicated.”
The timing was poor. Some would argue that the release of scandal on the eve of a holiday is a way to cushion the landing — see, for example, Sarah Palin’s announcement of resignation as Alaska governor…on the eve of the Fourth of July. You miss the newscycle — or at least miss a critical mass of people watching the newscycle.
But Thanksgiving is far different from Fourth of July. On Fourth of July, people aren’t watching the news because they’re out stuffing themselves on hamburgers, getting suburnt, and blowing off appendages. On Thanksgiving, the vast majority of America has been pushed off into TV rooms and dens to watch television while they wait for dinner, digest dinner, or lazy through the day after. And this wasn’t just any scandal — this was a sports-related scandal. On one of the biggest single sports-watching four-day weekends of the year. It wasn’t a blessing that the incident occurred on a national holiday; it was a P.R. curse.
Which is part of the reason the situation wouldn’t go away, as Tiger Woods no doubt wished it would. Woods is notoriously private — about his training regimes and golf-related activities especially, but also about his family and personal matters. His approach to the incident, then, was to say very little at all. No spin — and relative silence — was the best spin. Or so he apparently thought.
So let’s break it down. How did Tiger end up with this big mess?
1.) HE SUCCESSFULLY KEPT HIS PRIVATE LIFE UNDER WRAPS.
When you release so little information about yourself — outside of your very controlled statements concerning your sports skill — you become an enigma. Woods is ridiculously wealthy, but we don’t get to see him spend it. He’s married to a gorgeous Swede and they have a gorgeous child, but we rarely get to see them — and he rarely talks about them. So the built up curiosity was there — even if subconsciously — and waiting to explode. In theoretical terms, he was attempting to assert that the ‘real Tiger Woods’ (his ‘authentic’ self) was what you saw on the fairway, in highly controlled interviews, and in his dozens of advertising deals.
2.) THUS, WHEN AN ADDITIONAL LAYER OF ‘SELF’ WAS REVEALED, THE MEDIA WENT CRAZY.
As if blood into a shark tank. Richard DeCordova has convincingly argued that the emergence of stars in early Hollywood was a multi-tiered process — as each new ‘layer’ of the people on the screen were revealed, each became the new site of truth. At first, a star’s extratextual activities provided that source of truth. But with the eruption of the Fatty Arbuckle and Wallace Reid scandals in the 1920s, scandal (or the disclosure of scandal) became the only true means of arriving at the ‘authentic’ identity of the self. DeCordova is following the work of Foucault, who has long asserted that knowledge of sex (illicit or transgressive sex in particular) has come to be regarded as the most true and authentic avenue to the self. Put differently, knowing a person in bed (or knowing about how a person is in bed) is tantamount to knowing the ‘real him’ or ‘real her.’ Of course, this has everything to do with the construction of sexual activity through discourse — and the particularly American practice of shadowing sex with shame. Woods not only revealed that there was a deeper level to excavate — he wasn’t always cool and under control! — but, as the day went on, that that deeper level was somehow ‘off,’ potentially in a sexual way.
(To approach the issue somewhat differently, I’d argue that Woods’ image was too ‘univocal’ to absorb the shock of a scandal. Adrienne McLean has argued that the reason that Ingrid Bergman’s star image was unable to absorb the hit of her scandal with Rossellini was that her star image was so wholly (and unflexibly) that of the virginal, righteous, pure girl from the North. (She contrasts the ramifications of Bergman’s scandal with a similar ‘transgression’ associated with Rita Hayworth — because Hayworth had created a complex, nuanced star image that included a ‘desire to be loved,’ her marriage to Aly Kahn was naturalized and accepted, even celebrated. In contrast, Bergman was denounced *on the senate floor.* Crucially, like Woods, Bergman had refused to cooperate with Selznick and others who hoped to craft her image into something more nuanced; as a result, it was near-wholly based on her film roles, just as Woods’ was near-wholly based on his appearances on the golf course.
3.) NOT SAYING ANYTHING = SAYING EVERYTHING
By late Friday night, everyone knew something was up. The stories began to shift. Things didn’t add up. Some people made the connection between The National Enquirer story revealing a Woods affair, published Wednesday, and the Thursday blow-up. Over the course of the weekend, speculation exploded: his wife was attacking him with a golf club. (Which, as someone pointed out to me, is rather hilarious: like Kobe Bryant being pummeled with sneakers). She scratched up his face. She chased his car. He was passing in and out of consciousness. He had cheated. The situation was likened to that of Chris Brown and Rihanna.
By not shutting down or guiding discourse though his own P.R., statements, or any other type of damage control, Woods allowed the discourse to go in all directions.
4.) DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE (INVESTIGATIVE) GOSSIP PRESS
As I’ve asserted several times on this blog, some of the best investigative journalism comes from the gossip press. This was true during the time of Confidential; this was especially true for The National Enquirer, especially following the tightening of libel laws in the 1980s; it’s even more true today, when TMZ routinely scoops traditional news outlets. And they do it with more accuracy, detail, and speed. It’s difficult for us to think of ‘tabloids’ as journalistic, simply because what they cover is oftentimes not regarded as ‘newsworthy.’ But to get to the truth of what happens in an event — using interviews, surveillance tapes, 911 calls, cell phone messages, even bribes — that’s certainly investigative journalism, even if you might not call it entirely ethical.
TNE had the first story of the mistress — one that might have been easily forgotten, if not for the explosive aftermath. TMZ has posted dozens of updates, challenging the stories of Tiger Woods, his wife, and even the official statements of the police with actual footage, eye-witness testimony, etc. And US Weekly entered the fray yesterday, dropping a bombshell of past and current philanderering on the part of Woods. The gossip press got the goods — and if the speed of publication, as well as the amount of dirt they obtained, is any evidence, they got them easily.
5.) TIGER IS A GREAT GOLFER. BUT HE’S A SHITTY CELEBRITY.
He didn’t cover his tracks. He didn’t have a password on his cell phone. He left messages on his mistresses voicemails. He had relationships with several women — many of them young (21!) and ready to brag. One alleged mistress still has over 300 text messages from him. He didn’t cover his tracks. He had no defense plan. And he somehow expected none of this to effect his public image.
Just look to his first real attempt at P.R., released today:
…Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives. The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious. Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.
But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy. I realize there are some who don’t share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family. Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions. (Statement available in full here).
I understand his argument. A person’s private — sexual — actions are, for most people, indeed just that: private. If Tiger Woods chose to remain a sports figure alone — winning The Masters, winning everything, but staying a golfer and no more — perhaps he would have isolated himself from public scrutiny of his private life. But part of what makes Tiger Woods Tiger Woods is his public visibility: not only due to the color of his skin (over which he obviously has no control) and his resultant uniqueness, but, more importantly, through his endorsement deals. Over $1 billion worth. The reason he is a celebrity — and not just a golfer — is that his face is EVERYWHERE. In the pages of The New Yorker selling watches, all over Sports Illustrated and ESPN selling golf gear, in newspapers, billboards, car commercials, The Wall Street Journal, credit card ads, Gilette Razors, all that is Nike, you name it.
Mindfully holding back on all the potential snark that could be unleashed using the rhetoric of above advertisements
The significance, of course, is that a celebrity is chosen to endorse a deal BECAUSE of their public image. If not, why not choose another good looking man to say they use a particular product? Wood’s image is of excellence — but also of the absence of scandal. Of dedication and drive. Not extra-marital affairs. When a company pays Woods to appear in association with their products, they are hitching their good name to his. When scandal erupts, that scandal extends to those companies, even if only by association.
My contention, though, is not necessarily that the press has the right to know everything about every celebrity. Rather, if a celebrity — and Woods is a celebrity and a public figure, no matter how much he bemoans the fact — chooses to do things that read as scandalous, he must protect himself against the ramifications, either ahead of time or in the aftermath.
Tiger Woods refused to do either of these things, instead passing blame to the press and its audience. He may admit to ‘sins,’ but his insinuation — that WE are the ones who are, in truth, at fault — is as elitist as it is absurd. Each of us certainly contributes to celebrity journalism and scandal mongering through readership. But the idea that a man who has willingly and mindfully made himself into a public figure should have a right to privacy is absurd. Would he also like us to give him his privacy while he plays golf? Leave him alone when he tells us to buy watches? Not tune in to watch him put on the Master’s jacket?
I realize that he is attempting to make a distinction between his public image — which he wishes to be available for consumption — and a private one. As evidenced by the case of Robert De Niro, whose anti-stardom I profiled a few weeks back, this is certainly not impossible. But you have to play by the rules — a maxim that Woods, of all people, should know by heart.
Sandra Bullock and Her Female Forever Fans
“I just love that Sandra Bullock.”
“Oh, I know! She’s so natural and perky and down to earth!”
“She was great in that one movie — oh, you know the one I’m talking about, that one with the guy, and they’re from the South, and oh, it’s just adorable. She’s just adorable.”
“Oh I know, I watch that one every year. She’s just great. I just love her.”
This is not an actual transcription of a conversation, but an approximation of one I’ve heard numerous times — at church potlucks, on airplanes, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Because WOMEN LOVE SANDRA BULLOCK. More specifically, middle-aged women, many of them members of the ever powerful minivan majority, love Sandra Bullock. They love her for her inoffensive humor; they love her natural, unexotic beauty. They love the fact that she ends up with normal looking, wholly likable white bread men in the movies (Bill Pullman, Harry Connick Jr., Hugh Grant, Benjamin Bratt, Ryan Reynolds) but they most especially love the consistency of her roles.
Normal looking nice guy makes normal looking nice girl happy!
Of course, these women are victims of selective amnesia: Bullock has attempted to complicate her star image with risky roles, including parts in Crash, Murder by Numbers, and the second of the two Capote films, Infamous. (She played the Harper Lee character.) But such roles have done little to alter her overarching image as likable, slightly madcap, and always the recipient of pure and genuine love.
For Bullock is no sex object. She’s a girls’ star — a Julia Roberts, a Meg Ryan. Men do not generally find her attractive, but girls want to be her best friend. The director of The Proposal explained “After I met Sandy for the first time, I remember thinking, This woman has been my friend for 100 years.” She has a beautiful body, skin, and hair, but such attributes are generally revealed through the course of a narrative — she starts out an ugly, somewhat masculine, awkward duckling, only to be transformed through the quiet yet strong love of a good, honest man. Indeed, she is often nearly asexual at the beginning of a film — see her business-minded superboss in The Proposal or her scorned, weepy break-up victim in Hope Floats.
You can tell she loves her career too much by the suit and the unmussed hair.
Bullock’s picture personalities is infused with promises and possibilities: you, too, fair viewer, can be transformed by the power of love. Not all of her films are makeover fantasies — indeed, only Miss Congeniality features an explicit makeover — but the most popular of films repeatedly position a non-glamorous protagonist as a site for transformation, both emotional and physical. Bullock’s presence in the lead encourages identification; she’s an awkward Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts with her makeup off and hair flat. She’s the supporting actor/best friend made central, and women love her for it.
Her extra-textual persona supports this image. In Glamour, she is described as follows:
Sandy loves her job but is not defined by it. And she knows how to have a life outside of Hollywood: She splits her time between L.A. and Austin, Texas, where she owns a popular bistro, Bess. She has a barn. She’s done a ton of good work for charities, like giving money to a New Orleans high school impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Hello, she even does her own home renovations, like tearing down walls with her bare hands! (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit.) But if I had to pinpoint what sets her apart, it’d be this: She’s humble. She’s real. It’s easy to lose yourself in this business, but Sandy hasn’t gotten swept up in any of it.
See! She likes people! She’d be friends with you! “She’s humble. She’s real.” She’s not a diva. She probably makes her own food and drives her own car and goes to the grocery store. Or so we are led to believe.
The other day, my friends and I were attempting to make a list of stars that our parents just love: stars who make them feel comfortable. Stars whose movies they’ll rent without any foreknowledge of plot; stars who will entice them to go to the movie theater for one of their 2-4 yearly trips. Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts made the cut. But Sandra Bullock was the most unanimous nominee: there’s something so wholly inoffensive and uniquely attractive about her, something that Julia Roberts has lost and Jennifer Aniston never really had. She makes 50 year-olds go see her fall in love with Ryan Reynolds. Her films make big bucks overseas. Her style and charisma translate. She appears virtually ageless, but not in an envy-inducing manner (Demi More) or as a grotesque (Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone). She’s not stuck up (Renee Zelwegger/Aniston/Courtney Cox), she’s not intimidating (Jolie), she’s not perfect (Halle Berry) and she’s not too madcap (Roseanne).
Indeed, the only thing potentially controversial about Bullock is her choice of husband: motorcycle producer and heavily-tateooed Jesse James.
Bullock and Her Teddy Bear
Discursively, James has been constructed as the culmination of Bullock’s domestic fairytale. After being chased by many a prince (Tate Donovan, Troy Aikman, Ryan Gosling, Matthew McConaughey, Keanu Reeves) she settled with the least moviestarsish, least expected of the bunch — a man who simply made her happy. (And, coincidentally, recreated a narrative conclusion manifested in her most successful films).
In recent weeks, Bullock has been in the gossip weeklies — not to promote her upcoming The Blind Side or to apologize for the train wreck that was All About Steve, but because of her attempts to adopt James’ daughter from a previous marriage. In US Weekly, the article’s title declares her “Battle for Her Stepdaughter.” Bullock and James are attempting to receive full custody of James five-year-old daughter, whose mother, Janine Lindemulder, is a former drug addict, porn star, and general ne’er-do-well. The article is smattered with pictures of a dressed-down, casual Bullock carrying and holding hands with the young girl. Bullock’s image is placed in sharp contrast with the girl’s porn star birth mother: she is everything this blonde bimbo is not. Bullock is quoted declaring “My greatest joy is…being a good wife, a good stepmom.” She loves this child - and that’s what she’ll fight for. (Again, sounds mysteriously similar to the storyline of one of her films — only The Blind Side involves a black male high school student, not a cherubic blond girl).
Bullock says she doesn’t want to do rom-coms anymore — in fact, with something like The Proposal, she’s attempting to forge a path for the ‘female Judd Apatow film.’ Whether or not this is true is beside the point. For while The Blind Side is certainly not a rom-com, as evidenced by the trailer, it most certainly is a family melodrama. As such, the film caters to virtually the same demographic as the rom-com: females, both single and married, between the ages of 20 and 60. (Did you hear The Fray in the background? Yep, they’re talking to you, Grey’s Anatomy fans. Selfsame demo).
With that said, Bullock does not pull in the lower echelons of that demo. She’s got what I’ve termed her Forever Fans — the 30-60-year-olds who will always see her films, like our mothers — but she has failed to attract a younger demographic. Part of this is merely a matter of age — Sandra Bullock portrays 30-somethings and mothers, not teens and post-grads — but I’d also posit that it has something to do with her star image and its particular resonance. Her particular brand of spunk, quirk, Southernness, and romance seems very 1990s to me. Just as The Blind Side appears to be a remake of every film that’s ever told the story of white people saving black people, so too does Bullock’s star image seem to function as a reactivation and deradicalization of a certain type of female star: she’s Bette Davis without the teeth, Joan Crawford without the snarl. Davis and Crawford often ended their films happily coupled, but just as often they ended them alone — sometimes in tears, but nonetheless triumphant. Bullock’s characters never end unhappy; they rarely weather a storm without a silver lining already firmly in view. Bullock is soft, quick to weep, and quicker to give in, where Davis, Crawford, and even Stanwyk (especially in Stella Dallas) are steely, with a fierceness belied by their porcelain faces. These women were also points of identification, but the women in the theaters at the time were hard-bitten by the times — hungry, over-worked, exhausted, and oftentimes, due to the demands of The Depression and World War II, without even the dream of the help of a man or romance. The endings provided by the ’30s and ’40s melodramas emphasized a female independence that wasn’t simply a madcap act, neutralized by film’s end: it was a way of survival, a way of life.
Joan Crawford might eat Sandra Bullock alive…
Indeed, the ‘softness’ and heteronormatively-coupled endings of Bullock’s films have everything to do with 1990s in general: I could describe most of Julia Roberts’ films using the same language I’ve employed to describe Bullock. These films’ tone and conclusion likewise speaks to what women — and 30-40 year-old women in particular - imagine for themselves: how far they can reach, and what that place, and its potential splendors, might resemble.
Judging from Bullock’s recent films, happiness and fulfillment can come in the shape of a younger man, a retreat from strict professionalism, or venturing out of suburbia to participate in first-hand philanthropy. To me, all of these choices seem to present female self-reliance and independence as a hollow promise; that those women who sacrificed marriage and family for professional development will realize, sooner or later, that they too need a man, a cause, something greater than themselves. We can view this as selfless and a form of sacrifice…or as a troubling message that cultivating oneself, and one’s own desires, will never truly provide fulfillment.
I don’t dislike Sandra Bullock. I like her (early) films. But I do think that those who fail to understand her and her tremendous draw — as most clearly evidenced in Richard Rushfield’s perceptive yet reductive answer to “Why is Sandra Bullock Still a Star?” over at Gawker — they also demonstrate their lack of understanding of a key, if sometimes quiet, demographic. Middle aged women may not ‘open’ a film at number one, but they certainly can keep a film going strong when everyone else is off Megan Fox getting chased by giant robots. Media observers often express surprise when a film like The Proposal goes on to grosses $300 million international (on a budget of $40 million, no less). Those very same observers — oftentimes male — simply forget the tremendous power, however ‘unglamorous’ it may be, of neglected demographics.
This post explicitly concerns Sandra Bullock, but I’m also writing it as hundreds of thousands of girls and women head to the theaters to screen New Moon, which is now headed for a ridiculously huge international opening gross. Industry critics keep patting Summit Entertainment on the back for their luck in optioning the teen text, yet to attribute it to luck is to miss the point: someone at Summit realized that the text wouldn’t just exploit the teen girl demographic, but the adult female one as well. For The Proposal opened big ($33 million), but New Moon will open with $80 million domestic, if not more. Why? Women. Some of them already Forever Fans.
To answer Rushfield’s question, Sandra Bullock is still a star — and will remain a star — so long as her forever fans keep consuming. Her movies cost relatively little to make; even a bomb like All About Steve will not compromise her consistent palatablity. And with small costs and a built-in audience, she’s a much more reliable bet than Angelina Jolie or the over-priced Julia Roberts. The challenge for execs is how to cultivate new stars, equally inoffensive and socio-temporally resonant, to take her place in the years to come. Who will be our Sandra Bullock? Is it Jennifer Aniston? Gennifer Goodwin? Isla Fischer? Kate Hudson? Regardless, it’ll most likely be someone who men disdain, hot cultural critics ignore, and studios relegate to counter-programming.
Sandra Bullock matters, and is still a star, because women and their pocketbooks do, in fact, matter — and no number of billion dollar grossing smashfests will alter that fact.
