celebrity gossip, academic style

This questionnaire comes from Katie Feo Kelly, who I’ve known since my second semester of my Ph.D., probably has better hair than you, and is currently writing a dissertation on the trend towards organization (and the commodification thereof: think California Closets, The Container Store, Real Simple). She’s also in my dissertation reading group, a sharp editor, and a HUGE FAN OF THE CAPSLOCK JUST LIKE ME!

1.) What is your name, occupation, website (if applicable)?
Katherine Feo Kelly, grad student, The University of Texas at Austin. Occasional tidbits @katiefeokelly on Twitter.

2.) What is your first memory of being drawn to a star or celebrity?

Macaulay Culkin, circa Home Alone. He was a kid inspiration! I had, then only slightly more than now, a hard time distinguishing between the ingenious 10-year old who could foil robbers, and the boy who played the ingenious 10-year old in the movie. What a guy!

3.) Who are your heroes of contemporary celebritude, and why?

When I lived in England I read all of the Katie Price/Jordan autobiographies and celebrated her as the greatest celebrity of all time.

The Greatest Celebrity of our Time!

I think at the time I felt like if I could really know British celebrity culture and the UK’s weird B-list celebrities as well as I did American ones, I’d be fully immersed in the culture (someone is going to read this and find me very sad). It took me the whole three years I was there to accomplish this, but I finally learned all the names, backstories and cultural references (so many girl/boy bands!). Since then I’ve tried to keep up with only moderate success. And in the meantime, I’ve not really found anyone who can match Price’s guilelessness/absurdity/good humor/pathos, but even so she’s sort of dwindled in my consciousness as a celebrity to watch.

4.) Who are your favorite participants, broadly speaking, in the history of stardom, and why?

I am essentially ignorant of the history of stardom before Matt Damon. Good Will Hunting was the first time (fine, since Home Alone) that I was interested in following a celebrity’s personal life, and basically since then it’s provided the North Star for my interest in celebrities, aka the Damon-principle, aka who-is-my-celebrity-crush?, aka please give me a reason to be interested in you. Therefore, I have done very little research or thinking about celebrity before the era of my own adolescence. I am sure there is much to say about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, but I am not the one to say it.

5.) You can only be best friends with one person in all of celebritude, past and present. Who? How did you two meet? What’s your favorite thing to do together?

My actual best friend works in the film industry and went to a screening of Black Swan and said that Mila Kunis seemed like a normal, fun girl you might actually, in real life, want to be friends with. So, since I trust my actual best friend in all things, especially her taste in best friends, I will choose Mila Kunis. We met through a mutual friend, obviously.

6.) You can only date on person in all of celebritude, past and present. Who? Where would you first date be? What would he/she get you for your birthday?

Dating a celebrity sounds like a tiresome and potentially psychologically damaging scenario. But, like most people, I do have a few that rotate in and out of my favor. I generally only care about one at any given time, but I have allowed myself some slack by opening a new category (“British”) so as to eliminate unfair competition.

7.) Who do you regard as the lowest depth of celebritude?

Any and all of the Housewives. There are many times when I’m a little startled by theextremes of American culture (Hollywood churns out people that seem to exist in a different world than the rest country/universe). The celebritude of the Housewives seems especially insulting, though, because they are “real” people who are celebrities only because they live insanely out-of-touch lives in and around the rest of us. I mean, I get the fascination: we watch them act like we’re watching them because there is something legitimately interesting, talented, etc. about them. I guess it’s consistent with a political scenario that favors the fabulously rich at the expense of the majority of the rest of the country, but I still find it totally odious from an entertainment perspective.

8.) Name a celebrity that is
a.) Overrated: Easiest answer ever: Anne Hathaway.
b.) Underrated: Is there such a thing? All attention seems a blessing in this industry, but OK. Though I do have another question: does this mean that their talent is underrated, or their celebrity? Talent and celebrity seem like different, only kinda-related things. I was watching Southland the other night and remarking to myself that I could watch Regina King do anything, anywhere. Is her talent underrated? Not sure- she’s top billing in that show, but then there don’t seem to be a glut of roles for African American women around, so who knows if she could do even more? And does this mean her celebrity underrated? Perhaps for the level of quality acting that she delivers, less celebrity means more credibility, and so it’s fine that she’s not always in the public eye. OR does it hurt her career? I mean, a good number of actresses seem to leverage celebrity for work, right? There are just so many untalented celebrities that the two traits almost seem antithetical, but that’s not always the case, is it? I wonder what Regina King would say about this.
c.) Appropriately rated: Jennifer Aniston-I actually think she’s a good comedienne, but also fairly bland, therefore just appealing enough to most audiences. If she receives professional criticism, it generally seems warranted (I mean, her movies aren’t that great). She seems to provide just enough gossip to stay in the public eye, but not so much scandal as to be dragged down into the mud. More importantly, she puts good work into being a celebrity, so I’d like to give her credit for that. She has celebrity-status hair.

9.) What is your favorite celebrity nickname and/or celebrity culture-related slang?

Any of the winners of “Hot Slut of the Day” on Dlisted. GOOP-y is pretty good, too.

10.) What is the greatest/most bombastic moment of celebrity ever?

I liked when Kayne West said that President Bush hated black people after Katrina. I thought it was weird that he took it back later (who was making him take that back other than President Bush?), but I DID appreciate when Jay Z said that it was problematic that President Bush thought the worst moment of his presidency was Kanye saying he hated black people. Oh yeah, and I also enjoyed John Mayer’s slide out of grace in Playboy or Rolling Stone or where ever it was he gave those insane, drug-addled interviews.

11.) Where do you get gossip on your celebrities of interest? Explain more?

Well you know I love Michael K at Dlisted. Although he often hides behind vulgarity and a cultivated tawdriness, he’s actually very intelligent and “on” with his assessments, and generally hits all the big news (or links to others who do). Also, though he doesn’t pull his punches, when someone is sick or has died he manages to write posts that are funny, respectful and snark-free. It’s a very humane time-out. I appreciate it.

12.) How do celebrities and stardom relate to your own work/extra-work activites?

Ha! Are you kidding? Guess where I’m writing this. Just kidding. Not really.

13.) Why is celebrity culture — and our attention, analysis, and discussion of it — important?
Well, there are the reasons you hit on in your work (as a society, we’re working out our social mores and standards of acceptable behavior, whether good or bad, through the way we interpret and make issue out of the actions of celebrities). But celebrity culture is also, I think, a good way to get a little of the power back. Yeah, we’re saturated by media images and pop culture and it’s hard to get a break from the messages society is ramming down our throats in various cultural outlets (TV, movies, magazines, news sites, the circus, et. al.). But when you read good celebrity gossip-not the sugary, celebratory stuff, but the snarky, intelligent, politically savvy stuff-it’s like you’ve taken the upper hand back, just a little. I’m not arguing for the paparazzi to stalk celebrities because they deserve misery for being celebrities (then again, I’m not exactly crying over it, either), but I do kinda feel like you’ve got to take your lumps along with the good stuff, you know? Take the Oscars-it’s a farce, right? A bunch of the most privileged people in the world celebrating themselves AGAIN at the end of an ENTIRE SEASON OF CELEBRATION. So then I ask you, what’s better than watching the Oscars with scathing commentary? Very little.