celebrity gossip, academic style

Bette Davis in All This and Heaven Too — Demonstrating the long, long history of gossip

With this post, I hope to add a bit of history and context to gossip — in part to address some questions raised in the last posts’ comments section, and in part just to set down some of my own thoughts on the subject. People will always see their current age as ‘more’ something than the age that came before — we’re more mediated, more concerned with smut, more superficial, etc. etc., than the good ol’ times of yore. While this nostalgia-tinged sentiment is completely understandable (there’s something easy and pleasing about bemoaning the faults of our society and seeing them as novel) it’s also enacting a sort of revisionist history.

Which is all a long way of saying that IT’S ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE. It may have been less digital, less explicit, or slightly less ubiquitous, but there is nothing novel about gossip, including its favorite targets and topics.

Anthropologists and sociologists have performed dozens of studies on the function of gossip in social groups, from ‘self-enclosed’ tribal groupings to present-day secretary pools. Indeed, gossip is everywhere, and we all do it — whether as teenage girls or grown men over drinks after work. And whether its subject is the new girl in school, a major star, the president, or the Queen, or the new hotshot at work, its function is almost always a variation on the selfsame theme: social policing.

Put differently, we talk about people who are different — who mess with the status quo, either by being exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally ugly, super awkward, incredibly intelligent, whatever….the person who dresses differently, doesn’t display his/her gender in a way that’s “appropriate,” hooks up with too many guys, or espouses ‘different’ political beliefs. Because a threat to the status quo is a threat to the conception of self and society — and you’ve got to grapple with that in some way. Thus you either talk about that person — and talk about him/her so much that she becomes a subject of ridicule and exclusion (read: teenage girls) or this person miraculously (and rather unpredictably) prompts a shift in the status quo….the new cool girl, the new hire who inspires everyone to start filing their reports differently, the new addition to your Ph.D. class who’s really hot on a new theorist, etc.

Stars do both. Sometimes they are such quintessential manifestations of the status quo that they become stars — but they’re never really interesting. Doris Day is a great example of this, as is Jennifer Aniston. Both fulfill the ‘girl-next-door’ template. Then there are stars who are different, transgressive, and spark a ‘shift’ in the way we think about the ideal man, woman, whatever. Angelina Jolie is obviously a perfect example here, as are Marilyn Monroe, Garbo, Dietrich, Mae West, Clara Bow, Jane Fonda, and Madonna.

Mae West asks you if you have a banana in your pocket…(and was thought to be a ‘woman impersonator)

Jolie multi-tasks as sex symbol, mother, philanthropist, tatoo-collector

The European Androgyny of Dietrich

All of these women inspired an incredibly amount of discourse when they first rose to stardom — just as much as Jolie does today. It was a mix of appreciation, awe, and anxiety — what would this example of womanhood (and sexuality) do to the supposedly naive women who looked up to these stars? Of course, this is by no means limited to female stars — I was just reading about the shift in the masculine star during the 1960s — the end of the always-heroic, always traditionally good looking and/or masculine star (Gable, Grant, Hudson, etc.) and the rise of the morally conflicted, weak, perhaps even anti-heroic roles, played by politically active, not always handsome stars (Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman). This transition caused no small amount of anxiety over what it meant — or should mean — to be a male in American society in the 1960s and ’70s.

But I digress a bit. The point is — we’ve always gossiped about people who are different, whether they’re a different sort of movie star or a different sort of person in our everyday lives. But we especially love to gossip about famous people who mess up. As Amanda pointed out in a comment on the post on Jon and Kate Plus 8, humans love to engage in schadenfreude — speculating about and reveling in the misfortune of others. It’s our bad, curious, vindictive side. But we especially like to revel in the misfortune of those who have been elevated above us — thus the fascination with the celebrity scandal, which basically reveals and opens up a space to criticize, gossip, and degrade those who were supposedly better than us (more beautiful, more wealthy, more sophisticated) but fall short when it comes to behavior or life choices.

Thus gossip and scandal are most often applied to public figures — the higher the figure, the more spectacular the fall. Gossip and scandal have circulated orally for thousands of years (the New Testament is filled with gossip about Jesus) and in print for hundreds of years. Thus the image that opened the post: Bette Davis starring in All This, And Heaven Too, a 1940 adaptation of an enormously popular romance of the 1930s….that fictionalizes the true story of the downfall of the July monarchy (in France in the mid-19th century) after gossip begins to circulate about the nanny and a member of the court. Their supposed affair is blown up by the gossip rags of the day (dozens of print newspapers) — and completely fabricated.

In other words: nothing new. Jesus, Caesar, the monarchies, the star system of the 19th century stage, contemporary stars, politicians — all have inspired gossip. What has somewhat shifted is the way that that gossip is collected and disseminated — and that is, at least in part, the topic of my dissertation.

Other things that aren’t novel:

1.) Bad Mother Stories.

It’s the easiest way to degrade a woman: criticize her performance as a wife or as a mother. Usually these stories pop up after the woman has committed some ‘sin’ that transgresses social norms — and has nothing to do with her children. Rita Hayworth almost had her children taken away from her, Dorothy Dandridge was nearly charged with child abuse, Princess Diana was off gallivanting on yachts instead of taking care of her young princes. And now we see it with reality stars, Britney Spears, and Angelina Jolie — the latter of whom seems to be subject to criticism not because of any particular action, but simply because no one believes that you could be gorgeous, married to someone gorgeous, and effectively parent six children.

2.) Gossip rags.

I’ve already written about Confidential, but the smutty, low-brow gossip rag existed in various form far before. Sometimes it was in pulpy papers sold in establishments of ill-repute (the 19th century); sometimes it was in the less respectable papers (the early to mid 20th century — Walter Winchell’s column in the New York Evening Graphic, Mike Connolly’s in The Hollywood Reporter) (Both of which remind me — gossip is also used to ostracize political outsiders, as both Winchell and Connolly did at length during the Red Scare. Or it’s used to ostracize those who cross establish moral boundaries — interracial dating in the 1950s, homosexual behaviors, well, since Oscar Wilde and his notorious trial) Historically speaking, Us Weekly and People sell relatively few numbers of magazines — especially when compared to the massive sales of dozens of movie mags during the classic studio era (Photoplay, Modern Screen, the list goes on and on and on…) Perez Hilton and TMZ may garner millions of unique hits a day, but millions of people read Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, and Walter Winchell’s daily columns (syndicated nation-wide) during the 1930s-1950s.

3.) Young stars exploited by elders (mothers, studio execs, directors, etc.)

I could just put the name Judy Garland here and move on, but I’ll elaborate and say that she was fed barbiturates, repeatedly told she was too fat, and generally degraded during the crucial self-confidence years. Rita Hayworth had her name changed (from Margarita Cansino) and had her hairline electrolysized (in order to erase any signs of ‘Latin’ heritage)….all on the advice of her first husband, who happened to be 20 years her senior. (Rita Hayworth’s dad also took her to dance clubs as his partner and ‘wife’ at a very early age. For more on all of this, see Adrienne McLean’s phenomenal study Being Rita Hayworth.)

4.) Scandalous Relationships.

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks left their respective spouses in order to be together….in 1920! Marlene Dietrich was strongly believed to be cheating on her German husband (and forsaking her child) with her svengali and repeat director Josef Von Sternberg; Ingrid Bergman left her Swedish husband and small child to be with Italian director Roberto Rossellini; ELIZABETH TAYLOR, ELIZABETH TAYLOR, ELIZABETH TAYLOR. Brangelina has NOTHING on the coverage of the Taylor/Eddie Fiscer + Taylor/Burton scandals….and Bergman was denounced ON THE SENATE FLOOR.

5.) Critics invoking celebrity gossip as the harbinger of the downfall of society.

Didn’t Jesus somehow imply that gossip was a sin? The very word ‘gossip rag’ implies a place of social degradation — and it’s been the favorite subject of the learned and upper class for centuries. Decrying the fascinations of the low-class and low-brow, labeling them stupid, too visual, poorly written, concerned with things that don’t matter. The 19th century gossip sheets, the early fan periodicals, Confidential, and today’s gossip disseminators form an extensive family tree — all of which has been gendered as feminine, labeled as silly, and determined as trivial.

A Marxist critic would say that celebrity gossip — like much of ‘low-brow’ entertainment — serves to distract the working class from the reality of their subjugation, poor working conditions (lack of health care, exploitation by corporations, the list goes on). I certainly agree with this. But until the Marxist revolution occurs….the gossip remains, and its remains a vital site of analysis for figuring out what society is nervous about, what trends are being ushered in, what we’re slowly becoming okay with talking about, standards of beauty and body and gender, what it means to be a good mother, husband, friend, woman, etc.

Any other ‘themes’ that persist today? Please lengthen my list below.