celebrity gossip, academic style

Roseanne was family viewing growing up. I know some friends weren’t allowed to watch it because it was supposedly like Married With Children, which might mean that some adults thought all working-class people were crass and mouthy in the same ways. Anyway, I grew up in a matriarchy, so mom and I bonded over the show. I studied Sara Gilbert because I was obsessed with Darlene. Around this time I also learned that I was more like Lisa Simpson.

3.) Who are your heroes of contemporary celebritude, and why?
Critics and essayists are my heroes and heroines, especially if they write about music. I love getting the scoop, nodding along, arguing, and being knocked over by how they use words to convey elegant ideas. They also kind of disassemble the star system, because they tend to be cash-poor and write their feelings and occasionally look like they haven’t shaved or bathed. This conceptualization of celebrity might have more than anything to do with why I got involved in college radio and started championing independent music. In short, these people seem like they could be friends and I tend to lionize my friends, particularly the ones who write, teach, and take action.

I read Ann Powers obsessively in middle school, and she led me to the late, great Ellen Willis. Some folks whose work I enjoy are Molly Lambert, Maura Johnston, Audra Schroeder, Laina Dawes, Sady Doyle, Stacy Konkiel, Jenny Woolworth, Tom Ewing, Jessica Hopper, Latoya Peterson, Carrie Brownstein, Nelson George, Julie Zeilinger, Jennifer Kelly, Alex Ross, John Leland, John Savage, Simon Reynolds, Joy Press, Patrick Neate, Caroline Coon, Tricia Rose, and the contributors at I Fry Mine in Butter, Sadie Magazine, and Elevate Difference. 

I also have a sneaking suspicion that I’d be friends with Jody Rosen and Rob Sheffield-the former because he seems to want someone to argue with him about his absurd love for Brad Paisley and the latter because of our boundless love for new wave girls.

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

Linda Manz for teaching children how to smoke cigarettes. Christeene for doing what Gaga can’t or won’t. Tony Wilson for being a terrible businessman. Kara Walker for throwing it on the wall. Meryl Streep for continuing to charm. Beth Ditto for teaching new generations how to bellow in a southern accent. Pauline Oliveros for being smarter than just about anyone. Wendy Carlos for theTron score. The good people who run Matador, Merge, anticon., Warp, Kill Rock Stars, Doomtree, and M’Lady-among others. Pam Grier for being both foxy and a survivor. Alison Bechdel for putting words and pictures together. Lily Tomlin for coming out and giving it right back to David O. Russell. Angela Davis for continuing to inspire and call bullshit. Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo for doing their jobs and being good men. Liza Richardson and Alexandra Patsavas for turning music supervisors into industry players.

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?

Did anyone read Wendy Shanker’s piece about imagining a slumber party with Gwyneth Paltrow, Claire Danes, and Winona Ryder? Okay, none of these people. . . . Maybe Winona.

Anyway, Björk seems like the perfect ex-girlfriend with whom to do art projects. We would have met after I told her that I have all of her albums and that I think she’s a total feminist regardless of what she says, and she would find me charming.

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

Ack — of all time? But crushes come and go. Jeff Buckley is my longest-standing crush, but I’m going to leave him out of this because it’s none of your business what we do with our free time. Suffice it to say I like short boys because we can share clothes.

Dating also connotes a certain innocence. If that were the case, I’d like to gallivant with Donald Glover and pump the new Childish Gambino mix before I appear as a guest on Troy and Abed in the Morning. But his star is rising and I don’t know how much free time he has. Also, our connection would seem like the kind honors students might have on a school trip, meaning nothing under the shirt and lights out by midnight.

But if we’re taking innocence out of the situation, it’s Leisha Hailey with our guitars and her gift to me would be reinking the arm tattoo she had removed.

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

Anne Hathaway and Taylor Swift seem like smug jerks, but at least they’re good at their jobs. I’m not sure what the Palin family and the Jersey Shore cast do. I’m about the work, dammit! And tabloid items, cosmetic surgery, and red carpet appearances aren’t work to me, no matter how post-structural we get.

Overrated: Zooey Deschanel

Underrated: Parker Posey

Appropriately rated: Chloë Sevigny

9.) What is the greatest/most bombastic moment of celebrity ever?
(Example: A-Rod posing for a photo shoot as a centaur)

Britney shaving her head.

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

People I follow on Twitter (see #3, add grad school friends because they’re always scooping and adopting).

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

I write about pop stars and commercially viable indie musicians. I do this partly because I like Beyoncé and Kanye’s Twitter feed is fascinating. But I also believe people need to directly engage as media consumers. Image construction is a major part of this, along with an understanding of how various entities come together to create a convergent media culture. I also teach a form of media literacy to girls, some of whom will be involved in the music business or media industry at some point as adults. So I hope that helping them develop agency through criticism might change the images we see.

12.) Why is celebrity culture — and our attention, analysis, and discussion of it — important

I wobble with this question all the time. Frankly, I’m not sure that it is, though I have a lot of fun with it. I have trouble bringing gossip into this. The ex-Protestant in me just wants to focus on the work. Of course, we know that gossip and creating a persona can be just as labor-intensive as albums, movies, and TV shows. But as a workshop instructor for GRCA, it’s been made very clear to me how savvy kids are about gossip and celebrity culture. Yet at the same time, they absorb sexism, racism, sizeism, transphobia, and homophobia. Some of them are also already aware of how society understands and represents women and girls and it’s kind of a bummer for them. They may already feel defeated or defensive and have to work through that on- and off-stage. So, to reiterate #12, I hope that providing tools and a space in which they can engage, challenge, and respond to these images will impact the future of celebrity culture, media production, and criticism for the better.