CELEBRITY POLITICS and the CULTIVATION of AFFECT in the PUBLIC SPHERE By
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CELEBRITY POLITICS AND THE CULTIVATION OF AFFECT IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE by Ariella Horwitz A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of George Mason University in Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cultural Studies Committee: ___________________________________________ Director ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Program Director ___________________________________________ Dean, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Date: _____________________________________ Spring Semester 2016 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Celebrity Politics and the Cultivation of Affect in the Public Sphere A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University by Ariella Horwitz Master of Arts California State University, Fullerton, 2004 Bachelor of Arts Whittier College, 2000 Director: Alison Landsberg, Professor Department of Cultural Studies Spring Semester 2016 George Mason University Fairfax, VA This work is licensed under a creative commons attribution-noderivs 3.0 unported license. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful for the guidance and assistance of my committee chair Dr. Alison Landsberg and committee members Dr. Denise Albanese and Dr. Roger Lancaster. iii Table of Contents Page List of Figures.................................................................................................................... vi Abstract............................................................................................................................. vii Introduction......................................................................................................................... 9 The Celebrity Specter...................................................................................................... 9 The Public Celebrity/Celebrity Publics......................................................................... 13 Map of the Stars ............................................................................................................ 25 Chapter One: Celebrity Politics, A Brief History ............................................................. 32 The Golden Age: Celebrity Political Activism Under the Studio System .................... 34 Historical Interlude: The Golden Age & The Breakup of the Studio System............... 46 The Times, They Are A-Changin’: Political Assertiveness & Celebrity Empowerment ....................................................................................................................................... 54 Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 89 Chapter Two: Liberal Democratic Celebrity Politics take on the War on Terror............. 91 Mr. Rogen Goes to Washington.................................................................................... 91 Defining Liberal Democratic Celebrity Politics............................................................ 95 Weapons of Mass Distraction: Celebrity and the Post-9/11 Anti-War Movement..... 101 Leveraging Cinema: Counter-Hegemonic Narrative as Politic Protest ...................... 133 The Case Against Torture: Rendition ...................................................................... 144 Coming Up Empty: Green Zone.............................................................................. 153 Signals of a Distressed Country: In the Valley of Elah ........................................... 162 Limiting Speech, Limiting Democracy? ..................................................................... 173 Chapter Three: The Ballad of Saint George or, Celebrity Humanitarianism—the Kinder Face of Neoliberalism..................................................................................................... 176 Meanwhile on the Hill…............................................................................................. 176 Defining Neoliberal Celebrity Politics........................................................................ 181 Ending Atrocity One Celebrity at a Time ................................................................... 194 iv The Body Celebrity ..................................................................................................... 236 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 245 Chapter Four: Hybrid Celebrity Politics are for Everyone!............................................ 248 From Us, For You ....................................................................................................... 248 Strange Bedfellows? Defining a Hybrid Celebrity Politics ........................................ 254 Haters Gonna Hate, Hippies Gonna Love: The NOH8 Campaign, The ‘It Gets Better’ Project, & The Happy Hippie Foundation .................................................................. 266 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 319 Appendices...................................................................................................................... 324 Appendix One: Film List............................................................................................. 324 Appendix Two: Image Credits .................................................................................... 326 References....................................................................................................................... 328 v List of Figures Figure Page Figure 1: Kim Kardashian-West and Khloe Kardashian visiting a memorial to the Armenian genocide ........................................................................................................... 12 Figure 2: Still of Reese Witherspoon and Peter Sarsgaard in Rendition ........................ 155 Figure 3: Still of Matt Damon in the Green Zone........................................................... 158 Figure 4: Still of Tommy Lee Jones and Joseph Bertót in In the Valley of Elah............ 172 Figure 5: Still of Don Cheadle from Capitol Hill Press Conference on Darfur.............. 204 Figure 6: Screenshot of the Satellite Sentinel Project Website....................................... 234 Figure 7: Angelina Jolie and Condoleeza Rice............................................................... 242 Figure 8: Juxtaposition of America Ferrera playing with Sean Penn working............... 245 Figure 9: George Clooney and President Obama meet at the White House in 2010 to discuss Darfur ................................................................................................................. 248 Figure 10: Fan-created image of Lena Dunham as Rosie the Riveter ............................ 257 Figure 11: Musician Dave Navarro's NOH8 Campaign photo....................................... 277 Figure 12: Still from actor Zachary Quinto's "It Gets Better" video .............................. 284 Figure 13: Fan-created image for the HHF that mimics Miley Cyrus' visual brand ...... 289 Figure 14: Screenshot of the NOH8 Campaign website homepage ............................... 293 Figure 15: Screenshot of the It Gets Better Project website homepage.......................... 297 Figure 16: Screenshot of the Happy Hippie Foundation website homepage.................. 304 Figure 17: Group photo from the HHF's #InstaPride campaign..................................... 317 Figure 18: #InstaPride photo of Cyrus and AJ................................................................ 321 vi Abstract CELEBRITY POLITICS AND THE CULTIVATION OF AFFECT IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE Ariella Horwitz, MA George Mason University, 2016 Dissertation Director: Dr. Alison Landsberg Celebrity political participation has become so commonplace in contemporary American life that it has come to be expected— it is hardly surprising when Lena Dunham joins Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, George Clooney visits Sudan, or Jennifer Lawrence writes an essay on the gender pay gap. Celebrity politics are also pervasive, resulting from the constant media coverage of celebrities. Yet, because news of celebrity politics appears alongside gossip stories and because celebrities can (and do) say stupid things, it makes it easier to discount celebrities as illegitimate and overlook them as potentially influential political agents. This ignores the powerful position of celebrities, who through existing media attention and branding are able to inform the political views of average citizen-subjects. Delineating the form celebrity politics take in contemporary America and asking how they function, I examine the role of celebrity politics in the public sphere, identifying vii three models of celebrity politics that I argue are most commonplace: liberal democratic, neoliberal, and hybrid (an attempt to pursue liberal democratic aims through a neoliberal framework). I map out how each model works through an analysis of distinct moments of twenty-first century celebrity politics—including participation in the anti-war, Save Darfur, and LGBTQ rights movements. As I show, each model relies on the positionality of the celebrity in different ways, all of which center around the celebrity’s cultural capital and the affective relationship cultivated between ordinary and celebrity citizens. Ultimately I argue that