Rojek, Chris. "Demand Side Factors." Fame Attack: The Inflation of Celebrity and Its Consequences. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012. 98–122. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 24 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781849661386.ch-007>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 24 September 2021, 02:29 UTC. Copyright © Chris Rojek 2012. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 7 Demand Side Factors emand side explanations fall into three categories: Articulation and the Culture of Display; Hero Worship and Narcissistic Idealization; Religion, and its Decline in the West. All three identify celebrity as the response to the recognition of some sort of emotional defi cit in personal relationships and public life. Thus, briefl y, Articulation Dand the Culture of Display arise from the demand for social acknowledgement; Hero Worship and Narcissistic Idealization are rooted in a lack of self-esteem; and Religion, and its Decline in the West, refers to the erosion of organized religion and the collapse of conjoining moral integrity that provides a coherent sense of stability and order. 1 Supply-based accounts of celebrity infl ation highlight the issues of leadership and manipulation. They provide a top-down perspective that portrays the enlargement of celebrity to be the result of the combination of the acquisitive motives of celebrity impresarios, the gigantic expansion of channels of communication, especially print, fi lm, cable and satellite and the avaricious business interests of corporations. The PR-Media hub is analysed as the gatekeeper, employed by cultural impresarios and business executives, to ration exposure and stoke the fi res of public interest. It applies a campaign of manoeuvre and calculated hearsay to make audiences receptive, and to position stars in a favourable light. Vertical and horizontal sides to this strategy must be differentiated. In terms of vertical manoeuvring, the PR-Media hub is dedicated to making stars cultural skyscrapers in their fi eld of activity. That is winning the best movie roles, writing the most discussed books, recording the best regarded music, triumphing in the most prestigious sports tournaments, championing the best fashion designs, and so on. Horizontal manoeuvring refers to positioning stars as celebrity diplomats, celanthrophists, celebrity environmentalists, celebrity endorsers, etc. When the PR-Media hub raises the celebrity upon the social horizon as the conscience of the public, their public appeal is maximized. They are portrayed as sharing the concerns and voicing the thoughts of the silent majority. Their highly visible acts of celanthropy provides a general substitute for the many, dispersed feelings and aspirations of ordinary people. The celebrity acts as a reed for public opinion and is the representative agent of public concerns. When George goes on a fact-fi nding mission to Darfur, Angelina visits Somalian refugee camps in Kenya and Haiti as UN Goodwill Ambassador, and Bono dines with Kofi Annan and Barack Obama to [ 98 ] BBookook 11.indb.indb 9988 114/11/114/11/11 11:56:56 PPMM Demand Side Factors [ 99 ] discuss debt relief in Africa, they stand in as ‘big citizens’ purportedly representing the will of the public. With supply side explanations of celebrity infl ation the accent is upon moulding public opinion through the strategic manipulation of celebrity associational values and the halo of prestige. This assumes that power is concentrated in the hands of the suppliers. Once again, to invoke the unintentionally disturbing phrase coined by Bernays (1928), it is the vision of ‘the invisible government’ in celebrity culture that drives the show. In contrast, demand side approaches start with the proposition of want and vulnerability in the body politic. According to this line of argument, celebrity is ubiquitous because people hanker after, and, in some cases, obsessionally crave, larger, sanitized versions of themselves or idealized substitutes. That is versions free from insecure doubts about personal worth, disabling worries about social status and painful anxieties that life has no meaning. From this vantage point, it is the emotional loneliness, powerlessness and insecurity of the public that is the key to celebrity culture. In effect, stars are credited with therapeutic powers. Celebrity carries positive associations of action, drama, prestige and power. Identifi cation with this culture affords ordinary people voyeuristic experience of heroic public impact and making a difference in the world. By wishing upon a star we move to the elusive land of the frontier, where old rules do not apply and everything is possible. Common experiences of estrangement from politics and isolation from glamour dissolve by empathizing with celebrity agents and their highly public interventions. Celebrities become public representatives of private troubles and anxieties. When Bob Geldof threw in his lot with the task of remedying famine in Ethiopia he did so not only as a rock star but as the representative of Everyman. Celebrities articulate and implement a ‘can do’ attitude that contrasts with a widespread public sense of impotence about approaching and solving public problems. Large sections of society project the emotions of compassion, benefi cence and the desire for recognition onto stars. Projection can elevate some celebrities into positions of political and social signifi cance. Indeed some have gone down in history as class champions. When the Beatles achieved global celebrity in the 1960s, they were feted not only as talented composers and musicians, but also as ‘four working-class lads from Liverpool’. Charlie Chaplin, who hailed from the South London slums, occupied the same class position in the silent fi lm era. In the United States, the success of Clara Bow (the ‘It’ Girl), James Brown, Johnny Cash, 2Pac and Puff Daddy partly refl ects their public position as warriors of class and ethnicity. The role of celebrities in class battles, to say nothing of wars between the sexes and racial confl icts, is of historical importance. Celebrities not only represent private troubles and anxieties, they articulate general collective aspirations of class, gender, BBookook 11.indb.indb 9999 114/11/114/11/11 11:56:56 PPMM [ 100 ] Fame Attack race and nation. In a world where visual culture is increasingly important as a medium of communication, and soft news is exchanged, fi rst and foremost, by sound bites, the face of the celebrity is shorthand for powerful emotional connections and complex political arguments (Castells, 2009). Demand approaches therefore bifurcate between analysing celebrity as part of the psychology of projection and viewing stars as agents of resistance and change. Although these traditions of analysis involve contrasting assumptions and lines of investigation, they share the hypothesis that celebrities are agents for problem solving. They are lionized and courted because they promise to supply answers to emotional defi cit disorders. It goes without saying that these solutions may be delusional. If personal and public problems were simply a matter of getting the right celebrity to articulate and tackle them, they would have been banished from the chart of human history long ago. However, without gainsaying the validity of this point, stars can assuage personal dilemmas and provide a sense of momentum for tackling public ills. This brings me to the question of the detailed differences between the three demand side explanations of celebrity infl ation. Articulation and the culture of display What does articulation and the culture of display have to do with the infl ation of celebrity culture? On the face of it, the question is eminently reasonable, because issues of articulation in class and race are based on collective experience. In contrast, celebrity culture revolves around individuals and groups. True, there is a collective dimension in the shape of the audience. Moreover, this may be infl uenced by distinctions of class and race. That is some celebrities may appeal more strongly to one class or race, or combination of classes and races, than to others. And yet, to propose that the audience for a given celebrity consists entirely of one class/race or class/race combination is implausible. The cult of modern fame is mostly blind to distinctions of this sort. However, on closer inspection, especially of the history of achieved celebrity, the links between class and race, the culture of display and fame become transparent and irresistible. Over the last 250 years, the history of celebrity has been dominated fi rst by the struggle, and second by the gradual, albeit incomplete, replacement of ascribed forms of celebrity with achieved types. Celebrity used to be chiefl y about destiny. Those born into an ascribed status were meant to live life in the time-honoured way. 2 Today, in the age of the new aristocracy of fame, it is mainly about the distribution of chances of upward mobility that arise from democracy, industrial- urban development and the expansion and intrusion of the media. BBookook 11.indb.indb 110000 114/11/114/11/11 11:56:56 PPMM Demand Side Factors [ 101 ] Ascribed celebrity refers to the assumption of fame by dint of genealogy or marriage. For example, Prince William and Prince Harry are internationally famous because they are children of the prospective British monarch and therefore, heirs to the throne. Their mother, Princess Diana, was born into the aristocracy, but only acquired signifi cant international fame via her marriage to the Prince of Wales. Ascribed celebrities may add or subtract to their complement of fame by virtue of their deeds. For example, Diana was indeed famous when she married Prince Charles. However, she only became a global superstar following her famous BBC television interview with Martin Bashir (1995) in which she revealed her husband’s infi delity (which tacitly identifi ed her with the plight of countless women in the world), and also fronted various international charity campaigns.