Understanding Celebrity Culture Today
- Tuesday, 22nd July 2008
- 12.45-1.30pm
- Hawthornden Lecture Theatre - Weston Link (National Gallery Complex)
- Free
- No booking required, unticketed.
Why are we obsessed with celebrities? Why are they used by multi-national corporations to sell products and politicians to curry favour wih the public? Celebrity culture is not new. Most historical authorities trace it back to Alexander the Great who in Calisthenes, had the world's first celebrity spin doctor. However, celebrity has never been so ubuiquitous as it is today.
Chris Rojek, Professor of Sociology and Culture at Brunel University and author of Celebrity (Reaktion), discusses why we are preoccupied by celebrity and traces the changes that have occurred in the meaning of celebrity. Instead of dismissing it as vacuous or trivial, he suggests that there are good reasons why ordinary people look to celebrities to provide parables and role models.
