Thanks to Traci from 561, we have a heads-up for a new show on E called "Pop Fiction," which premiered this weekend. From Traci, "In the show, celebrities attempt to punk the paparazzi. Because the paparazzi make up so many stories on their own, producers Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg thought it would be a good idea to spoof the paparazzi. This is a clip about the show featuring Paris Hilton in a discussion about our media-obsessed culture." I find this an interesting layering of reality construction, with none of it actually being real.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I watched the premiere of "Pop Fiction" on E! last night and thought it was genius. As Traci mentioned, the show really demonstrates construction of reality based on a complete lack of fact. After showing how the celebrities are in on the joke, they then showed all of the media that covered the story and presented it as fact. In some cases, media blogs had stories up about the celebrity in 10-20 minutes. Such practices really make a mockery of journalism.
If such stories are portrayed as fact, it only furthers the argument that the media shapes what we think and what we believe instead of the other way around. The public trusts the media to fact check and provide us with important details, but it seems as though they are simply interested in sales above anything else.
As an avid readers of celebrity blogs and magazines, I am actually nervous to continue watching this show to see that stories I read about, and believed, the week before are actually completely false.
As soon as I saw the commercial for this show it got me thinking about the discussions we've had in class about the reality our mediated world presents us with, especially in the world of celebrities.
Like everything else, we can't avoid relationships with the media system; and in this case, our relationship with celebrities. According to Gamson, fame is based in artifice, yet everyone knows and accepts this. Because we think we know celebrities due to the media coverage we read/see about them, we therefore make judgments based on this fake reality. In class we watched a clip from Will & Grace that really exemplified this notion of how the media portrays celebrities vs. what a celebrity is like in real life - there were 4 Cher's represented in this short clip, yet as a class we debated which one of them was in fact "real."
Unless we know a celebrity or see them in real life, we only know them as a mediated version created in pictures, images, movies, TV, etc.
In the case of this show, Pop Fiction, I think what it is doing is genius. It is exposing audiences to what they know, but in a way that makes it real. It exposes audiences as media-dependent consumers and actually makes us look pretty bad in that we essentially believe everything we see. A story from the week before essentially gets proven false on this show and therefore all coverage of it is deemed inaccurate. I agree with Marissa in that such a show demonstrates the notion that media shapes society, but in this case I definitely think it is reflecting our hunger for celebrity gossip. We believe everything we hear because it makes us believe we know more about our favorite celebrity. Until what we hear is proven false, we go on believing it.
This show gets right into the heated debate of journalism's strive for accuracy and gives audiences a look into the life of a celebrity from a different perspective (while this view isn't any more "real" than what we've been seeing all along).
I have yet to see this show but I'm very curious. My roommates and I all saw a commercial for the program last night and thought it was genius idea. With the recent media obsession with Britney Spears and whether she left the hospital or not, it's time that society re-evaluates this practice. This program speaks to the fabrication and stories made up by the paparazzi photos and media writers.
It's ironic since in the promo for "Pop Fiction" I saw that musician Avril Lavigne posed as being pregnant, I recall hearing rumors about her actually being pregnant in the past month or so. Even when a practical joke was being played, rumors and stories still ran. I think it's important that consumers who read magazines like US Weekly realize through this show how much stories and gossip is fabricated to fill white space. Like Marissa said when you continue to watch this show in the future, I won't be surprised if I recall stories in the media that were acted out on this reality show.
This show also supports Gamson's view that society is now able to see how fame is manufactured. For instance, watchers of "Pop Fiction" see how society's demand for tabloid news and photos has lead to crazy obsessive photographers getting a money shot to sell. We can see how our demand for this news has led to some individuals being made into celebrities just by the fact that we want to see coverage of them, like Paris Hilton.
I agree with everyone that this is an interesting concept, but I think it has an expiration date. The main idea behind this show is that paparazzi are the fake journalists of our generation and don’t follow the usual journalistic ethics, such as fact checking, before releasing stories to the public. Once this idea is exposed at large proportions a couple times, the show will get a little repetitive. Besides, celebrities have been faking “news” for a long time, layering realities upon realities. As much as I hate to admit knowing this, Lindsey Lohan sometimes wears a diamond ring (one of probably hundreds she owns) on her left ring finger to catch some attention and spread rumors. Publicists stir up trouble by creating rumors of their clients hooking up with or dating another major star. While I was in Los Angeles this summer, I heard a month-long rumor that Hilary Duff was a heroin addict, only to find out that it was a rumor started by Hilary’s “people” to make her seem more adult and “badass.” Publicists and celebrities expect attention from these rumors, but I really think they don’t expect people to whole-heartedly believe them. I saw one clip from “Pop Fiction” where Paris Hilton chauffeurs a Buddhist monk around Los Angeles, claiming he’s changed her life and blah blah. It got tons of attention from paparazzi but I really don’t think Paris expected people to believe she was the newest follower of the Dalai Lama – she just wanted the attention and probably got a kick out of tricking the photographers that constantly follow her.
Post a Comment