Stars are Just Like Us!! From Shira

The April 2008 issue of The Atlantic has a picture of Britney Spears on the cover. The cover reads: "The Britney Show Days and Night With the New Paparazzi". I thought this was different because you see Britney Spears on the cover of EVERY single magazine but one of the last would be The Atlantic, because they usually talk about politics and global issues. Anyway, so I read the article and while it focused on Britney it didn't really focus on her at all, instead it discussed this new type of celebrity coverage such as pictures take by the paparazzi. So the article is super long but below is a specific clip from it that made me immediately think of class and our discussions about who in media has the power.

The evolution of Hollywood paparazzi from a marginal nuisance to one of the most powerful and lucrative forces driving the American news-gathering industry is a phenomenon that dates back to March 2002, when a women's magazine editor names Bonnie Fuller took over a Wenner Media property called Us Weekly, which had drifted along since its founding in 1977 as a rival to the fantastically successful People magazine franchise. What Fuller brought to Us was a keen understanding of her audience. "Every day, we'd look at tons of pictures that came in and lay them all out on a conference table," Fuller remembers. "And what was interesting to me was a look at celebrities going to dry cleaners and pumping gas. I loved looking at these pictures of celebrities who were just like us."

(* I'm starring this because I'm going to discuss it later below.)

Fuller's trademark front-of-the-book photo-feature, "Stars-They're Just Like US," created a lucrative new market for Hollywood paparazzi, whose output had formally been limited to tabloids like the National Enquirer and the Star. It was not unusual in the Fuller years for a set of high-quality snapshots to rake in $100,000 or more in secretive bidding wars that began on Thursday night and ended Monday evening, when Us and People were put to bed. Insiders could keep score by looking at the small print photo credits in Us, People, In Touch, InStyle, and half a dozen or so newly minted competitors to see which of the paps hit the jackpot that week. (*)

Okay so then the article continues with all these photographer names being like could it be this person could it be that person? etc. Then it says:

The genius of Bonnie Fuller's new approach was that almost any picture of a celebrity doing something ordinary would do, with a little help from an inventive caption writer who could come up with a snappy one-liner like "Who Wore It Best?" (three happy stars wearing the same outfit) or "Can-Do Couples" (three couples smiling) for a quickie photo-feature to accompany a newsier far like "Angelina's Web of Lies." It was easy to imagine legion of Internet-era Andrew Marvells staying up late in fluorescent-lit cubicles appending metaphysical exclamation points to celebrity photo captions that would rocket readers ever closer to the celestial object of their desire:
They buy bottled water!
They pick up presents! They love to buy new handbags!
They fix their tires!
They can't get their straws in cans!

The article continues to say how these front-of-the-book snapshots in People and Us cost $50,000 to $75,000 per issue and when the spending became to high for publications, photo agencies such as X17 and Bauer-Griffin realized that instead of selling exclusives they could sell the same photo 15-20 times to different magazines, TV shows and Web sites. And so, the article writes, "the industrial phase of paparazzi production was formed." Tying back to Britney Spears, X17 estimates it made $3 million last year on Britney-related images alone.

Okay last part, article goes on:

The result of this happy convergence, the 24/7 BritneyParisNicoleLindsayLohan

MaybeDidCokeBradandAngelinaSavetheWorldOneChildataTimeBradandJenBenandJenPoorKatieHolmesMarriedTomCruiseWhoIsanAlien Celebrity Reality Show, was a distinctive new kind of participatory media experience resulting from the cold fusion of the old-school paparazzi business with the new wave of celebrity magazines and Internet sites.

(Later in that paragraph) The online communities that formed around news-driven celebrity dramas fed the buzz that drove the sales of the magazines and the ratings of the television programs that paid the paparazzi.

OKAY so there is a ton of information here. First I want to address this idea of power in the media: is it the corporate companies, in this case was is Bonnie Fuller, is it the photographers, and as always, is it the audience who buys the magazines and wants to see these pictures so that's what the magazines give us?

Also, the first place I starred, this idea that Fuller was fascinated about how stars are just like us totally reminds me of the Gamson article we read for this week (and this week's topic is celebrity's - ties right in). The article talked about this idea of celebrities being ordinary - how ordinariness promotes a connection between the famous and their audiences. So is this why we like this section? Because it makes these people seem "real" - like the real person behind the "reel" image (That's another thing Gamson said, sadly not my genius)?

The second place I starred I thought was interesting in terms of Media Ownership and also just personally now I know why all the pictures are the same - this idea that all the photos come from the SAME place which makes sense because if you pick them all up the same week you really are getting the exact same image of Brad and Angelina in every magazine.

And again, as we always tie back to, in terms of society, what does this mean about us that this is what we crave to see? How has this changed since the beginning of photography in media which was used just to help readers associate an image with something? I'm sure you can come up with tons more questions because you are really good at it, but I thought since this week's topic is celebrity's, this article fits right in and also addresses a lot of other things we have previously discussed in class.