The Star as Icon

Celebrity in the Age of Mass Consumption

Daniel Herwitz (Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor, University of Michigan)

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English

Columbia University Press
03 May 2016

Philosophy: aesthetics; Popular culture; Popular beliefs & controversial knowledge; Media, information & communication industries

Princess Diana, Jackie O, Grace Kelly-the star icon is the most talked about yet least understood persona. The object of adoration, fantasy, and cult obsession, the star icon is a celebrity, yet she is also something more: a dazzling figure at the center of a media pantomime that is at once voyeuristic and zealously guarded. With skill and humor, Daniel Herwitz pokes at the gears of the celebrity-making machine, recruiting a philosopher's interest in the media, an eye for society, and a love of popular culture to divine our yearning for these iconic figures and the role they play in our lives.

Herwitz portrays the star icon as caught between transcendence and trauma. An effervescent being living on a distant, exalted planet, the star icon is also a melodramatic heroine desperate to escape her life and the ever-watchful eye of the media. The public buoys her up and then eagerly watches her fall, her collapse providing a satisfying conclusion to a story sensationally told-while leaving the public yearning for a rebirth.

Herwitz locates this double life in the opposing tensions of film, television, religion, and consumer culture, offering fresh perspectives on these subjects while ingeniously mapping society's creation (and destruction) of these special aesthetic stars. Herwitz has a soft spot for popular culture yet remains deeply skeptical of public illusion. He worries that the media distances us from even minimal insight into those who are transfigured into star icons. It also blinds us to the shaping of our political present.

By: Daniel Herwitz (Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor University of Michigan)
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 227g
ISBN: 9780231145411
ISBN 10: 0231145411
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 03 May 2016
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Daniel Herwitz is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of Humanities at the University of Michigan. His Columbia University Press books include Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony (2012) and, with Lydia Goehr, The Don Giovanni Moment: Essays on the Legacy of an Opera (2006).

Reviews for The Star as Icon: Celebrity in the Age of Mass Consumption

Essential for those with a keen interest in the sociology of popular culture and stardom. Library Journal A dazzling book... that manages to pack an astonishing amount of detail and depth into a modest number of pages... Highly recommended. Choice The Star as Icon can be compared with Stanley Cavell's Pursuits of Happiness, but is more contemporary and less optimistic. The book studies significant movies ( Rear Window, The Philadelphia Story), is culturally literate, and is very good on the idea of aura and popular culture as it has evolved since Walter Benjamin. Required reading for any course in film studies. -- Arthur Danto, Columbia University An eloquent essay that contributes to the contemporary discourse on celebrity and stardom. -- Leung Wing-Fai Film Philosophy