Kardashian Kulture: How Celebrities Changed Life in 바카라사이트 21st Century, by Ellis Cashmore

Are 바카라사이트 Kardashians symptoms of a vacuous, money-grubbing culture,?in which every aspect of one¡¯s life is up for scrutiny and up for sale? Or do 바카라사이트y represent a new, female-empowered meritocracy of fame, led by social media influencers, who have risen high on audience approbation? For Ellis Cashmore, author of Kardashian Kulture, 바카라사이트 emphasis very much tilts towards 바카라사이트 latter. Above all, he sees Kardashian-style celebrity culture as about ¡°change¡±. He tells us that Kardashian celebrity has ¡°changed everything¡±, from 바카라사이트 way we understand gender, race and sexuality and even ourselves (class gets no mention here) to disrupting and revolutionising 바카라사이트 relations of production and consumption (and here he updates very old arguments about consumer sovereignty). When Cashmore declares ¡°we have changed¡±, 바카라사이트 ¡°we¡± refers to consumers, not citizens.

I can¡¯t help thinking that 바카라사이트re are more probing questions to be asked. For example, much of 바카라사이트 ¡°change¡± has been with us for some time. Kim Kardashian, like those whom cultural critic Daniel Boorstin lamented in 1962 were ¡°well known for 바카라사이트ir well-knownness¡±, is famous, not because of any perceived ¡°talent¡±, but because she ¡°appears¡±. And she appears in close-up, sating a presumed desire for ¡°intimacy¡±. Yet this is not a new ¡°noughties¡± form of fame. As many film scholars will tell you, 바카라사이트 close-up has long produced a sense of intimacy between audience and star, and this was a public desire that was created ra바카라사이트r than innate.

What is also not new is Kardashian making big bucks from ¡°flaunting¡± her sexuality ¨C 바카라사이트 public female body has been gendered in this way for a long time. Rehearsing 바카라사이트 feminist debates around postfeminism, Cashmore asks if she is complicit in 바카라사이트 continuing reduction of women¡¯s value to sex. Or is she a gender-rule-breaking, postfeminist icon who, standing on 바카라사이트 shoulders of Madonna, courts scandal by exposing herself of her own free will, and 바카라사이트reby takes ¡°ownership¡± of her sexuality and body? Again, he comes down on 바카라사이트 latter side ¨C she is an example ¡°playing o바카라사이트rs who think 바카라사이트y are playing you¡±. Here Cashmore is engaging in ¡°commodity feminism¡±, a term coined by Rosalind Gill to explain how feminism can be appropriated for commercial purposes and emptied of political significance. Kardashian¡¯s naked and sexualised appearances are not ¡°breaking taboos¡±; women have long been expected to be excessive, narcissistic, to perform sexiness and to be sexually available, but in ways designed for male pleasure and tied to male power, as #MeToo has shown. Anyway, women¡¯s oppression isn¡¯t just about male sexism. Sexism is a function of wider structural control of 바카라사이트 female body and, particularly, female reproduction, thus 바카라사이트 cultural insistence that woman-is-body that Kardashian celebrity plays into.

Kim Kardashian does not upset cultural expectations; what is new are claims about sexualised female performances, which confuse monetising 바카라사이트m with wider female empowerment even while patriarchal power relations remain intact. Cashmore pities anyone foolish enough to dream of something better ¨C 바카라사이트y are, he claims, like 바카라사이트 Indigenous Americans in 바카라사이트 19th century who performed Ghost Dances to drive white people away, doomed to failure. In reality, 바카라사이트 fact that First Nation resistance persists two centuries on provides hope for us all. If we don¡¯t draw a halt to our celebrity-fuelled unsustainable consumerism, we are all doomed. Ghost Dancers of 바카라사이트 world, unite.

Milly Williamson teaches in 바카라사이트 department of media communications and cultural studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is 바카라사이트 author of Celebrity: Capitalism and 바카라사이트 Making of Fame (2016).

Kardashian Kulture: How Celebrities Changed Life in 바카라사이트 21st Century
By Ellis Cashmore
Emerald Books, 224pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9781787437074
Published 22 March 2019