In Defense of Celebrity

In recent months we have witnessed the deaths of Lou Reed, David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Merle Haggard, and others.  In addition, musicians like Beyoncé have been taking vocal public stances on issues such as Black Lives Matter that link their personal life and public politics in ways that have spoken to the personal experiences of their fans.  What do these have in common?  They are each ways in which we see the role of celebrity in our culture as more than entertainment.  Through celebrities, we understand ourselves; we invest some of Us into Them, and although we rarely “know” celebrities ourselves, this is ultimately irrelevant.  Our feelings about celebrities aren’t linked to personal interaction, but to a sense that they have somehow contributed great things not just to their field, but to us as individuals and as a people.  And so when a celebrity that has done this passes away, their fans are not just losing an artist who they enjoyed, they are mourning someone who influenced them in deeply meaningful ways.  The fan has lost something of great consequence to their sense of self.

Especially among people on the left, though, it seems as if it is considered “edgy” or “cool” to show how little one cares about celebrity deaths; even to mock those who do care.  I can imagine few things so callous and careless.  One does not have to agree with someone’s interests to decide against mocking or belittling those who are actively mourning a loss.

I have a great deal I could say about this, but for the purposes of this blog I want to say two other things in particular about the connection to feminism.  Firstly, I do not think it is a coincidence that the mocking of those who care about celebrity deaths is ultimately the belittling of interests that are coded in our society as “feminine.” Celebrity culture may be of interest to a great many people regardless of gender, but it is uncontroversial to say that interest in it is constructed as “feminine” in our society.  Stereotypically-masculine celebrity interests like sports or perhaps geek culture are often respected, maybe even revered, and the male romance with sports stadiums and sports icons is often valorized.  In contrast, the female equivalent of the same is treated as “trivial” and “small.” 

And this brings me to the second point: when celebrities like Prince die I see posts on Facebook and other places where people “prove” how little they care or mock those who do care.  However, I have yet to see any of this in response to the death of Muhammad Ali.  I do not believe this is a coincidence.  First of all, Ali was an athlete, coding care for his celebrity status and life as "masculine."  Ali though was also more than just an athlete, he was a passionate advocate for civil rights, against war, and so on.  You may think this is enough to explain the difference, but it is not.  This brings me back to the fact that I also said above that it’s not just death that gets mocked, but interest in celebrity on the whole.  When Beyoncé dropped “Lemonade” I saw numerous posts also mocking people’s interest in this.  But Beyoncé too has taken public stances, along with her husband Jay Z, in support of things like Black LivesMatter and other important causes.  Has Beyoncé done all that Ali did?  Maybe not (she also lives in different times).  But does she or her fans deserve mockery for this?  Certainly fucking not.  What I think it actually happening here is especially prevalent among men on the left who would probably wish to identify as feminists.  These men (and probably some women) are mocking female culture as the “little things” that “don’t really matter” relative to the masculine world of politics and work.  This is the classic public/private divide the emerged with capitalism and the state and is ultimately regressive and reactionary behavior.

So stop mocking people for their interests!  People can care about Beyoncé or Prince and still be politically engaged.  And people can invest some of their sense of self in these celebrities without somehow minimizing their value to “the struggle.”  Stop engaging in the over-masculine mocking of women and “feminine interests.”  It’s as simple as not being an asshole.  None of this is to say that you cannot criticize celebrities.  As I explained a few weeks ago, criticizing a celebrity is OK, even a good thing to do.  But let's not mock people for caring, OK?  And let's not minimize interests just because they're traditionally coded as feminine.  Don't be a fucking asshole.