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Culture Study Podcast

Why Do We Get So Mad at Celebrities?

Culture Study Podcast

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5789 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I spent years of my life studying celebrity images and what makes them meaningful to us. A celebrity’s actions or words can make or deepen our connection to them — or they can really piss us off. But why? Is it just a classic case of dashed expectations? What makes, oh, Taylor Swift hanging out with Matty Healy so disappointing? For this episode, I asked celebrity feelings expert Margaret H. Willison to come answer your questions about the broad contours of celebrity-directed anger — and work through some very specific examples. I promise: you’ll leave this episode with a more textured understanding of your own celebrity feelings.Note: This episode was taped before the conversation re: the Met Ball and celebrity silence on Gaza; you can read more about it here.Show Notes:Follow Margaret on Instagram (her account is a delight) and subscribe to her newsletter, Two Bossy DamesRegister for Margaret’s TTPD Listening Party on May 19th and the Taylor Swift pilgrimage on Cape Cod in NovemberLearn more about Not Sorry Productions, and sign up for the Common Ground newsletterA write-up of Plan B distribution at Olivia Rodrigo’s St. Louis show (how much of this was her call now seems up for debate)Travis Kelce’s unearthed tweetsJia Tolentino on Matty HealeyIf you want to read my favorite star study of all time — on Marilyn Monroe — it’s in Richard Dyer’s Heavenly Bodies. It’s somewhat academic but also very accessible for an academic text. I could read it every day. Dyer also wrote the definitive star study of Fonda in Stars, which is out of print but lots of used copies floating aroundA bit of a tangent but if you want to read a really great academic history of the economic imperatives of the Red Scare & The Hollywood Ten, whew this is itI’ve been thinking about the ethics of private jets (and privacy, and labor) amidst the conversations re: the WNBA moving to charteringTake a look at Anna Marie Tendler’s art!!!Just for laughs, a TikTok imagining Taylor Swift’s PR in the Matty Healy eraWe’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:Home renovation shows + class! (Our guest is Jonathan Menjivar, host of Classy. If you haven’t read his interview in the newsletter, it’s fantastic.)What’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help. Co-host isVirginia Sole-Smith, so it’s gonna be great)Weird TikTok trends you’re seeing on your FYPFor our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORESBen Affleck (specifically within the framework of Ambition)Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)Anything you need advice or want musings onYou can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)For today’s discussion: What do you think celebrities owe to the general public? Who are your problematic faves, and how have you reconciled your feelings about them? Or how do you feel about the Matty Healy and the John Mulaney of it all?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What do Bridgerton, Star Wars, the term goblin mode, and the Barbie movie all have in common?

0:07.5

That's right, they're part of the discourse, the constant, constant online discourse.

0:14.2

They're also all episode topics from my new favorite show, Material Girls, a pop culture podcast that uses critical theory to understand

0:21.9

the zeitgeist.

0:23.4

If you like Culture Study, you have to check out this bi-weekly show hosted by two queer

0:27.4

Canadian academics who love to get to the bottom of why certain things become popular and

0:32.8

what that popularity tells us about society.

0:35.5

Each episode, they tackle a piece of pop culture, whether that's a book,

0:38.9

movie, meme, or song, and ask, why this and why now? And guess what? I was on a recent

0:46.1

episode about athleisure, and let me tell you, these hosts, they do their research. We talked

0:52.8

about post-World War II manufacturing, second wave

0:55.7

feminism, the neoliberal collapse of work and leisure, the rise of Chip Wilson's Lulu Lemon

1:00.8

empire, and so much more. Be sure to check out Material Girls wherever you get your podcasts

1:06.1

or head to materialgirlspod.com to learn more. That's materialgirlspod.com.

1:14.7

So this past spring, I designed and led a course called Taylor Swift and Confessional

1:19.6

Writing. And it was like three to four weeks into this that it became apparent that Taylor Swift

1:26.3

was seriously dating Maddie Healy.

1:28.6

And I was gobsmacked by the degree of grief the people in the class felt.

1:36.8

It was like, can I even be a fan of her anymore? And I had only heard of Maddie Healy

1:43.2

occasionally, like, I've listened to a couple

1:46.2

songs by the 1975 like that was where I was in my Maddie Healy knowledge as well yeah like everyone

1:52.2

who's been to a brewery on one of the coasts yes you know I immediately started looking into it

...

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