Celebrity Personas: a global façade.

image citation: http://www.sadmuffin.net/cherrybam/graphics/graphics-celebrity/celebrity009.gif

Celebrities are a cultural phenomenon. In todays modern society many of us idolize them. They are indicative of a lifestyle we all strive for. While most of us don’t actually know a celebrity in person, we know of them “through a collage of mediated texts like films, concert performances, or video clips… celebrity documentaries and gossip magazines” (Duits, L, & Van Romondt Vis, P 2007, P.4) and exposure to other global media forms.

But how much of these celebrities are we actually seeing? Celebrities are “the product of media representation” (Duits, L, & Van Romondt Vis, P 2007, P.4) and should be considered to have dual identities. There is the actual person behind the celebrity and there is the persona of the celebrity. “A persona is the distinctive image of a person built up from their mediated appearances” (Evans, 2005: 19) and because of this, how much can we really know about the person behind the persona?

Let’s say you have clicked ‘like’ on a celebrity’s social media site. You now believe you have a greater glimpse into this celebrities life, however this is not the case. What we see and share on these sites is not a true representation of the celebrity. In between what we see of these personalities, there is a makeup artist, a camera, a photographer, and an editor. In this context it can be said that celebrities pose and present a metaphorical mask of the self for public intake. The more we pull away the layers of these ‘so called’ identities, the more we can see how new/social media can create a public representation that is completely false from its actuality.

But it doesn’t stop there. Are we not all guilty of this form of representation? Personally when I upload an image on social media, I ensure it portrays my worthy features. When we leave our houses, do we not take a look in the mirror to disguise our true identities from societal judgment? What do you think? Do you have a façade?  

Citations:

Duits, L, & Van Romondt Vis, P 2007, 'Girls Make Sense: Girls, Celebrities, and Identities', Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, pp. 1-23, Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 September 2013.

Evans, J. (2005) ‘Celebrity, media and history’ in J. Evans and D. Hesmondhalgh (eds)

Understanding media: Inside celebrity, pp. 12-55. Maidenhead: Open University Press.