Queen Bee's Stardom

            According to Variety, Beyonce’s Instagram, announcing she is pregnant, hit an all time record last week. What is amazing to me is that Beyonce is so famous, so admired and loved world wide, that Variety actually published an article to announce this record. Social media all time high, Beyonce celebrity and fame at an all time high.

The article discusses Beyonce’s “engagements” meaning her “likes and comments”. Spangler writes how Beyonce “averages 1.6 million engagements”. He also breaks down Instagram fame and compares Queen Bee to other social media influences. Although she has less followers than Arriana Grande and Selena Gomez, she still peaked with this post.

            Queen Bee’s announcement and Instagram post is still buzzing; it’s been almost two weeks and everyone I know has mentioned the news. I believe that Beyonce planned out this post for awhile, waiting for the right moment and the perfect photo to excite her fans.

http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/beyonce-instagram-record-twins-pregnancy-photo-1201975602/

Core Response: The Spy in The Grey Flannel Suit

The Spy in The Grey Flannel Suit discusses identity as a performance. This becomes particularly interesting in terms of cinema because obviously the actor is performing, creating a layered performance that both reflects and reinforces dominant ideologies about how to properly be a certain identity, such as how to be a man, a woman, gay, straight etc. What the grey suit, and Carey Grant, symbolize is how hegemonic masculinity can shift and fluctuate while still maintaining its hold. While typically women were seen as consumers and men as producers, the need to create a larger market combined with shifting gender roles during the war led to an advertising industry that not only targeted women but also men. Here lies the grey suit, where men can somewhat express their individuality by changing the color of the suit. While there were cultural anxieties about men becoming less masculine and weak, Grant was able to justify this through presenting the stereotype of what America feared (a wealthy mama’s boy who can’t defend himself and is tricked by a women) to a smart man who is able to defeat evil. This not only promotes a political narrative, but also in the end reinforces his original identity. He will go back to advertising and his comfy lifestyle, and this time with Eve who we may assume he marries, but we have grown to defend and support this character. This shows how media is able to both perpetuate but also create the changing nature of dominant ideologies. Of course, Grant still played masculine, heterosexual characters so he still was within the dominant paradigm and did not radically challenge the status quo.

I think this is all very interesting in relation to Butler’s theorization on gender as a performance. The fact that he was confused for Kaplan, and nobody was surprised when they finally met the mysterious “Kaplan” reveals that Roger fits in with the typical image of a man during this time. Roger and Kaplan are interchangeable in a sense because men during this time would perform gender along the same confines: they would wear suits, talk in a certain way and walk in a certain way to reinforce their proximity to the acceptable form of masculinity. I think the idea of masculinity as a performance in addition with changing notions of masculinity makes cinema during the post-War period particularly fascinating. Films had to both portray and challenge dominant ideologies. North by Northwest both raises up the strong heroic male but also showcases Roger as sentimental, shown through the final line. Therefore, the film does not necessarily define what a man should look like, but perhaps just reflects that the definition of a man was drastically changing during this time. This ambivalent portrayal of masculinity made the film particularly fascinating to me.  The film helps mediate these conflicting portrayals of man by adopting elements from both, and presenting Roger as a mix between the old and the new. I slightly disagree with the author in the sense that I think Roger never seems totally in control, and rather seems quite helpless most of the time and is mainly helped by outside forces (such as Eve). However, he is courageous and the film portrays that as respectable. 

Core Response: Big Men Masculinity and Genre

In reading Steven Cohan's argument, he brings up the societal standards that men had to deal with in the fifties demonstrated by Cary Grant in North by Northwest. He indicates that the poster portrays the femme fatale, Eve, in a domineering position over Cary Grant. He then points out that that snapshot calls attention to that particular scene in the movie in which the audience can realize that Eve is not who she says she is, but a representation of both good and bad in the male counterpart.

Eve represents both dangerous seduction and also the pathway to success for Roger Thornhill. Cohan argues that Hitchcock makes their relationship an example of marriage in the fifties. He also highlights how the movie focuses on the "togetherness" of couples and how the two need one another to be strong and successful. Without Eve, Roger Thornhill is emasculated and has a long list of failed marriages to prove his lack of responsibility. It is only till later on that he is able to prove his masculinity by rescuing Eve from a dangling ledge and then proposing to her.

What I found interesting in this article was the fact that Cohan's argument examines the societal pressures put on men in society, reflected in cinema. Hitchcock shows us the chaos that surrounds Roger Thornhill when challenging the societal standards of the fifties. Hitchcock's reflections are what audiences take away from the movie and then, in return, expect of men in society.  Do men have to be the bread winners? Do men have to be married to be considered interesting? Hitchcock also portrays Thornhill as weak when it comes to sex, meaning he bends at anything when tempted by a female. Cary Grant in that sense is representing the flaws and weaknesses of the male and how it ultimately can get him into trouble.

Finally, I find it interesting that Cohan places the emphasis on the expectations of the male in North by Northwest rather than the female. The conclusion of the movie involves all of Roger's lost manhood being revived. This is only accomplished by Roger finally allowing himself to follow the standards that were expected of men in the fifties: finding a woman he can become married to, thus demonstrating that he is no longer boring and complacent to society, further, proving his masculinity.

Do as the Celebrities Do

Last week's reading, particularly Dyer's commentary on the contradiction of ordinariness in celebrities, had me thinking about Us Weekly's "Star's: They're Just Like Us!" segment. Dyer explains that some fans see stars as the popular figures they are because of something that makes them extraordinary, something they are better at than the rest of us. I find the whole thing a bit contradictory, and also entertaining. We enjoy putting celebrities on a pedestal, yet at the same time we like to bring them down to earth and humanize them, in the most literal instances. Part of it is just pushing a fangirling culture, but perhaps at times this can have a positive effect. With all the nasty scrutiny, invasion of privacy, and criticism celebrities receive, maybe it is important to remind ourselves that at the end of the day they are, after all, just humans too. Except Ryan Seacrest. He is definitely an alien.

Shifting Tides: Taylor Swift and the Victim Narrative

One thing I find very fascinating is how quickly public perception on certain celebrities can shift from positive to negative to positive again. This mob mentality is indicative of social media and how opinions are shared at large. I am not sure of the timeline exactly, but it seems Taylor became America’s sweetheart after she was “humiliated” on stage by Kanye. However, this positivity seemed short-lived. In middle/ high school there was a period where it seemed pretty common to not like Taylor Swift. The critiques of her were rooted in thinly-disguised sexist claims: she is a man eater, she is a crazy ex-girlfriend, she gets around too much. I always was uncomfortable with this because I disliked Taylor, but not for these reasons. I dislike her because her public image did not seem to match with what I thought she was actually like. During her last two albums, I would argue she gained popularity again and she was viewed more positively specifically in terms of her promoting a “cool normal girl” aesthetic through posting pictures of her cats and her embrace of popular feminism through songs like “shake it off” and her omnipresent girl squad. However, I have noticed that public opinion on Swift seems to have shifted towards distaste again. I think part of this was due to a look at her feminism and how it lacked inclusivity. For example, she dances through disembodied black bodies and attempts to twerk in the Shake it Off video. Also, she made apathetic statements regarding police brutality, the Pulse massacre and the women’s march. Also, the Kanye West/ Kim K/ Taylor debacle that happened last year, that I think revealed what I had always suspected, hinted that there could be something fake and manipulative about Swift. If anything, it showcased that she is well aware of the victim identity she possesses. Anyway, I found this very very interesting article about how Swift has been able to position herself as a (white) victim and how this narrative has been used in both song and news publications to make her career. It is an interesting read, here is the link.

Note: I think Taylor is an incredibly talented song-writer and I loved her last album. I think a decent portion of the hate she gets is rooted in double-standards and sexism in the music industry. However, I also think it is important to be critical of what we consume. 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/elliewoodward/how-taylor-swift-played-the-victim-and-made-her-entire-caree?utm_term=.rqJ6WwX0O4#.liMj8kaorw

Happy Sports Day e'erybody!! (in Jeff Foxworthy's voice)

In honor of the Super Bowl, which I am ignoring as I type this, I give you an intersection of celebrity and sports news, fresh from FoxSports.

Jeff Foxworthy is the first celebrity to greet
you in the article. And they caption this image
with a sick burn.

Who needs to actually watch the football game when you can hear people watching it across the street...

......

.....and when you can instead enjoy a Buzzfeed-like list of celebrity Patriots/Falcons fans!!

Ranked by how much the author and his FoxSportsBuddies would like to binge drink with them after "the big game".

One of the highlights of the article comes early on.
Of course, he wouldn't make my list at all.
He can have a beer by himself.
Racist.

It's fun when our Empire's favorite circenses - football and The Movies - tackle each other in the media field.

It's also fun when you realize while reading the article that you have been telling people that the Seahawks were playing for weeks - and the Seahawks, indeed, are not playing.

Is one lying, if one never bothered to Google the truth?

I'd be stoked if you guys checked it out and commented @me on whether the article was what you expected it to be (not for me) and what you thought about how the celebrities chosen/the commentary relates to gender representation (I thought things).

But if it's tl:dr, let me at least present to you Sir Elton John, resplendent in his gameday Adidas:

Heart eyes :)