For the last 10 days I have living my thesis proposal and review of literature. I have brought in everyone from Roland Barthes to Clifford Geertz to my analysis of the self-representations of Britney Spears (yes, somehow Geertz’s article about Balinese cockfights fits into this). I am actually quite proud of the finished product, what with all my fancy “see figure 1“‘s and all.
All this Tiger Woods hype has actually kind of benefitted by thesis in that respected publications such as Newsweek and the New York Times are starting to cover aspects of celebrity culture. Funnily enough, both of the articles I’m referring to mention the most preliminary text on my bibliography: Daniel Boorstin’s The Image. Why can’t I be writing for the NYT? I know, like, sooo much more! In all seriousness, though, it’s nice to see that topic is getting some serious consideration. Newsweek readers seem to disagree with me judging by the the vast majority of the online comments the article received, accusing Newsweek of going tabloid. I disagree. Neal Gabler’s article tries to explain the phenomenon, giving his own theory as to why we may be so interested. He does not go into any “tabloid” details of Tiger’s exploits. I don’t even feel like going more into this right now because I’ve been fucking breathing Britney Spears, celebrity studies, semiotics, American studies, and feminist studies to the point where I honestly think my brain is going to explode. But I will firmly state that I believe celebrity studies deserves coverage and recognition because the craving for fame seems to have never been greater. With reality television still dominating the airwaves and people crashing the White House to get on the Real Housewives and Perez Hilton having become a celebrity himself and everybody talking about Tiger Woods (even if they’re talking about how much they can’t hearing about Tiger Woods!) this is a topic that deserves consideration. I imagine that in twenty or thirty years there will be a bunch of ‘scholarly’ texts devoted to celebrity culture in America in the 90s and 00s, but just because it’s going on right now people are taking it as gossip and news and nonsense. For example, there are a ton of journal articles, etc. devoted to discussing Marilyn Monroe and what she meant for America in the 50s. Most of these texts were written in the 70s and 80s. I doubt anyone was discussing her impact as she was alive ‘impacting.’
ANYWAY. The one break I was able to take was for my birthday! Conall semi-surprised me with amazing tickets to The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway (my absolutely favorite-st musical from childhood that I saw maybe six times between the ages of five and seventeen in London). I had actually been craving to see it for the last month or so after hearing some blind woman singing “Think of Me” at the 34th street subway stop. The story was still fucking amazing and I still wanted the Phantom and Kristine to end up together and I still was sobbing during the final number, but I have to say: theater definitely sounds better with a British accent. The experience in America itself was different: the audience laughed out loud a lot more and only gave one (standing ovation) round of applause at the end. Oh, and there’s also the dress code. In the UK it’s a slightly more glamorous event and there are usually three encores (here the lights came up almost immediately). Regardless, it was a great birthday present. And here’s a photo of me and my other boyfriend:
