Synopses & Reviews
We know their likes and dislikes, admire their talents, envy them for daring to be what we can't or what we won't. When they are snatched from us, we feel a personal loss and an unwillingness to let go. And so we transform these mere human beings into icons whose stars often shine in death even more brilliantly than in life.
Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar explores this phenomenon through a series of essays on 14 men and women who are, arguably, the most famous people of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Far more than just a collection of biographies, Dead Celebrities, Living IconS≪/i> documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight.
Review
"Ebert, an independent scholar, examines the myth of media celebrity by looking at the lives of its archetypes: celebrities who have been transformed into icons after their deaths, many who died tragically. He looks at the lives of famous people from the 1930s to the present—Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison,
John F. Kennedy, Andy Warhol, the Beatles, Ronald Reagan, Gianni Versace, Princess Diana, Heath Ledger, and Michael Jackson—how they illustrate the recent rise of the electronic media superstar in US culture, and why our society is obsessed with them, as they are slowly turned into modern equivalents of saints." - Reference & Research Book News
Review
"This volume has a wide range, but remains focused and full of terrific insights on film greats such as Presley, Dean, Monroe, and Morrison. John Ebert does an excellent job of showing how these celebrities and their myth-ed receptions take on qualities of the narratives about religious saints, albeit in a presently-increasingly-non-religious culture." < p="">William G. Doty, Professor emeritus, Blount Undergraduate Institute Faculty Fellow, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Alabama <> < p=""> <>
Review
"In this, his third book, John Ebert has proven himself to be a perceptive student of contemporary culture.
Review
"This book is a superb, often startling meditation on contemporary celebrities and the dual effect of their electronic identities: self-destructive avatars for actors who simultaneously seduce audiences to advance the interests of machines we have learned to worship." < p="">John Shelton Lawrence, co-author of The Myth of the American Superhero <> < p=""> <>
Synopsis
This in-depth series of literary portraits studies celebrities who died in famous and tragic ways--ways that still resonate as archetypal death scenarios in present day.
We know their likes and dislikes, admire their talents, envy them for daring to be what we can't or what we won't. When they are snatched from us, we feel a personal loss and an unwillingness to let go. And so we transform these mere human beings into icons whose stars often shine in death even more brilliantly than in life.
Dead Celebrities, Living Icons: Tragedy and Fame in the Age of the Multimedia Superstar explores this phenomenon through a series of essays on 14 men and women who are, arguably, the most famous people of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The book covers the epoch of the celebrity beginning in the 1930s with Howard Hughes and Walt Disney and continues to the present day with the life and death of Michael Jackson. Far more than just a collection of biographies, Dead Celebrities, Living Icons documents the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity and analyzes the tragic consequences of a human life lived in the glare of the media spotlight.
Synopsis
·13 essays on specific celebrities, each of which is a mini-biography
·10 illustrations from classical works of art and at least one photograph of each celebrity
Synopsis
This in-depth series of literary portraits studies celebrities who died in famous and tragic ways—ways that still resonate as archetypal death scenarios in present day.
Synopsis
As America's renewed fascination with Michael Jackson shows, celebrities can often have as much impact in death as in life. Jackson's death resurrected a much-tarnished image, while the untimely death of actor James Dean still fuels his legendalong with poster and photograph salesafter more than half a century.
Synopsis
• Explores how the phenomenon of the multimedia celebrity superstar became possible as the result of changes in media technology, especially electronic media technology, during the 20th century
• The first book to cross an analysis of the cult and culture of the celebrity with media studies and comparative mythology to capture the sense and significance of an entire epoch of culture
• Fills a gap in the realm of cultural studies by documenting the philosophical importance and significance of the contemporary cult of the celebrity