Link to Contemporary Celebrity Culture

[foxynats]

Hi there,

I am currently writing my dissertation on the Picture of Dorian Gray, and how the novel relates to the more current ideals of celebrity culture, and the ideas of the 'newness' of celebrity at the time it was written and how it is an accurate comparison to society today. And perhaps how the downfall of Dorian (as a form of celebrity) is almost a warning against it?

Any help/ideas would be much apprechiated,

Thanks,
xx

[mazz]

Is Dorian a celebrity? He doesn't do anything. He is noted only for his attractive exterior and indulgent life style, famous for being wealthy and only respected for his blood line. (oh, hang on that could be Paris Hilton, come to think of it) You might be onto something there, perhaps you can apply the story to present day. Does Lord Henry represent the media which obsesses over the physical appearance of an attractive person. Does the picture represent Botox? Wilde takes a naive and physically beautiful person and destroys their character. Is he being so evil because he himself resented loss of youth. I didn't like his moralising in the story but maybe that was the point, such ugly thoughts. I never thought of Dorian as beautiful he was weak minded. I think Wilde showed us where this obsession with beauty leads in the end.
"ah, youth is wasted on the young" or something like that.
regards Mazz

[Masterfulfruit]

In regards to the "newness" of the celebrity I assume you mean celebrity authors, and celebrity artists. Wilde disliked the thought of being seen through his art, or at least he claimed that you should not be able to see the author through his work in Critic as an Artist.

I think this story does show that danger trying to become art. Paris Hilton, for example, what is she trying to become through her blonde act, her clothes, her publicity stunts? When one acts/performs (becomes art) it is hard to find the truth again. True life and real experience grow dusty without use, and identity can flee faster than we think.

I don't know if such a warning against the fall of the celebrity can help any, to be sure, there is need of such a warning. But when so many people see you acting out you life out of context, how are they to view you apart from art?

Well I hoped I got some ideas rolling in you head . . .

[PedroWidmar]

the reason I would not pursue this train of thought in a published or academic work , is that dorian grays situation is no abstract of modern celebrity culture. His form and conscience become separate to show man as a hypocrite. The very thing Wilde is saying, seems to me to be that all men are hypocrites. This one (dorian) simply got to look upon his conscience from the outside.
Now transpose that onto modern celebrity figures and i hardly think it fits. I would say that more likely than not (since i am not a celebrity) the modern celebrity walks a different path. He does not in all cases sell himself to his more primmitive desires as was the aim of dorians life. He was not even as adores by most as the modern celebrity. Men left the room for dorian. People we put off by him with an exception of few. perhaps you could follow this line of thought in a tangent and comparre dorian to tom cruise

[Annabel Lee]

Oh I think its a wonderful idea! Its so true. Most young celebrities end up just like Dorian, or worse. I mean look at the Olsen Twins, Lindsy Lohen, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and many others. They start out cute and innocent, and end up in some kind of rehab. The only difference between them and Dorian, is that he had the ability to actually see how horrible his soul looked. But when one really thinks about it, we all have the ability to look inside ourselves and see the ugly stains that sin leaves behind.

[Ron Price]

I offer the following "Two Prose-Poems on Contemporary Celebrities," as a contributionto this thread and leave it to others to make any connections they so desire, if any, to the words of Oscar Wilde.-Ron Price, Tasmania
----------------------
HEROIC

When that last remnant of the Baha’i heroic age (1844-1921) died on 15 July 1932, Ted Kennedy, a man who would become what might very well be called the last remnant of a heroic family was five months old. (1)
(1) Fatimih Sultan was entitled "Varaqiy-i-'Ulyá" or "Greatest Holy Leaf". She was the only daughter of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá'í Faith. Also known as Bahiyyih Khanum, she died on 15 July 1932 and Ted Kennedy was born on 22 February 1932. He died yesterday. This prose-poem will serve for me as a quasi-eulogy. I hope this short piece of writing is enjoyed by a few at this internet site.-Ron Price, George Town, Tasmania

You were in office, Ted, from
the age of thirty when I was just
beginning my own office as that
pioneer-traveller for that young
Canadian Bahá'í community....(1)

You became the third longest
serving senator and I became
the longest serving international
pioneer in Canada. But, Ted, it is
presumptuous to compare my life
to yours, but I’m going to do it....

You had back pain all your years
after ’64 and I had to deal with
bipolar disorder after ’63. You
ran off a bridge in ’69 and I ran
off the rails in ’68 due to...BPD.

You had a long history of public
service stretching until your very
death, just yesterday........Energy,
what energy you had! You’ve got
33 pages now at Wikipedia, Ted,
one of the modern literary monu-
ments and what a list of stuff, Ted!

You were the youngest of nine
children and I was just an only
child. All those schools, Ted...
how did you survive it all? It was
a miracle that you got through
your education. I could go on
and on with this comparison, this
contrast. I’m really not in your...
league, not any where near you.
Here I am at 65—had enough of
meetings, conversations, but still
have little forays into public space.

“Congratulations,” Ted, “goodonyer,”
as they say Downunder. May you live
in peace in that Land of Light, that un-
discovered country, that hole as some
call the place where those go who do
not speak any more. You did enough
talking for a dozen men in that dynasty
of Kennedys who are gone from us now.

(1) Ted Kennedy was in office since November 1962 and I was a pioneer from September 1962.

Ron Price
26 August 2009
-----------------------------
ALLY MCBEAL

In 1999, the year I retired from full-time teaching in Australia, the Ally McBeal show was at the height of its popularity. It won an Emmy Award for the Outstanding Comedy Series. The show ran for six seasons, starred Calista Flockhart in the title role as a young lawyer working in a Boston legal firm and focussed on the romantic and personal lives of the people in a law office. The environment was highly sexualized with dating and flirting, drinking and humour dominating. The show, the series, was heavily music-oriented. Ratings dropped off in the fifth season and the program was cancelled after six seasons. Feminists complained about McBeal’s emotional instability and lack of legal knowledge among many of their other complaints.1 -Ron Price with thanks to 1Ally McBeal, Wikipedia, 2009 and a review of Tim Appelo’s Ally McBeal: The Official Guide, Harper Collins, 1999 by Ian Lace in Film Music on the Web, December 1999.

Some called it the freshest, most deliciously
politically incorrect show to have crossed
the Atlantic: eccentric characters, outrageous
madcap humour, cartoon-like fantasies and
sentimental melodramas. A unisex restroom
where the characters dance, sit on each
other’s laps, discuss their innermost
romantic yearnings, lose frogs down
toilets and where toilet lids operate by
remote control. Some lines like: "Men
are like gum: after you chew awhile,
they loose their flavour;” and "Tell me
what kind of lie works here?" convey
some of the tone of the series and.....

Ally’s in the middle of a popular culture
insistent on offering images of grown
single women: frazzled, self-absorbed
girls with male power and with female
powerlessness seemingly harmless and
cuddly, sexy, safe and sellable. Female
bodies, traditionally sexualized & linked
to emotionality operate as the barrier to
women's full and effective participation
in the professional and societal spheres.1

And I was settling down into retirement
away from the fast lane, from being job-
bed, from endless meetings and endless
conversations--into solitude, into a world
of writing, Bahá'í studies and none of the
Calista Flockhart and that Ally McBeal!!

1 Michele L. Hammers, “Cautionary Tales of Liberation and Female Professionalism: The Case against Ally McBeal,” Western Journal of Communication, Vol. 69, 2005.

Ron Price
19 August 2009
---------------------
That's all folks!

[Ron Price]

Belated thanks, Holder. After nearly four years, it's time I said thanks. I just saw your post today.-Ron

[Ron Price]

JACKIE COLLINS

Part 1:

People can learn a great deal from biography. I have made a habit of this since I retired after 50 years of paid employment and formal studies: 1949 to 1999. The biography of Jackie Collins is the most recent example. Jackie Collins, OBE (October 4, 1937 – September 19, 2015) was a British-American romance novelist. She was born 5 months after the start of the systematic implementation of ‘Abdul-Baha’is Plan for the extension and consolidation of the Baha’i community of North America. It is a Plan I have now been associated with now for over 60 years.

Collins moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, where she lived, became a U.S. citizen and spent most of her career. In the 1960s I finished university, married and went to live among the Inuit on Baffin Island. Collins was expelled from school at the age of 15, but went on to write 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times bestsellers list. In total, her books have sold over 500 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. Eight of her novels have been adapted for the screen, either as films or television mini-series. She was the younger sister of actress Joan Collins.

Part 2:

She made a switch from the screen to becoming a novelist, with her first novel in 1968, The World Is Full of Married Men, becoming a best-seller. It was in 1968 that I taught Inuit children and was hospitalized for 6 months. Four decades later, she admitted she was a "school dropout" and "juvenile delinquent" when she was fifteen: "I'm glad I got all of that out of my system at an early age," she later said, adding that she "never pretended to be a literary writer."

Collins' third novel, Sunday Simmons & Charlie Brick (first published under the title The Hollywood Zoo in the UK and then retitled Sinners worldwide in 1984) was published in 1971 and again made the bestseller lists. I arrived in Australia from Canada having pioneered for the Canadian Baha’i community. I knew nothing of Collins or her work. I taught grade 4 and 5 in Whyalla South Australia.

This was Collins' first novel to be set in the United States. Lovehead followed in 1974 (retitled as The Love Killers in 1989). This novel was Collins' first foray into the world of organized crime, a genre that would later prove to be extremely successful for her. In 2011 she was asked if she was dating anyone, Collins said "I have a man for every occasion", adding: "When I was a kid growing up, I used to read my father's Playboy and I'd see these guys and they had fantastic apartments and cars. I have all of that now. Why would I want to hook myself up with one man when I've had two fantastic men in my life? One was my husband for over 20 years and one was my fiance for six years.”

"Write about what you know," Collins said at a writer's conference. "I love what I do. I fall in love with my characters. They become me, and I become them." The novelist, who has died at the age of 77, was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer more than six years ago but kept her illness almost entirely to herself. Just a week ago, the writer and her actress sister met up in London where they enjoyed dinner together at The Wolseley in Mayfair. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3mMM5beGj Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook1

Part 3:

I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer less than one month ago. Unlike Collins I did not and do not keep it a secret. I do, though, write about what I know and have done for decades. Unlike Collins I completed 18 years of formal education, but unlike Collins I have never sold 1 book, although in cyberspace I sold several copies of an ebook which netted me $1.49. Collins and I are in different leagues, on different pages, had different goals and cosmologies.-Ron Price with thanks to 1Wikipedia, and 2Pioneering Over Five Epochs, 22/9/’15.

Part 4:

Jackie, I knew nothing
about you until you died
just the other day. What a
life you lived becoming in
the process rich and famous,
famous to millions if not me.

Write about what you know
and love was good advice to
writers, and certainly good
advice to me as I go through
my 70s and, it looks like I
will not be far behind you as
you enter those pearly-gates
to add to all those pearls you
acquired while on this earthly
life and all those readers; I am
not in your literary league, Jackie!
Ron Price
22/9/’15
Last edited by RonPrice; Today at 12:55 PM.
Ron Price is a retired teacher, aged 71(in 2015). He taught for 32 years in primary, secondary and post-secondary schools, and was a student for 18 years. He lives with his 68 year old wife in Tasmania. Ron has been a member of the Baha’i Faith for 56 years(in 2015).

[YesNo]

I am sorry to hear about your cancer, Ron.