After Monday’s class discussion on the contradictions stars portray I started to think about the various stars I am a fan of and what contradictions they exhibit and possibly why they exhibit these contradictions. First off, I am a fan of Marilyn Manson and his shock rock music but after looking at him more closely I noticed he is not only a rebel but also an intellect, something that contradicts quite strongly with his main persona of a rebel. In his shows, appearance and persona he portrays an attitude of uncaring and lackadaisicalness when in reality he is up to date on social and political issues and has a very strong stance on both. Through interviews, one is able to see this intellectual side of the shock rocker and most are typically, well, shocked.
Other stars, however, are not as obvious. For example, Kurt Cobain was a successful grunge rock star that in private struggled with his success. He was very anti-establishment and at times did not like the fame. However, on the other hand he is one of the most successful and famous musicians of all time, showing that he put most of his energy and life into become that successful, which contradicts his hate for the fame and establishment.
Lucy Ball is another celebrity that has a contradicting personal life and character life. On her hit television show, Ball played Lucy Ricardo, a very flamboyant, ditzy and unintelligent woman who was always getting herself into trouble trying to become a star. However, in Ball’s personal life, she was a hard hitting business woman who created, along with her husband, one of the first long running television shows of all time. She was innovative in the fact that she was one of the first people who started recording television shows on film so that they could be seen over and over again. This changed the industry and television watching. Unlike her character in I Love Lucy, Ball was successful and very intelligent, again contradicting her character persona.
Unlike Manson, Cobain and Ball, there are other stars that seem to start contradicting themselves later in their career and can even be seen as rebelling towards their star persona. One example of this is Britney Spears. Early in her career she seemed to play along with and fit her start persona of the virginal girl next door and it wasn’t until later that she drastically contradicted that persona in her personal life. Even though she contradicted her persona with the clothing she wore in her early career it wasn’t until later that her actions became provocative.
Even though fans would like to categorize celebrities into certain groups and personas, it is not always that easy. Everyone from Lucy Ball to Marilyn Manson have star contradictions that make their personality and star qualities all that more complicated. Even though they may seem to be saying a certain statement about society, behind the curtains they may be preaching a whole different idea.
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