Dirk Schulz - PanPoptIcons: Celebrities Under Surveillance

Women under Surveillance Symposium | KHM | 2. Dez. 2015
wus.khm.de
While fame and stardom apparently remain desirable currencies in our society, the paradigms which determine success and failure have visibly changed. On the one hand the proliferation of public exposures of "ordinary people" has undermined the notion of exceptionality as being necessary for fame. On the other hand, while pop culture has always contributed to the public negotiation of norms and values, the current manifestations of judge and jury through different media turn celebrities into detainees and their monitoring into a panoptical affair. Taking into account that "[i]n modern societies people are increasingly watched, and their activities documented and classified with a view to creating populations that conform to social norms" (Inglis: 5) the different approach to celebrities may be indicative of a a generally increasing surveillance culture. They nowadays have to accept the ongoing documentation of their doings, thereby ceaselessly supplying images for a "mediarena", in which their on- and offstage conduct, especially in relation to sex, gender and sexuality is discussed and judged. This talk addresses the growing panoptical normalization and regulation in regard to gender and sexuality through celebrity culture.