“‘Why I Wear Black’: Celebrity Activism and Cultural Critique at The Golden Globe Awards Show”

TY - ABST

T1 - “‘Why I Wear Black’: Celebrity Activism and Cultural Critique at The Golden Globe Awards Show”

AU - Haastrup, Helle Kannik

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - SCMS Open call Title: ‘Why I Wear Black’: Celebrity Activism and Cultural Critique at The Golden Globe Awards Show Celebrity activism in connection with awards shows has until recently largely been limited to the individual acceptance speeches with Patricia Arquette promoting equal pay as a more recent significant example from 2015. However in 2018 the Time’s Up activism took centre stage at the Golden Globes Awards show in a very different way: Announcing in advance on their respective Instagram accounts the female stars explained that wearing black at this event was an expression of solidarity with women and in particular with the Time’s Up-movement. Time’s Up followed the Weinstein-revelations in New York Times and the #MeToo-wave in the Autumn of 2017. At the red carpet and at the ceremony itself the actresses were accompanied by activists in order to stress the solidarity with other industries. Likewise all the actresses that won an award addressed, in their acceptance speeches, the strenght of solidarity but also stressing the importance of telling women-lead stories on screen. My research question is twofold:1) How the critique of the systemic inequality and abuse of power towards women in the industry is unfolded at the Golden Globes including the red carpet and the ceremony? 2) How is the critique of the representation of women in film and television articulated at the event? Previous research on awards shows has either focussed on the ideological critique (Kellner), the history (Levy) or the authority of the event in the industry (MacDonald) and not on how the media event today is a cross-media event including social media or how it can be used as a political platform for strategic activism by celebrities. Therefore the aim is to establish a theoretical framework combining theories of celebrity activism (Chouliaraki, Drezner) with theories of online self-representation (Marshall, Marwick) and theories of cross-media events (Couldry; Hepp, Dayan), as well as theories of celebrity culture (Dyer, Cashmore) and theories of the representation of women in the media (Rowe, Gill, Mulvey). This framework is applied to a qualitative empirical analysis of a selection of four award-winners Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Elizabeth Moss and their performance on Instagram and at the Golden Globes. Thus this theoretical framework makes it possible to analyse and critically discuss how celebrity activism using social media combined with the Golden Globe event becomes a platform for cultural critique of systemic inequality and of the representation of women. References Chouliaraki, Lillie (2013) The Ironic Spectator. Polity: Cambridge. Dyer, Richard (1979): Stars. BFI Publishing: London. Hepp, Andreas & Couldry, Nick (Ed.) (2009) Media Events in a Global Age. Routledge: London. Marwick, Alice (2015) Instafame: Luxury Selfies and the Attention Economy” In: Public Culture. Gill, Rosalind (2007). Gender in the Media. Polity: Cambridge. Key words Celebrity-activism Star Studies Social-media Media-events Celebrity-culture Bio Helle Kannik Haastrup is Associate Professor, Ph.D. at university of Copenhagen. My research interests are celebrity culture and digital media culture, cross-media analysis and contemporary film and television fictions. In English I have co-edited Intertextuality and the Visual Media and recent publications include “Power Play and Family Ties: Hybrid Fantasy, Network Narrative, and Female Characters”, in the edited volume ”Women of Fire and Ice”(Bloomsbury 2016) and ”Framing the Oscars Live” In: Celebrity Studies (2016).

AB - SCMS Open call Title: ‘Why I Wear Black’: Celebrity Activism and Cultural Critique at The Golden Globe Awards Show Celebrity activism in connection with awards shows has until recently largely been limited to the individual acceptance speeches with Patricia Arquette promoting equal pay as a more recent significant example from 2015. However in 2018 the Time’s Up activism took centre stage at the Golden Globes Awards show in a very different way: Announcing in advance on their respective Instagram accounts the female stars explained that wearing black at this event was an expression of solidarity with women and in particular with the Time’s Up-movement. Time’s Up followed the Weinstein-revelations in New York Times and the #MeToo-wave in the Autumn of 2017. At the red carpet and at the ceremony itself the actresses were accompanied by activists in order to stress the solidarity with other industries. Likewise all the actresses that won an award addressed, in their acceptance speeches, the strenght of solidarity but also stressing the importance of telling women-lead stories on screen. My research question is twofold:1) How the critique of the systemic inequality and abuse of power towards women in the industry is unfolded at the Golden Globes including the red carpet and the ceremony? 2) How is the critique of the representation of women in film and television articulated at the event? Previous research on awards shows has either focussed on the ideological critique (Kellner), the history (Levy) or the authority of the event in the industry (MacDonald) and not on how the media event today is a cross-media event including social media or how it can be used as a political platform for strategic activism by celebrities. Therefore the aim is to establish a theoretical framework combining theories of celebrity activism (Chouliaraki, Drezner) with theories of online self-representation (Marshall, Marwick) and theories of cross-media events (Couldry; Hepp, Dayan), as well as theories of celebrity culture (Dyer, Cashmore) and theories of the representation of women in the media (Rowe, Gill, Mulvey). This framework is applied to a qualitative empirical analysis of a selection of four award-winners Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Elizabeth Moss and their performance on Instagram and at the Golden Globes. Thus this theoretical framework makes it possible to analyse and critically discuss how celebrity activism using social media combined with the Golden Globe event becomes a platform for cultural critique of systemic inequality and of the representation of women. References Chouliaraki, Lillie (2013) The Ironic Spectator. Polity: Cambridge. Dyer, Richard (1979): Stars. BFI Publishing: London. Hepp, Andreas & Couldry, Nick (Ed.) (2009) Media Events in a Global Age. Routledge: London. Marwick, Alice (2015) Instafame: Luxury Selfies and the Attention Economy” In: Public Culture. Gill, Rosalind (2007). Gender in the Media. Polity: Cambridge. Key words Celebrity-activism Star Studies Social-media Media-events Celebrity-culture Bio Helle Kannik Haastrup is Associate Professor, Ph.D. at university of Copenhagen. My research interests are celebrity culture and digital media culture, cross-media analysis and contemporary film and television fictions. In English I have co-edited Intertextuality and the Visual Media and recent publications include “Power Play and Family Ties: Hybrid Fantasy, Network Narrative, and Female Characters”, in the edited volume ”Women of Fire and Ice”(Bloomsbury 2016) and ”Framing the Oscars Live” In: Celebrity Studies (2016).

UR - https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cmstudies.org/resource/resmgr/2019_conference/SCMS2019INTFP-webversion.pdf

M3 - Conference abstract for conference

T2 - Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference 2019 Seattle

Y2 - 12 March 2019 through 17 March 2019

ER -