Today's Goddess: Celebrities and Image
By Heather Martyn -- 11/21/08 Magazines, radio, or television, it seems as though celebrities' faces, bodies, and voices are everywhere, leading society to hold them to a higher esteem and use them as role models for their own daily lives and actions. Leading back to ancient Greek and Roman mythology, society has looked to gods or goddesses for a role model and in modern society those 'gods' and 'goddesses' are celebrities, sports stars and other public figures.
"Television, radio, movies and more provide us with models for modern femininity," stated Brooked E. Duffy of the University of Pennsylvania.
Duffy analyzed Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray as what she termed "domestic goddesses."
These modern-day goddesses are businesswomen who have created media empires, but whose image in society remains from the boardroom and instead focuses on the betterment of the family unit.
Opposite of these "domestic goddesses" is former Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham. Erin A. Meyers of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst discusses Victoria Beckham's new reality television show, "Victoria Beckham: Coming to America" as it deconstructs the image of celebrity and assists her in acquiring individualized fame in the United States.
"Narrative celebrity reality shows us this format to increase the fame of these celebrities by focusing on the minutia of their daily lives," stated Erin A. Meyers of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in her paper on Victoria Beckham's new reality television show. "Victoria Beckham and her reality special go a step further to not only show the real celebrity behind the façade."
Watch the nterview with Brooke E. Duffy of the University of Pennsylvania regarding her paper "Domestic Goddesses in the Corporate Pantheon: Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, and Rachael Ray as Celebrity Brands", as written with Caralyn Green and Riley Snorton, also from the University of Pennsylvania:
Watch the interview with Nehmama Lewis-Persky: