Recently, there was an article that caught my eye in the New York Times explaining Shia LaBeouf’s most recent performance art: #ALLMYMOVIES. In this article, Wesley Morris explains the problems with fame today, and how it has become almost meaningless. This article not only reminded me of Deirdre’s blog post, “Just Do It,” but it also made me think of the attention to famous people in our world today.
Fame these days, as Morris brings comments on, has lost some of its meaning. Back in the day, movie stars and singers were idolized. Fame was really transformed when technology, such as film and television, took off and brought us stars like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. Idols like these still remain legends to this day. Over time, as technology grew, the ability for people to become famous became more and more easier. With the advancement of computers and news reports, movie and television actors were not the only ones to become famous. Modern day “famous people” stem from many different areas, from people in viral videos to famous youtubers or Vine creators. Sometimes their fame does not even come for their talent, it comes from the literal idea of being popular.
Take the Kardashians for example. Their lives are under constant watch and criticism with their show, “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” A lot of people, like my friends and family, ask: why are these people famous? Why are they being watched as opposed to anyone else? Another question comes from this: is it really worth it to watch people live their lives no matter who it is?
Whether or not it is worth it to idolize these people by religiously watching their shows or checking their tweets, this type of practice has really become apart of our culture. Now back to Shia LaBeouf, who held a free, livestreamed, and public viewing of all of his movies in reverse chronological order, as Deirdre and Morris had mentioned. Morris puts in his article, “stardom is so cheap now that he [LaBeouf] won’t even charge you to watch him watch himself…maybe he needs the attention. Maybe he thinks we’re idiots for giving it to him. Either way, we’re being played with. The presumption is that some of us would actually care to watch him do this.” I personally was interested and intrigued by this piece, and I wish I could have gone. Me and my friends watched a lot of the livestream and it also got a lot of recognition on social media. As Morris wrote, there’s a presumption that anything involving a famous person, no matter what event, will automatically attract a public viewing. This is true, considering that LaBeouf’s piece got so much attention.
LaBeouf is an interesting “famous person” to evaluate for this topic. Deirdre in her previous blog post, “Just Do It,” explained one of his performance arts where he put a bag on his head that read, “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE.” She commented, “by [doing this piece] he was attempting to erase the archives of his life, by proclaiming that his fame, which has played a huge part in his life, was no longer attached to him. However, in #ALLMYMOVIES, LaBeouf is again embracing the archives of his life and work.” LaBeouf, as Deirdre helps explain, is a modern day example of someone who both embraces and steps away from the fame that he is given. Shia LaBeouf shows how even though someone says they are not famous anymore, it’s never really true. We will always remember James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, or even Shia LaBeouf, because their fame was and is such an important part of our lives. We look up to celebrities and care about what they do. Like I said, this constant concern with modern day celebrities lives is really apart of our culture, specifically pop culture.
Our culture has transformed over the years. Moran refers to Raymond Williams’ The Long Revolution, in his Interdisciplinarity, that culture has to have three parts: the ideal, the documentary, and the social. The documentary is “the different ways in which human experience and intellectual life are recorded through various media” (Moran 52). Some things, like what the definition of culture is, will never change. However, what our culture is will. An example of our own modern day version of Williams’ definition of documentary is our constant watch and observation of celebrities and what they do. Some people can be more involved than others, but with modern day technology, it is hard to turn the other way.
So what is being famous anymore? By LaBeouf’s standard, fame could be anything. As time evolves, so do we. Fame does not have to mean being a movie or a television star. It’s really about what people do with that fame that makes a difference in determining what popularity really means.