La La Land, A Star is Born, Almost Famous, Sunset Boulevard, Chicago and Dream Girls… All of these films talk about the same thing: the dream of being famous. And the desire for the money, the legacy, the fans, and everything that is sold with it.
But is all of that actually real or is the idea of being famous an ideal fabricated by the entertainment industry to keep attracting new artists and the public to, therefore, keep making more money?
When we’re kids, our creativity level is at its peak and we’re often encouraged to dream big. Who never dreamed of being remembered and loved forever by a crowd? Afterall, famous artists are, apparently, free, and have fun all the time!
As we get older, we realize that it’s just not that simple, that this lifestyle is certainly not for everyone. But if you are, in some way, valuable to the industry, you could “make it” there.
Obviously, it isn’t easy. But when your goal is high, the run is worth the risk.
However, you have to be careful not to fall, because there is no turning back. This dark hole includes, at times, sacrificing your dignity, identity, body, mental health and freedom.
the role that the media plays in all of this
We all know (or at least should) that the only thing that can keep an industry running is money. Yes, the entertainment industry is indeed unique and has helped to create many affectionate memories for each and every one of us, but its real interest is to capitalize and remain relevant.
To understand the real role that the media secretly has in an artist’s life, we have to understand what the cultural industry is really all about.
‘Cultural Industry’ is a term coined in 1940 by students of the Frankfurt School, mainly Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, authors of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). They categorize the cultural industry as a derivation of the capitalist system, where the priority is to: make money, follow the pattern of media that keeps bringing public, reproduction of social inequality and alienation of the public (the following of the same formula weakens the individual critical thinking), all in order to make more money and that ends up minimizing creativity, creates a mass culture focused on keep the money rolling and manipulation of the public’s interests.
Despite all of those negative aspects, there are still some positives amongst the chaos. Mass culture helps to democratize the culture fast and easy and give art a new meaning. Life and society in general, but especially art itself, is constantly changing, and that freshness can always shake things up a little and create new forms of innovation. However, the negative bits still outweigh those positive points in the bigger picture.
That being said, we have to understand that the industry tends to see artists as a product more than real people -which is very problematic to say the least. Due to that fact, women, already objectified in society, are often hypersexualized, because it sells and that means that it feeds the cultural ‘machine’ of money making.
But, just because women are doing it, does it mean they are ok with it? Not necessarily. Maybe they couldn’t say no to it because, otherwise, they would be fired, have their reputations ruined and would be forced to stop working with this one thing that has always been their dream. And that kind of thinking leads to most of them having to go under profound traumas and abuses, because if you open your mouth about it, you’re gone.
The world-wide famous singer Lady Gaga, in 2014, while participating in Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry’s show The Me You Can’t See, opened up for the first time about the sexual assault she suffered by a musical producer when she was only 19.
“I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, ‘Take your clothes off,’” she said. “And I said no. And I left, and they told me they were going to burn all of my music. And they didn’t stop. They didn’t stop asking me, and I just froze and – I don’t even remember.” Said the singer. “The person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner”.
This serious declaration just evidences even more how abusive and violent this industry can really be. And these types of crime have to stop.
The #Me Too movement is another proof of how cruel and repugnating the industry can really be, especially to women. The action skyrocked in social media all over the world in 2017.
The American actress Alyssa Milano accused the famous Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault and asked the other women who were also attacked by him to speak up. Tarana Burke, an activist that created the hashtag (#MeToo) years before (in 2006), is a co-founder of the Me Too organization, which offers social assistance to victims and courses that help to cope with the traumas left.
a fine line: are artists really free or are they actually being secretly (or not that secretly) controlled by the media?
As said earlier, the cultural industry and media sells the dream of being famous and the romanization of doing anything to achieve it, creating a type of unbreakable invisible string around the artists that isn’t spoken of. It really focuses on the weaknesses of these people to make the most money out of it.
One clear example is the iconic singer Britney Spears. In 2023, she finally decided to speak out about the truth behind all the glamour through her autobiography The Woman In Me.
Ever since the 90’s, Britney has conquered the world as a pop star. However, she was under a conservatorship administered by her dad, after some rough personal times of mental health issues and substance abuse that she went through. She states in the book that her father had an abusive relationship with her, watching her every move, saying awful things and keeping her practically stuck at home for 13 years.
“But fame? That world isn’t real, my friends. It’s. Not. Real.”/ “As if gaining weight was something unkind I had done to them personally, a betrayal. At what point did I promise to stay 17 for the rest of my life?”/“There is so much freedom in being anonymous”
A quote like this is evidence of how much pressure and control by the media these artists are under. It isn’t only about talent. It’s, mostly, about being the nearest to perfection, keep being popular and lucrative to the industry, just like products.
As we can see, being famous isn’t always glamorous and certainly isn’t a dream. The media is powerful and can pull a lot of strings to control someone’s entire life. But it isn’t all lost.
The world can be very cruel, especially to people who are exposed and controlled all the time. But, despite all the terrible things mentioned earlier, there still is hope for a better future.
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The article above was edited and translated by Ana Beatriz Carvalho Sapata.
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