Abstract
Stories are everywhere. We tell stories and we are in stories. Stories tell about us – an identity framework by which we may recognize who we are in the world, but also who we could be. Real Lives, Celebrity Stories collects research exploring the narratives of real people, both ‘ordinary’ folk and celebrities, told using multiple media across cultures and history. The book uses narrative theory to examine how we create, promote and consume stories of real people, but also how we construct our own stories of the self.
While it has long been acknowledged that narratives are employed as a fundamental method for expressing individual experience and exchanging knowledge in all cultures, histories and languages, today we have a variety of platforms from which to tell our stories in both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media formats. Digital media allow more people to more widely tell their stories, using blogs, YouTube, Twitter or other social media network sites. Everyday experiences of ordinary people fill our webpages and newsfeeds, alongside the gossip of our favourite celebrities. Today’s narratives are no longer limited to small social circles. We can broadcast worldwide. Additionally, as readers, we are not limited to consuming edited, published text. We can seek out like-minded people and read their stories located deep in the depths of the web. The chapters in this volume explore many types of narratives and interrogate how we read, share and create stories using multiple storytelling formats.
The book comprises 10 chapters separated in four parts. Part 1 focuses on the ‘stories we live by’. These studies closely examine familiar story structures and narrative constructs, and how they appear in multimedia formats. In Chapter 1, Thomas discusses the metaphors used to describe ‘cyberspace’ and how these metaphors have evolved to shape our experiences with online narratives. Chapter 2 sees Batty investigate media texts’ constructions of character and ‘the importance of the character journey’ (p. 5) in the realm of reality television.
Part 2, ‘transforming the ordinary/everyday’, focuses on the movement in narrative from one state of affairs to another as the central character undergoes some form of transformation. These chapters examine contemporary variations of transformative narratives by examining everyday experiences made extraordinary through public consumption. In Chapter 3, Bradley problematizes the ethical body by examining the transformation narrative structure used to chronicle people’s body transformations on the television show Supersize vs Superskinny. Chapter 4, by Grennan, theorizes the participatory artwork by artists Rirkrit Tiravanija, Santiago Sierra and Jeremy Deller, and the real-time experiences of people participating in their artwork. Round, in Chapter 5, highlights the four-decade story of ‘our man’ (p. 95) Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor and the examination by this comic of the ‘universal experience and the individual human condition’ (p. 95).
Part 3 considers the politics associated with representing real people in research and in telling real people’s stories. Chapter 6 discusses the paradox of the ethnographer as Lambrou recounts her experience of researching personal experiences of trauma while interviewing individuals who experienced the 2005 subway bombing in London and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. In Chapter 7, Lilleker examines the oral tradition of political storytelling by focusing on the narratives of Barack Obama and his brand during the 2008 US presidential election campaign. Chapter 8, by Kimber, investigates the cult of celebrity and the blurring of fact and fiction in documenting the story of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas in three films that present his life and crimes.
Part 4, ‘celebrity lives reimagined’, explores celebrities’ lives and the blurring of fact and fiction by fans, relatives and cities narrating particular celebrity stories. In Chapter 9, Thomas reviews Real Person Fiction (RPF), a subgenre of fanfiction, and the muddied boundaries of public and private for the celebrities starring in these stories. The author presents the ethics and aesthetics used by writers and readers of the genre. Chapter 10, by Pearson, theorizes celebrity studies and memory studies by examining the continued posthumous circulation of Frank Sinatra’s celebrity image by family and fans, as well as official and unofficial commemorations in various cities affirming a connection to the singer.
This well-organized volume provides a number of case studies that seek to overcome critical and conceptual divisions traditionally found between narrative theorists and media and cultural theorists. The volume accomplishes this by highlighting studies that draw on narrative, linguistic, media, film and cultural theories, while examining a wide range of media. The chapters probe the notion of ‘fixed boundaries’ (p. 2) between these theories and their traditional disciplines, while also probing categories of fiction/nonfiction, author/reader and self/other. Rather than separating ‘real people’ and ‘celebrities’, this volume succeeds in looking at ‘real people in the media and celebrities alongside one another’ (p. 2) – a practical measure, given the increasing interconnection and interdependence of ordinary people and celebrities. As well, it suggests that the stories told by real people and celebrities may share similar motivations and methods for their creation, their sustainability and the audience’s response. This makes it a valuable resource for scholars as it brings together diverse critical approaches and multiple methods to interrogate the myriad ways people narrate their lives.