Fame, J.Lo and Toxic Celebrity Culture
I write a lot about fame, fandom and toxic celebrity culture in WHERE ARE YOU, ECHO BLUE? Sometimes it’s hard for me to wrestle with my own disgust of celebrity media AND my fascination with it.
Fame is a construct we’re attached to without even fully recognizing it. We speak about “famous” people like we own them. Kate Middleton owes us an explanation about her health. (And Buckingham Palace gets a pass for throwing her under the bus, handling her horrific cancer diagnosis by using her as carrot for the press.) Britney Spears owed us a narrative about her life, but first she was dragged through the mud for years for our entertainment.
Even if we’re turned off by it, even if we see the problems within it—we want more.
Have you seen the meme’s on TikTok about J.Lo’s hair? I refuse to link to it here because I don’t like how mean and negative people are. But I promise you it’s a pile on. Did she ask for it by creating her visual album? Did she ask for it by being in the spotlight? For making the documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told.
Wesley Morris wrote this about “This Is Me … Now” for the NYT:
Her sort of generosity shouldn’t be taken for granted. Who else this famous would dare risk putting all of her alleged romantic problems out here like this, not as quirks but pathology? …
Lopez doesn’t perform wink-wink. The persona is not a game. And thank God. She’s been turning our heads for 30 years. Yet the stained-glass treatment has eluded her. We’ve never had the stress of constantly assessing her inflating institutional value because the institutions, by and large, have ignored her.
Which is why find the hate around her on TikTok so fascinating. It’s like people want to rag on her just to do it. Because fame doesn’t just serve the person it’s making famous— it feeds us as the public, hungry for details, wanting to celebrate or tear down people we don’t even know. Personally, I love anything that has to do with Jennifer Lopez because of that work ethic, because of her dedication to fame. There is no one else taking herself more seriously than J.Lo, and as a 53-year-old woman, I relate to this wholeheartedly. People will erase us if we let them. J.Lo, for better or for worse, isn’t going away.
I wrote ECHO BLUE with the idea of diving into the dark belly of fame. Echo Blue one of the main characters in my book, started her career as a 10 year old looking for her famous actor father’s attention. There was the drinking, the rebel boyfriend, the awards, the box office hits. She became a Hollywood fixture from ages 10-18 and then she disappeared.
I was afraid to write this in a lot of ways because of my own feelings. I read the “US Showbiz” section of The Daily Mail every day. I’m ashamed to admit that. Sure, I don’t read it to jump on TikTok to make a J.Lo pile on. I do it because I’m fascinated by what’s posted and how. Who in Hollywood are making statements and why.
Look at the fervor around Kate Middleton? Britney? Just because they’re in the public eye, do they deserve such a beating? Such meanness and scrutiny? It’s part of our fixation. And as long as the beast feeds us, we’ll eat.
WHERE ARE YOU ECHO BLUE comes out on July 16! If you love me will you please:
Review on Goodreads.
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Thanks for reading,
Hayley