Highly recommend Leo Braudy’s “Frenzy of Renown”. Basically considered the default text in the field of celebrity studies.
Braudy’s hypothesis is the celebrity has always been an inherently quasi-religious phenomenon. Religious only in the sense though of being post-death or of having an afterlife. Attaining celebrity is a transcendent goal in each generation a few can reach.
Every era of society has a means of attaining life in the next world. This is often seen as the ultimate purpose / highest goal one can achieve. The best way to attain this is being known in eras beyond the one you live in. Sometimes this is via extreme piousness (sainthood), military and political conquest (history), or in modern conceptions, being so extremely known in the present it simulates a forever-knowing effect through everyone-knowing.
There is sometimes direct connection. In some places if India, actors who play deity roles in TV-series based on Hindu mythology, get treated like gods by the poor people. In the US Oprah has clearly moved towards becoming spiritual guru/leader, "The Church of O".
Certain actors, like Keanu Reeves. Tom Hanks etc. first get a good guy reputation, then they become like celebrity saints. First they probably were just a good guys, but now it has become a marketing angle that affects their actions.
Also In India people treating as literal deities the movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan / Rajnikanth. One of my Indian friend would bow down to poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger in all seriousness and call him 'Shakti ke devta (English: God of Power)'
In the sense of movies and stardom lasting long after death, sometimes increased, it's a more certain way to an afterlife than any religion. I see it in much simpler terms - wanting to leave a mark.
Afterlife is after all, nothing more than being remembered by those who are still around. The ancient Egyptian pharaohs, particularly Tutankhamen achieved it well. Just not as they imagined it all those years ago.
"What was the nature of MTV? For me it was insatiable desire. That's the very nature of Americans. We want what we don't have. One of the characteristics of the consumers in the early 80's was Shop till you drop. 'I want it. I don't know what it is but I want it.' - Dale Pon, Advertising exec part of the MTV launch campaign in Aug 1981 [From the book I Want My MTV - Tannebaum & Marks]
With MTV giving birth to Micheal Jackson and Madonna the Celeb-industrial complex understood its potential. And here we are 40 years later with a large part of the world run by Celebrities.
MJ must have had half a dozen albums, a movie or three, and half a dozen years of solo career outside the Jackson 5 - who he was singing with for about a decade - by the time MTV got around to launching. All the Thriller video did was boost sales of albums from the already-a-celeb worldwide. His celebrity was launched by being young, cute, and part of a very famous family. Basically being born into that family was enough.
Course they did, but that wasn't MTV's doing. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody invented the music video as we know it, in 1975.
That was the groundbreaking event that changed everything. The video was as important as the single. Every act from that day on wanted to duplicate or surpass "that video". The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star", was a hit in 1979. It was used unchanged in MTV's launch transmission two years later.
Music programmes were increasingly built around videos and clips, rather than performances. You'd get mostly videos with perhaps just one or two acts miming along to their single, or playing in the studio. By 81 all significant releases came with a video. MTV was just a place to play them back to back. Videos were very well established and expected by then. Which is no doubt why MTV launched.
Video certainly changed style over the 80s, and every other decade, just as they had 1975-81, but what doesn't evolve over a decade? The 80s brought more emphasis on production and direction. By the mid and late 80s videos were being shot on film, ran longer with far bigger budgets. Acts were starting to be created for video first, and with MTV and other music programmes in mind.
As I understood it (obviously with some exceptions), music videos were an expense for the band/label that fell under the general purpose of promotional material (like posters, magazine ads, etc.)
Of course they were a chance to be creative and have fun as well, but that can be the case for any promo material. The thing with MTV was that it was such a low cost concept for a network. Instead of paying for programming like most TV, music videos were essentially free (if not sold to the network in a reversal of the typical TV transaction).
It was like a paid infomercial for bands and albums, except actually entertaining in its own right.
And there were music TV programmes before MTV. What changed the game was the concept of a Music Video.
Read the book or the history of media about the impact of that moment.
MTV also did not come up with the concept of a music video, in fact they were about a half decade late to that particular party. You are making a bunch of unqualified statements that are incorrect and then you tell others to read books?
Yeah, I do feel somewhat sorry for Bernhardt though -- she couldn't get the same eternal recognition that people a generation later could in the movies. From the reviews, it seems she had the kind of personality that would surely make her a movie star.
I hadn't even been aware of Sarah Bernhardt until a couple of months ago, when I visited the Alphonse Mucha museum in Prague. It was she who essentially launched his career in art, by commissioning him to make posters for her performances. And through his art, I could feel her personality reaching across time to me. I'm not sure if I'd actually like her performances, but she felt like someone with skill at holding attention, that's for sure.
Braudy’s hypothesis is the celebrity has always been an inherently quasi-religious phenomenon. Religious only in the sense though of being post-death or of having an afterlife. Attaining celebrity is a transcendent goal in each generation a few can reach.
Every era of society has a means of attaining life in the next world. This is often seen as the ultimate purpose / highest goal one can achieve. The best way to attain this is being known in eras beyond the one you live in. Sometimes this is via extreme piousness (sainthood), military and political conquest (history), or in modern conceptions, being so extremely known in the present it simulates a forever-knowing effect through everyone-knowing.
Wish I could describe it better, but here is the book: https://www.amazon.com/Frenzy-Renown-Fame-Its-History/dp/067...