Jennifer Lawrence, remixed: approaching celebrity through DIY digital culture

Abstract

remixed: approaching celebrity through DIY digital culture Akane Kanai To cite this article: Akane Kanai (2015) Jennifer Lawrence, remixed: approaching celebrity through DIY digital culture, Celebrity Studies, 6:3, 322-340,This article seeks to interrogate the relationship between two gendered aspects of celebrity: the way in which female celebrities are used to determine normative femininity in a postfeminist regulatory environment, and the way their audiences are primarily imagined as young and female. I aim to consider the intersections of this relationship by conducting an analysis of the discursive and affective practices of a feminine digital public where displays of digitally remixed culture are used to enact identity. Consisting of the circulation of self-representative 'GIF reaction' blogs authored by young women on blogging social network Tumblr, I analyse how popular young actress Jennifer Lawrence is discursively and affectively sampled and remixed by these bloggers. These blogs match GIF (or .gif) images excerpted from film, television and other popular culture with self-authored captions to construct narratives of youthful femininity documenting feelings and reactions to quotidian situations. I draw together celebrity studies work and the work of feminist scholars of online identity to ask how young women, as subjects who are addressed by celebrity as a vehicle for broader, postfeminist narratives, use Lawrence's gendered, affective labour in their own identity work in a social, digital environment. Here, the blogs reuse and reconstruct Lawrence's skilful affective navigation of postfeminist demands and her celebrity signification of carefree and fun authenticity in narrating the bloggers' own negotiations of femininity.

The allure of celebrities: unpacking their polysemic consumer appeal

“…The proponents of the more recent celebrity-as-social-levelling perspective (i.e. Hills, 2016;Kanai, 2015;Marshall, 1997;Turner, 2004), however, have taken a more optimistic point of view by building on Alberoni's (2006) original work with the desire to reconcile the celebrity literature with the realities of actual celebrities. For them, celebrity culture is the natural endpoint in a long process of democratisation in capitalist consumer culture (Turner, 2004).…”

“…Drawing on individual celebrities as examples, Marshall (1997), Turner (2004) and Redmond (2014) also argue that celebrities are visual representations of social mobility in democratic societies, where fame is the ultimate reward for a person's effort in self-improvement. Thus, celebrities serve as semiotic signifiers of those very same democratic values and personal freedom that capitalist consumer culture bestows on each of us through a widely available access to media technologies and consumer products (Hills, 2016;Kanai, 2015).…”

“…And even if we as consumers do not rise to fame ourselves, we are still empowered as audiences to make or break the career of celebrities through our consumption preferences and choices in highly competitive entertainment markets (Marshall, 1997); be it by buying or downloading their music, watching their films, voting for certain contestants on reality TV shows or by indulging ourselves in their private lives through the exchange of gossip in popular media outlets (Hermes, 2006;Kanai, 2015). While the two dominant perspectives in media studies differ in their views on the meaning of celebrity in contemporary culture, both share a focus that is centred on the idea that celebrity is mainly a cultural signifier that reflects the human desire for standing out from the crowd (Giles, 2006;Turner, 2004).…”

“…In our increasingly anonymous and 'individualised' society, where the individual experiences a growing feeling of social isolation from community, a certain appeal of the celebrity to the individual consumer seems to lie in providing the latter with the potential opportunity to link up, meet and even form social bonds with other consumers that share the same interests (Henry and Caldwell, 2007;Hills, 2016). As it seems only natural that many consumers would not only like to enjoy or to criticise a celebrity's performances and creative work in the social company of like-minded consumers, but would also share their mutual admiration (or dislike) for the celebrity as 'the performer ' and/or 'the 'private' person' with each other in so-called fan (or anti-fan) communities (Kanai, 2015;O'Guinn, 1991), it comes as no surprise that the social interaction, dynamics and sharing rituals among fan community members have caught the specific research interests of both CCT (Henry and Caldwell, 2007;Hewer and Hamilton, 2012;O'Guinn, 1991) and fan scholars (Barbas, 2001;Hills, 2002Hills, , 2016Kanai, 2015).…”

Travel style on Pinterest: Celebrity bodies as sites of labour and inspiration

“…Delevingne is wearing a black beanie hat over her long, blonde hair, dark sunglasses, a loose-fitting grey sweatshirt with 'TRAPSTAR' written along each sleeve, black skinny jeans and black high-top leather shoes with gold zips. The outfit suggests a young, cool femininity that combines heterosexual desirability with a relaxed boyishness (Kanai 2015), and Delevingne wheels a suitcase while carrying two shoulder bags with apparent ease. The image had been repinned to 12.4K boards, and one Pinterest user commented that she would be very happy to wear Delevigne's outfit on 'most days'.…”