Celebrity Worship

This week I read the essay’s “Celebrity and Religion” by Chris Rojek from the book “Stardom and Celebrity” by Sean Redmond and Su Holmes. The article intends to link the similarities between celebrity worship to religious practices and beliefs.

The article begins with explaining what happens in celebrity worship - that is how the participant obsesses and projects their feelings on to the celebrity creating an emotional dependency that will never be shared (p.171).  Rojek argues that celebrity worship is used to escape life’s hardships through these imaginary emotional relations.

The article discuss what is called Para-social interaction which is when a emotional relationship is developed through the use of mass media with no face to face contact involved.  The emotional relationship is developed from the representations of a celebrity thorough the use of media.

Why celebrities? Rojek argues that celebrities offer a

“powerful affirmations of belonging, recognition and meaning in the midst of the lives of their audiences” (p. 172).

Whilst the participant has no direct contact with the celebrity they can be compensated and fed through the information provided by mass media in magazines, television, interviews and biographies to name a few.  

The article than goes on to link similarities in celebrity worship and religious worship that is celebrities are thought of to be god like, to possess magical or extraordinary powers.  Emile Durkheim wrote about the term ‘collective effervescence’ which is the emotional state of excitement or even ecstasy created through religious worship and experiences (172). Rojek links ‘collective effervescence’ these emotional states to that of celebrity worship. Other similarities that Rojek links between celebrity worship and religious practice are the act of preserving relics from the deceased. Pilgrimages are also evident in celebrity culture and religious practices (175).  

Rojek finishes by asserting that celebrity worship is not nor will it ever be a substitute for religious practice, rather it is

“ a milieu in which religious recognition and belongings are now enacted” (179).

Whilst celebrity culture may provide a sacred significance to some participants Rojek argues that it is a disjointed and unbalanced culture that is unable to maintain balanced spiritual order (180).

References:

Rojek, C. 2007. Celebrity and Religion. In Sean Redmond and Su Holmes Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader. 171-180. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Images:

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