the cult of celebrity - Gyldendal Uddannelse

Transcription

American pop artist Andy Warhol started making his famous Marilyn silkscreen prints
after actress Marilyn Monroe's sudden death in 1962. This series is from 1967.
THE CULT OF CELEBRITY
Stars, Fans and Wannabes
“In the future, everyone will be
world-famous for 15 minutes.”
Andy Warhol
2
ANGLES
3
INTRODUCTION
Juliet, Naked is a novel about an English couple, Annie
and Duncan, and a fictitious American musician,
Tucker Crowe. It is titled after one of Crowe’s albums.
Below are the first pages of the book.
English author Nick Hornby (b. 1957) is best known for the
novels High Fidelity and About a Boy. Music or sport often
plays an important role in the lives of his (male) characters.
Juliet, Naked
INTRODUCTORY QUESTIONS
1.
Define the words star (person) and fan.
2.
Are you a fan of any stars? If so, who and why?
3.
Do you have dreams of becoming a star, or at least famous,
yourself? Why/not?
4.
5.
6.
7.
4
ANGLES
A wide-spread cult of celebrity,
or fascination with fame
and celebrities, seems to have
come into existence in recent
decades. What evidence do you
see of this trend for instance on
television or the Internet?
Do you think that young people
today are particularly influenced
by the trend? Why/not?
In 1968 the artist Andy Warhol
made the prediction quoted on
the previous page. Was he
right? Why/not?
Describe the cartoons below
and explain what makes
them (more or less) funny.
Nick Hornby, 2009
T
hey had flown from England to Minneapolis to look at a
toilet. The simple truth of this only struck Annie when
they were actually inside it: apart from the graffiti on the
walls, some of which made some kind of reference to the toilet’s
importance in musical history, it was dank, dark, smelly and entirely
unremarkable. Americans were very good at making the most of
their heritage, but there wasn’t much even they could do here.
’Have you got the camera, Annie?’ said Duncan.
‘Yes. But what do you want a picture of?’
’Just, you know…’
‘No.’
‘Well . . . the toilet.’
‘What, the . . . What do you call those things?’
‘The urinals. Yeah.’
‘Do you want to be in it?’
‘Shall I pretend to have a pee?’
‘If you want.’
So Duncan stood in front of the middle of the three urinals, his
hands placed convincingly in front of him, and smiled back over his
shoulder at Annie.
Got it?’
‘I’m not sure the flash worked.’
‘One more. Be silly to come all the way here and not get a
good one’.’
This time Duncan stood just inside one of the stalls, with the
door open. The light was better there, for some reason. Annie took as
Minne’apolis storby i delstaten
Minnesota i det nordlige USA
strike slå
dank klam
unre’markable almindelig, ikke
bemærkelsesværdig
’heritage kulturarv
u’rinal (US: ’urinal) pissoir
pre’tend foregive, lade som om
con’vincingly overbevisende
flash blitz
stall bås
5
’reasonably med rimelighed
block tilstoppe
i’nitially til at begynde med
shoot up tage stoffer med
kanyle
e’ventually til sidst
good a picture of a man in a toilet as one could reasonably expect.
When Duncan moved, she could see that this toilet, like just about
every other one she’d ever seen in a rock club, was blocked.
‘Come on,’ said Annie. ‘He didn’t even want me in here.’
This was true.
The guy behind the bar had initially
suspected that they were looking for
a place where they could shoot up,
or perhaps have sex. Eventually, and
hurtfully, the barman had clearly
decided that they were capable of
doing neither thing.
Duncan took one last look and shook his head. ‘If toilets could
talk, eh?’
Annie was glad this one couldn’t. Duncan would have wanted
to chat to it all night.
restroom toilet
com’pletist samler (der vil have
en komplet samling)
re’tirement tilbagetræden
gig koncert
claim hævde
school of thought teori
’fanciful fantasifuld, urealistisk
screw knalde med
pro’found gennemgribende
6
ANGLES
Most people are unaware of Tucker Crowe’s music, let alone some of
the darker moments of his career, so the story of what may or may not
have happened to him in the restroom of the Pits Club is proba-bly
worth repeating here. Crowe was in Minneapolis for a show and had
turned up at the Pits to see a local band called the Napoleon Solos
that he’d heard good things about. (Some Crowe completists, Duncan
being one, own a copy of the local band’s one and only album, The
Napoleon Solos Sing Their Songs and Play Their Guitars). In the
middle of the set, Tucker went to the toilet. Nobody knows what
happened in there, but when he came out, he went straight back to his
hotel and phoned his manager to cancel the rest of the tour. The next
morning he began what we must now think of as his retirement. That
was in June 1986. Nothing more has been heard of him since – no
new recordings, no gigs, no interviews. there; others claim he had a
near-death experience after an overdose. Another school of thought
has it that he caught his girlfriend having sex with his bass-player in
there, although Annie found this theory a little fanciful. Could the
sight of a woman screwing a musician in a toilet really have resulted
in twenty-two years of silence? Perhaps it could. Perhaps it was just
that Annie had never experienced passion that intense. Anyway.
Whatever. All you need to know is that something profound and lifechanging took place in the smallest room of a small club.
Annie and Duncan were in the middle
of a Tucker Crowe pilgrimage. They
had wandered around New York,
looking at various clubs and bars that
had some kind of Crowe connection,
although most of these sites of historic
interest were now designer clothes
stores, or branches of McDonald’s.
They had been to his childhood home in Bozeman, Montana, where,
thrillingly, an old lady came out of her house to tell them that Tucker
used to clean her husband’s old Buick when he was a kid. The Crowe
family home was small and pleasant and now owned by the manager
of a small printing business, who was surprised that they had
travelled all the way from England to see the outside of his house, but
who didn’t ask them in. From Montana they flew to Memphis, where
they visited the site of the old American Sound Studio (the studio
itself having been knocked down in 1990), where Tucker, drunk and
grieving, recorded Juliet, his legendary break-up album, and the one
Annie liked the most. Still to come: Berkeley, California, where Juliet
– in real life a former model and socialite called Julie Beatty – still
lived to this day. They would stand outside her house, just as they
had stood outside the printer’s house, until Duncan could think of no
reason to carry on looking, or until Julie called the police, a fate that
had befallen a couple of other Crowe fans that Duncan knew from
the message boards.
Annie didn’t regret the trip. She’d been to the US a couple of
times, to San Francisco and New York, but she liked the way Tucker
was taking them to places she’d otherwise never have visited. Boze
man, for example, turned out to be a beautiful little mountain town,
surrounded by exotic-sounding ranges she’d never heard of: the Big
Belt, the Tobacco Root, the Spanish Peaks. After staring at the small
and unremarkable house, they walked into town and sipped iced tea
in the sunshine outside an organic café, while in the distance an
occasional Spanish Peak, or possibly the top of a Tobacco Root,
threatened to puncture the cold blue sky. She’d had worse mornings
than that on holidays that had promised much more. It was a sort of
random, pin-sticking tour of America, as far as she was concerned.
She got sick of hearing about Tucker, of course, and talking about
him and listening to him and attempting to understand the reasons
’pilgrimage pilgrimsfærd
’various adskillige
branch afdeling
Mon’tana nordvestlig delstat
thrillingly sindsoprivende
spændende
Buick amerikansk bilmærke
’Memphis by i den sydøstlige
delstat Tennessee
grieve sørge
Berkeley /’bɜːkli/ universitetsby ved San Francisco-bugten
’socialite kendis, person der
kommer meget i selskabslivet
fate skæbne
be’fall overgå
’message board forum på
internettet, blog
range bjergområde
sip nippe til
or’ganic økologisk
oc’casional lejlighedsvis
(forekommende)
’puncture (vb.) stikke hul i
’random tilfældig
pin knappenål
7
i’tinerary rejseplan
Pennsyl’vania nordøstlig delstat
’orthodoxy ortodoksi,
rettroenhed
’heretic kætter
com’munity fællesskab;
menighed
sub’scribe to tilslutte sig
pre’posterous latterlig,
urimelig
a’larmingly foruroligende
grizzled gråsprængt
’shotgun haglgevær
di’stressing foruroligende
dis’figured forvrænget
rage raseri
Canon Sureshot lille,
almindelig kameramodel
a’chieve opnå
Za’pruder Abraham Zapruder:
amerikaner der filmede
Præsident John F. Kennedys
tur igennem Dallas med
amatørvideokamera og
dermed attentatet på ham
faithful tro, rettroende
’envy misunde
per’turb forurolige
conci’erge hotelansat der
hjælper gæster med at
arrangere ture o.l.
the Missis’sippi stor flod, der
løber midt igennem USA fra
Minnesota i nord til Den
Mexicanske Golf ved
Louisiana i syd
tick off sætte flueben ved
the Thames /temz/ engelsk
flod der bl.a. løber igennem
London
animated opstemt
chatty snakkesalig
course forelæsningsrække på et
universitet
Health and Safety britisk
myndighed der fører tilsyn
med arbejdsmiljøet
keen stor, fin, skarp
8
ANGLES
behind every creative and personal decision he’d ever taken. But she
got sick of hearing about him at home, too, and she’d rather get sick
of him in Montana or Tennessee than in Gooleness, the small seaside
town in England where she shared a house with Duncan.
The one place that wasn’t on the itinerary was Tyrone,
Pennsylvania, where Tucker was believed to live, although, as with all
orthodoxies, there were heretics: two or three of the Crowe
community subscribed to the theory – interesting but preposterous,
according to Duncan – that he’d been living in New Zealand since
the early nineties. Tyrone hadn’t even been mentioned as a possible
destination when they’d been planning the trip, and Annie thought
she knew why. A couple of years ago, one of the fans went out to
Tyrone, hung around, eventually located what he understood to
be Tucker Crowe’s farm; he came back with a photograph of an
alarmingly grizzled-looking man aiming a shotgun at him. Annie had
seen the picture, many times, and she found it distressing. The man’s
face was disfigured by rage and fear, as if everything he’d worked for
and believed in was in the process of being destroyed by a Canon
Sureshot. Duncan wasn’t too concerned about the rape of Crowe’s
privacy: the fan, Neil Ritchie, had achieved a kind of Zapruder level
of fame and respect among the faithful which Annie suspected
Duncan rather envied. What had perturbed him was that Tucker
Crowe had called Neil Ritchie a ‘fucking asshole’. Duncan couldn’t
have borne that.
After the visit to the restroom at the Pits, they took advice from the
concierge and ate at a Thai restaurant in the Riverfront District a
couple of blocks away. Minneapolis, it turned out, was on the
Mississippi – who knew, apart from Americans, and just about anyone
else who’d paid attention in geography lessons? – so Annie ended up
ticking off something else she’d never expected to see, although here at
the less romantic end it looked disappointingly like the Thames.
Duncan was animated and chatty, still unable quite to believe that he’d
been inside a place that had occupied so much of his imaginative
energy over the years.
‘Do you think it’s possible to teach a whole course on the toilet?’
With you just sitting on it, you mean? You wouldn’t get it past
Health and Safety’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
Sometimes Annie wished that Duncan had a keener sense of
humour – a keener sense that something might be meant
humorously, anyway. She knew it was too late to hope for actual
jokes.
‘I meant, teach a whole course on the toilet in the Pits.’
‘No.’
Duncan looked at her.
‘Are you teasing me?’
‘No. I’m saying that a whole course about Tucker Crowe’s
twenty-year-old visit to the toilet wouldn’t be very interesting.’
‘I’d include other things.’
‘Other toilet visits in history?’
‘No. Other career-defining moments.’
‘Elvis had a good toilet moment. Pretty career-defining, too.’
‘Dying’s different. Too unwilled. John Smithers wrote an essay
for the website about that. Creative death versus actual death. It was
actually pretty interesting.’
Annie nodded enthusiastically, while at the same time hoping
that Duncan wouldn’t print it off and put it in front of her when they
got home.
‘ca’reer-defining af afgørende
betydning for karrieren
9
‘I promise that after this holiday I won’t be so Tuckercentric,’
he said.
‘That’s OK. I don’t mind.’
‘I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.’
‘I know’
‘I’ll have got him out of my system.’
‘I hope not.’
‘Really?’
‘What would there be left of you,
if you did?’
disa’bility handicap
con’dition lidelse
lecture (vb.) forelæse
con’tribute bidrage
con’vention konference
spo’radic lejlighedsvis,
sporadisk
track nummer
’ob’scure lidet kendt
EP ep, dvs. lille musikalbum
med kun omkring fire numre
‘failure fiasko
’Manchester storby i det
nordvestlige England
a’muse more
engi’neer tekniker
bulk hovedpart
con’jecture gisne
inex’haustibly uudtømmeligt
Na’thaniel West (egentl.)
Nathanael West: amerikansk
forfatter (1903-1940)
HBO = Home Box Office
amerikansk tv-kanal kendt
for kvalitetsserier
The Wire kritikerrost
amerikansk tv-dramaserie
der oprindeligt blev sendt på
HBO 2002-2008
10 ANGLES
She hadn’t meant it cruelly. She’d been with Duncan for nearly fifteen
years, and Tucker Crowe had always been part of the package, like a
disability. To begin with, the condition hadn’t prevented him from
living a normal life: yes, he’d written a book, as yet unpublished, about
Tucker, lectured on him, contributed to a radio documentary for the
BBC and organized conventions, but somehow these activities had
always seemed to Annie like isolated episodes, sporadic attacks.
And then the internet came along and changed everything.
When, a little later than everyone else, Duncan discovered how it all
worked, he set up a website called ‘Can Anybody Hear Me?’, the title
of a track from an obscure EP recorded after the wounding failure of
Crowe’s first album. Until then, the nearest fellow fan had lived in
Manchester, sixty or seventy miles away, and Tucker met up with
him once or twice a year; now the nearest fans lived in Duncan’s
laptop, and there were hundreds of them, from all around the world,
and Duncan spoke to them all the time. There seemed to be a
surprising amount to talk about. The website had a ‘Latest News’
section, which never failed to amuse Annie, Tucker no longer being
a man who did an awful lot. (‘As far as we know,’ Duncan always
said.) There was always something that passed for news among the
faithful, though – a Crowe night on an internet radio station, a new
article, a new album from a former band-member, an interview with
an engineer. The bulk of the content, though, consisted of essays
analysing lyrics, or discussing influences, or conjecturing, apparently
inexhaustibly, about the silence. It wasn’t as if Duncan didn’t have
other interests. He had a specialist knowledge of 1970s American
independent cinema and the novels of Nathaniel West and he was
developing a nice new line in HBO television series – he thought he
might be ready to teach The Wire in the not-too-distant future. But
these were all flirtations, by comparison. Tucker Crowe was his lifepartner. If Crowe were to die – to die in real life, as it were, rather
than creatively – Duncan would lead the mourning. (He’d already
written the obituary. Every now and again he’d worry out loud about
whether he should show it to a reputable newspaper now, or wait
until it was needed.)
If Tucker was the husband, then Annie
should somehow have become the
mistress, but of course that wasn’t
right – the word was much too exotic
and implied a level of sexual activity
that would horrify them both
nowadays.
It would have daunted them even in the early days of their
relationship. Sometimes Annie felt less like a girlfriend than a school
chum who’d come to visit in the holidays and stayed for the next
twenty years. They had both moved to the same English seaside town
at around the same time, Duncan to finish his thesis and Annie to
teach, and they had been introduced by mutual friends who could
see that, if nothing else, they could talk about books and music, go to
films, travel to London occasionally to see exhibitions and gigs.
Gooleness wasn’t a sophisticated town. There was no arts cinema,
there was no gay community, there wasn’t even a Waterstone’s (the
nearest one was up the road in Hull), and they fell upon each other
with relief. They started drinking together in the evenings and
sleeping over at weekends, until eventually the sleep-overs turned
into something indistinguishable from cohabitation. And they had
stayed like that for ever, stuck in a perpetual post-graduate world
where gigs and books and films mattered more to them than they
did to other people of their age.
The decision not to have children had never been taken, and
nor had there been any discussion resulting in a postponement of the
decision. It wasn’t that kind of a sleepover. Annie could imagine
herself as a mother, but Duncan was nobody’s idea of a father, and
anyway, neither of them would have felt comfortable applying cement
to the relationship in that way. That wasn’t what they were for. And
now, with an irritating predictability, she was going through what
everyone had told her she would go through: she was aching for a
flir’tation flirteri
mourning (her) sørgeoptog
o’bituary nekrolog
’reputable velrenommeret
’mistress elskerinde
im’ply antyde
’horrify forfærde
daunt skræmme
chum kammerat
’thesis universitetsspeciale
’mutual fælles
arts cinema kunstbiograf,
dvs. biograf med smalle,
kunstnerisk ambitiøse film
com’munity (her) miljø
’Waterstone’s britisk kæde af
boghandler
Hull by i Nordøstengland
re’lief lettelse
sleep over overnatte
e’ventually til sidst, på et
tidspunkt
indi’stinguishable ikke til at
skelne
cohabi’tation samliv
stick sidde fast
per’petual evig
post’graduate studenter-,
(egentl.) vedr.
overbygningsstudium
post’ponement udskydelse
’comfortable tryg
ap’ply ce’ment cementere
predicta’bility forudsigelighed
THE CULT OF CELEBRITY 11
ache for længes inderligt efter
mournful sørgmodig
uncon’ditional ubetinget
faint vag
af’fection ømhed
em’brace kram
de’sex gøre kønsløs
pre’sumably formodentligt
wistful vemodig
re’gret (sb.) ærgrelse
nappy ble
‘lavatory toilet
’decadent dekadent, dvs. præget
af kulturelt og moralsk forfald
(ofte i form af nydelsessyge og
overdreven forfinelse)
Comprehension
child. Her aches were brought on by all the usual mournful-happy life
events: Christmas, the pregnancy of a friend, the pregnancy of a
complete stranger she saw in the street. And she wanted a child for
all the usual reasons, as far as she could tell. She wanted to feel
unconditional love, rather than the faint conditional affection she
could scrape together for Duncan every now and again; she wanted
to be held by someone who would never question the embrace, the
why or the who or the how long. There was another reason, too: she
needed to know that she could have one, that there was life in her.
Duncan had put her to sleep, and in her sleep she’d been desexed.
She’d get over all this, presumably; or at least one day it would
become a wistful regret, rather than a sharp hunger. But this holiday
hadn’t been designed to comfort her. There was an argument that
you might as well change nappies as hang out in men’s lavatories
taking pictures. The amount of time they had for themselves was
beginning to feel sort of . . . decadent.
1. What sort of trip are Duncan and Annie on?
2. What are we told about Tucker Crowe?
3. How did Duncan and Annie’s relationship start?
4. Annie feels that her and Duncan’s lifestyle is “decadent”.
What does she mean by this?
Analysis and
interpretation
For help, see “Analysis Angles: Fictional Texts”.
1. Juliet, Naked starts in medias res. What does this term mean?
Explain why it can be applied to the novel.
2. What type of narrator do we listen to – the 1st, 2nd or
3rd person type?
3. The narrator tells the story from the point of view of one of the
characters – whom? How can we see this? And how does it
influence the information and general impression we get?
4. Describe the tone with which the story is narrated. For instance,
is it optimistic or resigned, sincere or ironic and humorous?
Give examples.
6. Is Annie and Duncan’s lifestyle “decadent”, in your opinion?
7. What overall impression is given of fans in the excerpt?
Consider the way Duncan and the rest of the “Crowe community”
are portrayed. Pay special attention to the images used to describe
them.
Discussion
1. If you are or have been a fan, what are the most “fanatic” things
you have done?
2. Is being a fan simply about admiring someone or something – or
are more factors involved when somebody becomes a fan; e.g.
psychological ones? Give reasons for your answers.
3. In your opinion, is there anything wrong with being a fan – or
should it rather be viewed as something positive? Again, explain
your views.
What do the abbreviations e.g. and i.e. (see above and below) stand for and mean? Look them up – for instance, in the
free online advanced learner’s dictionary from Cambridge or Oxford University Press.
Writing
1. Imagine what happens next in the novel and write a one-page
plot outline, i.e. a summary of how you think the lives of Duncan,
Annie and, perhaps, Tucker Crowe will change during the next
year or so.
2. In small groups, compare your stories by retelling them. Do not
read from your text.
3. At home, one member of each group is to go online and find out
what really happens in the novel and prepare a brief oral
summary for your next English class.
4. When your teacher has handed back your plot summary and
you have adjusted it in accordance with her comments and
corrections, consider creating a portfolio for all your homework
in the shape of a blog on the Internet. In this way, your teacher is
able to see how you follow up on her recommendations, and you
may show others your work and thoughts. You can create a free
blog in a matter of minutes on, e.g., www.dinstudio.com.
Simply choose “Blog” and follow the instructions.
5.Characterize
Duncan
Annie
their relationship
12 ANGLES
Roleplay
1. Imagine that Duncan and Annie suddenly meet Tucker Crowe
while on their trip to America. Form groups of three and divide
the roles of Duncan, Annie and Tucker between you. Individually
take time to consider how your character will react and together
improvise a 5-minute dialogue.
2. If you liked acting, discuss how to improve your play (e.g.
by making it funnier or more surprising) and write a proper
manuscript. Include stage directions to the actors about what
movements and facial expressions they should make. Then
perform your play for everybody in class, or film it and upload
it to a site where your classmates may watch it.
Presentation
1. Prepare a slide show presentation (c. 3 slides) on a person you
are a fan of or who simply deserves praise. This person must be
from a country where English is the official language. In your
presentation, give a few basic facts about the person and explain
why you admire him/her. In your slides, include keywords and
pictures.
2. If some your classmates have not made slide shows before,
help them get started in PowerPoint or another programme.
3. Give your presentations in groups. The audience may offer
constructive criticism (advice) on how to make an oral
presentation and a slide show, but only if asked by the speaker.
4. Afterwards, consider turning your presentation into a fan page
on a social networking service, e.g. Facebook.
14 ANGLES
INTRODUCTION
The following text is from the chapter on fame in The
Philosophy of Andy Warhol. Warhol (1928-1987) was an
American artist, film maker and celebrity, sometimes
referred to as the “Pope of Pop Art”. He said of himself,
with his usual sense of humour and paradox, “I’m a
deeply superficial person”.
Fame
Andy Warhol, 1975
S
ome company recently was interested in buying my “aura.”
They didn’t want my product. They kept saying, “We want your
aura.” I never figured out what they wanted. But they were
willing to pay a lot for it. So then I thought that if somebody was
willing to pay that much for my it, I should try to figure out what it is.
I think “aura” is something that only somebody else can see, and
they only see as much of it as they want to. It’s all in the other person’s
eyes. You can only see an aura on people you don’t know very well or
don’t know at all. I was having dinner the other night with everybody from my office. The kids at the office treat me like dirt, because
they know me and they see me every day. But then there was this
nice friend that somebody had brought along who had never met me,
and this kid could hardly believe that he was having dinner with me!
Everybody else was seeing me, but he was seeing my “aura.”
When you just see somebody on the street, they can really have
an aura. But then when they open their mouth, there goes the aura.
“Aura” must be until you open your mouth.
[…]
But being famous isn’t all that important. If I weren’t famous, I
wouldn’t have been shot for being Andy Warhol. Maybe I would have
been shot for being in the Army. Or maybe I would be a fat
schoolteacher. How do you ever know?
A good reason to be famous, though, is so you can read all the big
magazines and know everybody in all the stories. Page after page it’s
just all people you’ve met. I love that kind of reading experience and
that’s the best reason to be famous.
[…]
recently for nylig
’figure out regne ud
office Warhol kaldte i
1970’erne sit atelier The
Office, i 1960’erne The Factory
hardly knap nok
shot for being Andy Warhol
Warhol blev skudt og
alvorligt såret af Valerie
Solanas, en militant og
formodentlig psykisk syg
feminist
reading ex’perience
læseoplevelse
Gri’stedes kæde af små supermarkeder i New York City
drift (vb.) slentre
aisle gang (fx mellem
butikshylder)
Mo’nique Van ’Vooren belgiskamerikansk skuespillerinde og
kendis (f. 1925)
’Rudolf Nu’reyev verdensberømt russisk-fransk
balletdanser (1938-1993)
stockboy lagerdreng
Time amerikansk nyhedsmagsin med et millionoplag
dwell on dvæle ved
de’vote vie
‘consciousness bevidsthed
ob’sessed besat
nutty (uformelt) skør
‘remake genindspilning
crook (uformelt) forbryder
16 ANGLES
The right story in the right place can really put you up-there for
months or even years. I lived next to a Gristedes grocery for twelve
years, and every day I would go in and drift around the aisles, picking
out what I wanted—that’s a ritual I really enjoy. For twelve years I
did this just about every day. Then one afternoon the New York Post
ran a color picture of Monique Van Vooren and Rudolf Nureyev and
me on the front page, and when I next went into the store all the
stockboys started yelling “Here he is!” and “I told you it was him!” I
didn’t want to go back there ever again. Then after my picture was in
Time, I couldn’t take my dog to the park for a week because people
were pointing at me.
Some people spend their whole lives thinking about one
particular famous person. They pick one person who’s famous, and
they dwell on him or her. They devote almost their entire
consciousness to thinking about this person they’ve never even met,
or maybe met once. If you ask any famous person about the kind of
mail they get, you’ll find that almost every one of them has at least
one person who’s obsessed with them and writes constantly. It feels
so strange to think that someone is spending their whole time
thinking about you.
Nutty people are always writing me. I always think I must be on
some nutty mailing list.
I always worry that when nutty people do something, they’ll do
the same thing again a few years later without ever remembering that
they’ve done it before—and they’ll think it’s a whole new thing
they’re doing. I was shot in 1968, so that was the 1968 version. But
then I have to think, “Will someone want to do a 1970s remake of
shooting me?” So that’s another kind of fan.
[…]
Nowadays if you’re a crook you’re still
considered up-there. You can write
books, go on TV, give interviews –
you’re a big celebrity and nobody even
looks down on you because you’re a
crook. You’re still really up-there. This is
because more than anything people just
want stars.
Andy Warhol’s silkscreen painting Self Portrait from 1967
[…]
Working for a lot of money can throw your self-image off. When I
used to do shoe drawings for the magazines I would get a certain
amount for each shoe, so then I would count up my shoes to figure
out how much I was going to get. I lived by the number of shoe
drawings—when I counted them I knew how much money I had.
Models can sometimes be very rude. Because they get paid by the
hour and put in their eight-hour day, when they go home they think
they should still be getting paid. Movie stars get millions of dollars
for nothing, so when someone asks them to do something for
nothing, they go crazy—they think that if they’re going to talk to
somebody at the grocery store they should get fifty dollars an hour.
So you should always have a product that’s not just “you.” An actress
should count up her plays and movies and a model should count up
her photographs and a writer should count up his words and an artist
should count up his pictures so you always know exactly what you’re
worth, and you don’t get stuck thinking your product is you and your
fame, and your aura.
throw off (her) fordreje
rude ubehøvlet
get stuck thinking hænge fast
i tanken
Comprehension
1. According to Andy Warhol, when is a celebrity most interesting
to people?
2. Explain what he means when he says that “more than anything
people just want stars.”, p. xx.
Information
search:
obsessed fans
2. In pairs, find out more about an obsessed fan who has become
famous himself, e.g. John Lennon’s stalker, or Jodie Foster’s,
Madonna’s, Uma Thurman’s, Michael Douglas’ or George
Harrisson’s. Take a few notes.
3. What are the downsides of being a celebrity according to
Warhol?
4. What is Warhol’s final advice for famous people? Explain what
he means in your own words. Do you think this is good advice?
Analysis
3. Split up and find a new partner. On the basis of your notes, tell
each other what you have found out. Then move on to another
classmate.
For help, see “Textual Genres” and “Non-Fiction Texts”
in “Analysis Angles”.
1. To what genre (or mixture of genres) does the text belong?
2. Warhol did not sit down to write his books, but taped his
conversations with friends and asked his secretary to turn the
conversations into texts. How do the language and composition
of the excerpt reveal that it is based upon conversations?
Pictures: pop art For help, see “Analysis Angles: Pictures”.
1. In groups, analyse the Warhol picture of Marilyn Monroe at the
beginning of the chapter in terms of its subject matter, medium,
composition and use of colour. Also consider what its theme is
and what it may say about the cult of celebrity.
3. Non-fiction texts usually aim to inform, persuade or entertain
the reader (or do a combination). What is Warhol’s overall
purpose in this text? Why do you think so?
Parallels
2. In the same groups, describe the two pictures below, compare
them to Warhol’s Marilyn and discuss what the message or point
of each is. Again consider what they might say about the cult of
celebrity.
Compare “Fame” with the excerpt from Juliet, Naked in terms of
3. In class, present and discuss your interpretations of the pictures,
i.e. what they are about and seem to express.
tone, in particular the degree of sincerity and the use of humour
or irony
the portrayal of fans – e.g. do fans come across as (equally)
obsessed, ridiculous and harmless in the two texts?
Information
search: Warhol
1. In groups of four, allocate the tasks of finding out more about
A) Andy Warhol’s life
B) his pop art
C) his films
D) the people who hung out at his first studio (The Factory) –
particularly his so-called “superstars”.
2. Each person uses the Internet or a library and takes notes for a
brief oral presentation.
1. Warhol talks about “nutty” fans that might be dangerous. In
groups, discuss why some people become insanely obsessed
with a particular celebrity. Try to give examples of such celebrity
stalkers.
Pictures: icons
1. Marilyn Monroe and, to some extent, Andy Warhol is considered
an icon. When do stars become icons?
For help, look up the word icon in an English-English dictionary.
2. Find pictures of people you consider icons.
3. Form of groups without showing your pictures to each other. In
turns, describe one of your pictures in detail to the rest of the
group, who should try to guess the identity of the person.
4. Discuss whether you agree that the people you have found are
icons.
3. The group assemble and listen to each other’s presentations.
4. Extra: On Internet lists of Warhol quotes, each group member
must choose her favourite quote, read it to the rest of the group
and explain why she likes it.
18 ANGLES
Writing
1. Brainstorm: What characterizes a short story?
2. Write a short story about
• a fan meeting his/her idol (and, perhaps, getting a big surprise), or
• what it is like for a famous person to go on a blind date
3. In order to turn your story into a podcast, find an audio recorder
on a computer (e.g. Sound Recorder, QuickTime Player or the free,
downloadable Audacity) and record yourself reading your story.
Also find some pictures that fit the story.
4. Go to an online podcast maker, e.g. Podomatic. Here, click on
“Make a Minicast”, upload your audio files and pictures, choose
settings for your presentation and wait for it to be made.
5. Post a link to the podcast on your blog, the class website,
Facebook or in another forum and watch and listen to each
other’s illustrated stories.
INTRODUCTION
The novel Kill Your Friends is set in London during
1997. In the following excerpts we listen to Steven
Stelfox, an A&R executive (artist and repertoire) in
a big record company (and a sociopath). The A&R
division of a record label is responsible for finding new
artists and overseeing their artistic development.
Before this literary debut, Scottish author John Niven
(b. 1967) was an A&R man in the music business himself.
Kill Your Friends
John Niven, 2008
A
American artist David Lachapelle’s photographic print Amanda Lepore as Andy
Warhol’s Marilyn from 2007. Lepore is an American model and performance
artist who has undergone both cosmetic and sex change surgery
20 ANGLES
couple of words for all you hopefuls out there in unsigned
bands: Fuck. Off. Seriously, your parents are right. You may
as well spend your guitar-string money on lottery tickets –
your chances will be much the same. We receive upwards of three
hundred unsolicited demo tapes every week. There are five other
labels within our corporate group, all receiving about the same
volume. That’s fifteen hundred demos a week. There are six other
corporate groups, EMI, Universal, Warner Bros, Polygram, BMG
and Sony, most with several labels within them, all receiving at least
the same amount as us, and probably a little more. That’s over ten
thousand little packages of hopes and dreams arriving every week.
(And arrive is often all they do – the vast majority of these packages
are never opened. They just lie in boxes and sacks around the A&R
floor, where they seem to breed and multiply, spilling over the
carpets and taking up sofa space until Tom, our work experience,
has to lug sacks of them down to the incinerator where your hopes
and dreams are – rightly – burned in the fires of hell.)
Occasionally, if it’s a rainy afternoon and we’re really bored and
want something to do, a few of the A&R staff will gather in
someone’s office, roll ourselves a couple of thick spliffs, uncork a
bottle of red, and go through one of the sacks marked ‘UNSOLICITED
DEMOS’. These sessions usually end with two or three of us on our
hands and knees on the floor howling, gasping for breath, ribs and
facial muscles aching.
un’signed uden pladekontrakt
’lottery ticket lotteriseddel
‘upwards of mindst, over
unso’licited uopfordret
’label (her) pladeselskab
‘corporate group koncern
’volume mængde
the vast ma’jority langt de fleste
A&R = artist and repertoire
den del af et pladeselskab
der finder og vejleder nye
kunstnere
breed yngle
’multiply mangedobles
work ex’perience
erhvervspraktikant
lug slæbe
in’cinerator forbrændingsovn
oc’casionally en gang imellem
spliff joint
un’cork tage proppen af
session komsammen
howl hyle (af grin)
gasp for breath snappe efter
vejret
rib ribben
facial ansigts
ache gøre ondt
con’servatively forsigtigt
inde’pendent (her) uafhængig
af større koncerner
roughly omtrent
act (sb.) (her) kunstner
break through slå igennem,
opnå succes
to some de’gree til en vis grad
’decent-sized pænt stor
’venue spillested
re’coup genindvinde
a’spiring fremadstræbende
riches rigdom
Bono forsanger i den verdensberømte, irske rockgruppe U2
Cristal dyrt mærke af
champagne
Grammy (oprind.
Gramophone) Award.
Amerikansk pris for årets
bedste præstation i musikbranchen
‘spurious ufortjent,
vildledende
buzz begejstret summen
gig koncert
grand (uformelt) 1000 pund (£)
K (uformelt) 1000
pack in kvitte
Quadro’phenia britisk rockopera og -film fra 1970’erne
om en teenager som kvitter
sit job for at kunne hellige sig
interessen for musik og fester
’slap-up (uformelt) overdådig
feed (sb.) portion foder
’Bolton by i det nordvestlige
England
’Euston togstation i det
centrale London
keen ivrig
get cracking komme i gang
‘cretin tåbe
in’evitably uvægerligt
square one udgangspunktet
con’tent tilfreds
it is … down the line der
er gået…
i’nitial første
triple tredoble(s)
spunk (vulg.) sæd
22 ANGLES
To this ten thousand we should add (conservatively) another
couple of thousand to cover the demos received by all the
independent labels. That makes roughly twelve thousand demos a
week received by the whole industry – well over half a million a year.
In any given year my company will maybe sign something like ten to
fifteen acts. The whole UK industry probably signs – at most – a
couple of hundred artists every year. Out of these two hundred, in a
very good year, you might have twenty or so who break through to
some degree, who get their records on the radio, their pictures in
the music press, and who fill decent-sized venues. Out of this twenty
maybe half will eventually recoup the money invested in them.
That’s right
– ten acts out of over half a million
hopefuls will make themselves some
real money. And yet a lot of aspiring
musicians really believe that getting
signed means they’ve made it,
that the physical act of signing a recording contract means they’re on
the way to fame, riches and drinking Bono’s Cristal at the Grammys.
Here’s what’s more likely to happen: on the back of a spurious
‘buzz’ from the music press, a few packed gigs in tiny clubs and a
couple of late-night radio plays, some idiot like Rob Hastings offers
you a record deal for, ooh, let’s say, a hundred grand. Great! (You now
owe us 100K.) You pack your job in Quadrophenia-style and take your
parents out to the local Chinese for a slap-up feed where you tell them
you’ll ‘never work again’. You leave Bolton (or wherever) and get off
the train at Euston thinking to yourself, ‘I am the fucking king.’
You’re keen to get cracking on that debut album. However, the
odds are that it will take Rob – or some cretin like him – months to
make up his mind about a producer. He will then, inevitably, choose
the wrong one. This guy will spend two or three months destroying
what little talent you had to begin with and you’re back to square
one. Not content with getting the wrong producer the first time, Rob
will pick the wrong guy a couple more times. By the time you’ve gone
through this process three times it’s a year down the line, the record
still isn’t finished, and your initial recording budget has tripled to
about three hundred grand. (You now owe us 400K.)
By the time we finally get a single released your great mates
over at press and radio could no longer give a good drop of spunk if
you’re dead or alive. They liked you a year ago. They’ve got new
bands to play with now. In fact, I’ll go you one further – the music
Billede tekst her
Billede tekst her
press hates you now. You’ve gone from being the next Sex Pistols to
the last Black Lace in twelve short months. So you get zero airplay
and just a tiny smattering of reviews in the likes of the Aberdeenshire
Gazette and the North Wales Chronicle (both of whom love the record; unfortunately no one who reads these papers is under sixty-five
or lives within a hundred miles of a chart return shop).
In an attempt to rebuild your profile we send you out on the
road. But you’ve got a record company behind you now. Why would
you travel in a Transit van like in the old days? So you get a fucking
great tour bus the size of an aircraft carrier, six totally superfluous
roadies, an outlandish catering company run by a pair of titless
Notting Hill dykes and a light show with the equivalent power of the
sun. Of course, you’re still selling zero records and playing tiny
venues so you’re only getting paid about five hundred quid per show.
However, the roadies/aircraft carrier/titless dyke/sun combo is
costing something like five grand a fucking day. But – hey – we still
believe in the band, man, so we underwrite the shortfall. You play
twenty dates losing thousands every night, bringing your debt to us
up to something like half a million quid. Oh, and by the way, your
hundred-grand advance is now long gone. Where did it go? Well, let’s
see: tax, 20 per cent to your manager, and huge legal fees (your
lawyer – some utter lowlife like Trellick – spent a lot of time arguing
about pointless clauses in order to line his own pockets) leaves
maybe twenty grand. You pay yourselves the princely salary of two
hundred quid a week each. Alas, thanks to hanging out with animals
like me and Waters, you all now have chronic chang habits, so this
Sex ’Pistols stilskabende
engelsk punkband
Black Lace britisk popgruppe,
kendt for glad festmusik og
fra Melodi Grand Prix
’airplay spilletid i radioen
tiny smattering lillebitte antal
re’view anmeldelse
Aber’deenshire Ga’zette,
lille provinsavis i britisk
yderområde
North Wales ’Chronicle
lille provinsavis i britisk
yderområde
chart re’turn med indberetning
til hitlisten
Transit van varevognsmodel
’aircraft carrier hangarskib
su’perfluous overflødig
roadie person der opstiller og
nedtager udstyr for musikere
på turne
out’landish eksotisk,
ekstravagant
titless (vulg.) uden bryster
Notting Hill smart kvarter i
London
’dyke (nedsættende) lesbisk
’e’quivalent tilsvarende
quid pund (£)
’combo kombination
under’write garantere,
medunderskrive
’shortfall underskud
debt gæld
ad’vance forskud
’legal fee advokatudgift, gebyr
for juridisk tjeneste
utter komplet, total
‘lowlife kryb
clause paragraf
line (vb.) fylde, (egentl. fore)
’princely fyrstelig
a’las ak
chang (slang) kokain
as’sume antage
wage bill lønudgift,
lønningsregning
broke (adj.) fallit
rack up forøge gælden med
G forkortelse af grand
NME = New Musical Express
britisk musikblad
ex’pend ofre, anvende
undi’luted ufortyndet
medi’ocrity middelmådighed
gross himmelråbende,
kvalmende
’retail ’discount detailhandlens
prisnedslag
’generate indbringe
sub’human knap nok
menneskelig
slit skære over
claw back kradse ind
penny engelsk møntenhed,
0,01 £
’option valgmulighed
take it on the chin tage det
som en mand
chalk it down notere det
‘write-off (sb.) afskrivning, tab
coach rutebil
lager pilsner
stack shelves fylde på hylder
a’bysmal rædsom
thirty-odd nogle og tredive
bore rigid kede ihjel
snort lines sniffe baner (af
typisk kokain)
‘skanky (uformelt) tøjtet
Nor’thampton ‘Roadmender
spillested i det centrale
England
high-water mark højdepunkt
ac’countant bogholder, revisor,
cunt idiot; (egl. vulg. for) skede
’talent spotter talentspejder
24 ANGLES
doesn’t go far. Assuming there are four of you in the band, this means
a monthly wage bill of about three grand. You’re broke in a year. So
we start advancing you extra money to cover the wages. A few
months of this and you soon rack up another twenty Gs.
Finally we release your debut album. The NME expends a
hundred words – and no photo – to call it ‘undiluted piss’. We
optimistically press five thousand copies. We sell seven hundred in
the first week and two hundred in the second. Then, well, that’s it.
No more. Not another copy troubles a chart return machine
anywhere in the world. Ever. Thanks to a combination of your
mediocrity and our gross incompetence your debut LP – the
crystallisation of all the energy, insight and ambition of your young
life – has sold nine hundred copies. With retail discounts you have
generated maybe four thousand pounds’ worth of income. You are
finished. Game fucking over. You are twenty-two years old and six
hundred thousand pounds in debt to us – a bunch of subhuman
demons who were your best friends a year ago but who would now
gladly slit your throat and dance in your blood if we thought it would
help us claw back a penny of your debt.
But sadly that’s not an option. We take the loss on the chin,
chalk it down as a write-off, and you get the coach back up to Bolton
where you lie around your parents’ house drinking lager and crying
for a few weeks until you go crawling back to your old job painting
houses, stacking shelves, frying chips or whatever the fuck you used
to do up there. Until the day you die – probably at age fifty-five
through a combination of abysmal Northern lung cancer and thirtyodd years of back-breaking work – you will bore your friends rigid
with stories about your twelve months on top of the world, snorting
lines in the toilets of London nightclubs and getting your dick sucked
by some skanky monster on a tour bus parked behind Northampton
Roadmenders. The time you spent with us playing at being pop stars
will probably be the high-water mark of your entire life. Someone
like me will probably be somewhere among your dying thoughts.
So, y’know, just don’t do it. Go and become an accountant, or
an IT guy or something. Get a fucking job, you stupid cunt.
[…]
Sometimes, when they’re trying to
understand what A&R means, people
who don’t know anything about the
music industry will say, ‘Ah, so you’re
talent spotters?’ This is inaccurate.
Madonna, Bono, the Spice Girls, Noel
Gallagher, Kylie ... do you really think
any of that lot are talented? Don’t
make me fucking laugh. What they
are is ambitious. This is where the big
money is.
Fuck talent. Forget Rock and Roll, if he’d just turned the other way
out of the schoolyard Bono could have been a very successful CEO
of a huge armaments manufacturer. The Spice Girls? How driven are
those boilers? You get these fucking indie bands moaning about
having to get up before lunchtime once every three months to appear
on some kids’ TV programme. In return for her fifteen minutes I
guarantee you that Geri Halliwell would have risen at the crack of
dawn every morning for a year and swum naked through a river of
shark-infested, HIV-positive semen – cutting the throats of children,
OAPs and cancer patients and throwing them behind her as she went
– just to be allowed to do a sixty-second regional radio interview.
This is the kind of person you want to sign. You’ve got a shot
with that kind of attitude. Talented? Fuck off. Go and work in a guitar
shop with all the other talented losers.
[…]
With the indie kids you have to remember this: they really think that
what they do matters in some way. They reckon that history will care.
(They don’t know that history will have other shit to be getting on
with.) The indie kids figure that they’re passing on the torch or some
fucking thing. That, just as they were influenced by someone – the
Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman, the Stooges, whoever –
then, in the future, young bands will be influenced by them. Maybe
so. Maybe a few thousand malnourished cockless freaks scattered
around the globe will give a shit. So what? Real people don’t care, do
they? Real people put stone cladding and UPVC double-glazing on
their council houses, they buy four albums a year and they want to be
able to hear all the words. And there are fucking billions of them.
That’s why I like it when you deal with a genuine pop act. It’s so
refreshing and honest. Some greasy demi-paedo of a manager flops
down in your office with three fit fifteen-year-old sluts on his arm.
Half a GCSE between them, they say, ‘We want to be famous and
make a lot of money.’ You know what? No problem. Let’s fucking
rock. I might thereafter have to have the odd conversation about,
for instance, do we need to Photoshop someone’s jugs to make them
Noel ’Gallagher guitarist i det
engelske rockband Oasis
lot bundt, flok
CEO = chief executive officer
administrerende direktør
’armaments manu’facturer
våbenfabrikant
driven (adj.) stærkt motiveret,
meget ambitiøs
boiler (vulg.) so, kælling
’indie musik produceret på
små pladeselskaber der er
uafhængige (independent) af
større, mere kommercielle
selskaber; også om mindre
kommerciel musik generelt
moan beklage sig
in re’turn til gengæld
’Geri ’Halliwell medlem af den
britiske popgruppe Spice Girls
crack of dawn daggry
shark-in’fested myldrende
med hajer
’semen sæd
OAP = old age pensioner
folkepensionist
shot (her) chance,
forsøgsmulighed
’reckon tro
’figure (vb.) forestille sig
pass on the torch bære faklen
videre, fortsætte en vigtig
tradition
’Velvet ’Underground,
’Jonathan ’Richman, the
’Stooges banebrydende
amerikanske navne inden for
rockmusikken
mal’nourished underernæret
cockless (vulg.) uden penis
scattered spredt
’cladding beklædning
UPVC double-glazing slags
dyree vinduer
’council house hjem i et socialt
boligbyggeri
genuine ægte
re’freshing forfriskende
greasy glat, slesk
’demi-’paedo (uformelt)
halvpædofil
flop down plumpe ned
fit i god form; (uformelt) lækker
slut tøjte
GCSE = General Certificate
of Secondary Education
(svarer til) studentereksamen
’odd løjerlig
jugs (vulg.) brystera
toilet flat (uformelt) meget lille
lejlighed
tuneless uharmonisk,
umusikalsk
Tom Ver’laine anerkendt
amerikansk rockmusiker
manu’facture fabrikere
cent møntenhed, 0,01 $
’interest rente
second-guess regne ud hvad
nogen vil gøre; spille bagklog
over for
inter’fere blande sig
con’ceivable tænkelig
’edit skære til
ap’palling rædselsfuld
de’grading nedværdigende
VJ = video jockey tv-vært der
viser musikvideoer
at’tention span (omtrent)
koncentrationsevne
’Ritalin mærke af medicin til
behandling af ADHD o.l.
fuelled optanket
’infant spædbarn
col’lusion hemmelig aftale
’publisher udgiver
’license (vb.) give tilladelse til
at bruge
‘advert reklame
petro’chemical vedr.
kemikalier baseret på råolie
el. naturgas
whaling fleet hvalfangerflåde
arms dealer våbenhandler
under-ac’count aflægge
regnskab med mindre beløb
end de faktisk indtjente
re’coupable der kan
genindvindes
’staple hæfteklamme
knock together flikke sammen
hor’rendous forfærdelig
fridge = refrigerator køleskab
’Plymouth engelsk by med stor
flådehavn
hooker luder
knickers trusser
Comprehension
look bigger or firmer? What I won’t have to do is sit in some toilet
flat at three in the morning, listening to tuneless B-sides and talking
about, I don’t know, Tom Verlaine’s guitar solos. Because, really, who
gives a fucking shit?
[…]
But what is there to tell really? We’ll manufacture your records and
put them in the fucking shops. We’ll try our best not to spend a red
cent unless we’re sure we’ll get it back with interest. We’ll secondguess you and interfere at every conceivable stage of the artistic
process. We’ll edit and remix tracks without your permission. We’ll
force you to appear on appalling, degrading kiddies’ TV programmes
where you will shake hands with Dobbin the Donkey and have to
explain yourself to a teenage VJ with the attention span of a Ritalinfuelled infant. We’ll work you until you can’t stand up.
In collusion with your publishers we’ll try and license your music to
TV adverts for everything from banks to multinational petrochemical
companies. (We’d license it to whaling fleets and arms dealers too if
only they advertised on TV). We’ll under-account to you and charge
you for every recoupable expense from the staples used to knock
your horrendous contract together to the Coke you had from the
fridge in my office. And if it doesn’t all work out, you’ll be dropped
faster than a Plymouth hooker’s knickers when there’s a big ship
in town.
Discussion
2. To what extent is he:
A). funny
B). immoral
C). discriminatory
D). worth taking advice from?
E) cynical
F) self-loathing
3. Give your own examples of music that seems more manufactured
than built upon the musicians’ talent.
4. Give other examples of people who have become celebrities
without having much talent.
5. Some people have started using the term nonebrity about such
people. Do you think this is a good term? Why/why not? Come up
with your own term for describing this category of celebrities.
6. Imagine you worked in the A&R division of a record company.
What kind of band would you sign in order to get a hit record?
Paralells
Duncan in Juliet, Naked?
B). What are the information and stories does he use to support
his advice?
the “indie kids” in Kill Your Friends?
3. What is his opinion on “indie kids”, i.e. young people who
consider popular music an art form and think that it should
be independent of large record companies?
For help, see “Analysis Angles: Fictional Texts”.
1. Is the story told in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person, or in a combination?
What is the effect of this – for instance, does it make the text seem
more or less blunt or shocking?
2. Characterize the narrator’s tone and language. Give examples.
3. In your opinion, why has the author made the narrator sound
like this?
4. All in all, what picture of the music industry is given?
26 ANGLES
1 Compare the attitudes to music in the excerpts from Juliet,
Naked and Kill Your Friends. In other words, what does music
mean to
1 A). What is the narrator’s advice for young people considering
a career in the music industry?
the narrator and his colleagues in Kill Your Friends?
2. What does music mean to you? Which attitudes to music in the
two excerpts are closest to your own?
2. According to the narrator, what does it take to become a
successful recording artist?
Analysis and
interpretation
1. What do you think of the narrator and what he says?
Role play
Characters
The representative(s) of a big record company
A young unsigned band
Situation
At a meeting, the record company tell the band what direction
they want them to take in order for the company to offer a record
contract.
The band tell the record company what they think of the deal.
Negotiation between the two parties begins.
Instruction
• Form groups of 4-5 people and allocate the roles of band members
and record company representatives.
• Before the play begins, the band and the company should spend a
few minutes on their own deciding what terms they are aiming for.
• The record company start the play by welcoming the band and
outlining their terms.
Observation
1. Underline or list all informal words and phrases on the first two
pages of the text. Informal language include slang, swear-words,
emoticons (or, smileys), and casual or loose constructions common
in spoken language. Such language is only suitable for some texts
and situations, e.g. a text message, an e-mail between friends or a
conversation with a family member.
2. In what types of texts and situations would such language work to
your disadvantage?
3. Rewrite the section beginning with “Sometimes, when they’re
trying to understand…” and ending with “…all the other talented
losers”, p. xx, so that the language becomes more formal and the
section could be used as “An insider’s view of the music business”
in a career guidance book. Also, imagine that the publisher has
forbidden the A&R man to insult anyone directly. Change as much
as you like except for the main message.
4. In small groups, compare your rewrites and discuss whether they
meet the requirements.
Vocabulary
1. From the glossary to this text, choose ten words that would be
useful to learn. Avoid names and informal, unusual and very
difficult words.
2. Create a crossword puzzle out of the words with an online puzzle
maker, e.g. the one on www.discoveryeducation.com/freepuzzlemaker. On this site, choose the “Criss-Cross” type and follow
the instructions. When you give the clue for each word, you may
write the Danish translation, explain the meaning in English or use
an English synonym.
3. Print the puzzle and exchange puzzles with a classmate. If
necessary, help each other solve the puzzles.
4. When done, write a sentence with each word in the puzzle you
received.
28 ANGLES
INTRODUCTION
This article is from USA Today, one of the widest circulated newspapers in
the United States. The reporter lives in Texas and writes “about behaviour
and relationships” according to her Twitter profile.
Generation Y’s goal?
Wealth and fame
Sharon Jayson, January 9, 2007
Ask young people about their
generation’s top life goals and the
answer is clear and resounding: They
want to be rich and famous.
Generation Y vestlige unge
født i 1980’erne og de tidlige
1990’ere (efter Generation
X)
re’sounding rungende
“When you open a celebrity magazine, it’s all about the money and
being rich and famous,” says 22-year-old Cameron Johnson of
Blacksburg, Va. “The TV shows we watch — anything from The
Apprentice where the intro to the show is the ‘money song’ — to
Us Weekly magazine where you see all the celebrities and their
$6 million homes. We see reality TV shows with Jessica and Nick
living the life. We see Britney and Paris. The people we relate to
outside our friends are those people.”
Eighty-one percent of 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed in a Pew
Research Center poll released today said getting rich is their
generation’s most important or second-most-important life goal; 51%
said the same about being famous.
Va. = Vir’ginia delstat i det
østlige USA
The Ap’prentice amerikansk
reality-show
Us Weekly amerikansk
sladderblad
Jessica and Nick Jessica
Simpson, Nick Lachey:
amerikanske popsangere
med eget realityshow
re’late to kunne relatere til,
forholde sig til,
sur’vey undersøge, interviewe
Pew Re’search Center
amerikansk forskningscenter
poll meningsmåling
re’lease offentliggøre
Phila’delphia storby i
den nordøstlige delstat
Pennsylvania
fuel give næring til
‘sponsorship deal (aftale om)
sponsorat
‘crossover (her) afsmittende
mil’lennial årtusindglow skær
glare blændende lys
omni’present
allestedsnærværende
’revel in sole sig i
ac’customed vant
shower (vb.) overøse
’accolade lovord
means middel
’fortune formue; held
’glamorous glamourøs,
attraktiv
a’spiring fremadstræbende
’Thanksgiving amerikansk
helligdag den fjerde torsdag
i november hvor man fejrer
høsten med en familiemiddag
as’sociate’s de’gree in ap’plied
arts toårig uddannelse i
kunstindustri
’Dallas storby i den sydlige
delstat Texas
’suburb forstad
’monetary pengemæssig
bleak dyster
escalate stige
di’sparity ulighed
’en’vision forestille sig
N.Y. New York: nordøstlig
delstat
acqui’sition erhvervelse, køb
di’stinguish udmærke sig
caste kaste, social rang
carve out (her) skabe
30 ANGLES
“We’re seeing the common person become famous for being
themselves,” says David Morrison of the Philadelphia-based research
firm Twentysomething Inc. MTV and reality TV are in large part
fueling these youthful desires, he says.
“Look at Big Brother and other shows. People being themselves
can be incredibly famous and get sponsorship deals, and they can
become celebrities,” he says. “It’s a completely new development in
entertainment, and it’s having a crossover effect on attitudes and
behavior.”
The results of the Pew telephone survey of 579 young people
describe the “millennial” generation (also known as Gen Y), who
were born since the early 1980s and were raised in the glow and glare
of their parents’ omnipresent cameras. While experts say it’s natural
for humans to seek attention, these young people revel in it. They’re
accustomed to being noticed, having been showered with awards
and accolades.
Add in the anything-is-possible attitude typical of youth overall,
and experts say that even among millennials of lesser economic
means, there is an optimism that fame and fortune can happen to
anyone.
“Society raised us where money is
glamorous, and everybody wants to
be glamorous,”
says Jason Head, an aspiring actor who turned 26 just before
Thanksgiving. He earned an associate’s degree in applied arts. To
pay the bills, he’s a bar manager and bartender in the Dallas suburb
of Plano. […]
Life today is expensive
Monetary realities are far bleaker for this generation than what their
parents experienced. Costs for basics such as housing, insurance or
education have escalated, even as income growth for the middle class
has slowed. There’s also more disparity between rich and poor.
So, these young people may well be dreaming when they
envision futures filled with money and fame, suggests economist
Robert Frank of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. […]
Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at
Syracuse University, says one reason money appears so important
is that modern American life “has a lot to do with acquisition.”
“The way to distinguish ourselves is by our stuff,” he says. “In some
cultures, you’re born into a caste. You know who you are, and it
doesn’t change. Here, you have to carve out your identity, and one of
British-American actress and fashion model Mischa Barton(b. 1986) in the glare of the spotlight in 2010.
She is being filmed by, among others, her reality show crew.
the most obvious ways to do that is to climb the ladder. It’s not
about birth and class, but it is about financial status.”[…]
Virginia entrepreneur Johnson started a dozen businesses
before turning 21. He says celebrities, from athletes to actors and
music stars, get huge amounts of money, so it’s not surprising young
people want that, too. “Money creates the freedom to live the life we
want,” he says. In addition to online business ventures such as selling
Beanie Babies and gift cards, he has written a book, out this week
from Simon & Schuster, You Call the Shots.
The Pew study found young people are about twice as likely
(14%) to admire an entertainer than a political leader (8%). “Famous
people are in their faces so much more, and as a society, we have
escalated the value we put on celebrities,” Thompson says. […]
Now, young people can be celebrities in their own worlds by
posting videos on YouTube, posing like a model on MySpace or
creating an online reality show featuring themselves. Pew found
54% of those 18 to 25 have used social networking sites such as
MySpace or Facebook; 44% have created a profile featuring photos,
hobbies or interests.[…]
Consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow of Golden Gate University
in San Francisco worries about the downside of young people
presenting themselves on the Web vs. the intimacy that comes with
real communication.
‘dozen dusin, (omkring) 12
in ad’dition to foruden
’venture foretagende
Beanie Baby en type bamse
Simon & Schuster amerikansk
forlag
call the shots være den der
bestemmer
’pose posere, optræde
con’sumer forbruger
’intimacy nærhed
sense følelse
vali’dation anerkendelse
“My fear is not so much for our
society but for a sense of emptiness
and depression these kids might have
as they age,”
Analysis
1. List all the people that Sharon Jayson seems to have interviewed
for the article, and for each person consider why they were
interviewed.
2. Usually Jayson does not just sum up the interviews in her own
words, but quotes from them as well – in fact, the article
constantly changes between her words and quotes. Why do you
think it has been written in this way?
she says. “They’re putting their resources and energy and validation
and self-worth into what people who aren’t close to them think of
them, which is fame.”
3. Characterize the reporter’s own attitude towards Generation Y
and their values. Is she neutral, or does she seem negative or
positive? Give examples.
Concerned about finances
’annual årlig
college ’freshman
førsteårsstuderende
well off velstillet
‘monitor overvåge
con’duct foretage
striking slående, markant
re’spondent svarperson
junior på næstsidste studieår
’majoring in med hovedfag i
Ark. = ‘Arkansas delstat i
syden
Mass. = Massa’chusetts
nordøstlig delstat
filthy (adv.) (uformelt)
ekstremt, svin
Comprehension
In an annual survey of college freshmen by the Higher Education
Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles, 2005
data show that money is much more on their minds than in the past.
The percentage who say it is “essential” or “very important” to be
“very well off financially” grew from 41.9% in 1967 to 74.5% in 2005;
“developing a meaningful philosophy of life” dropped in importance
from 85.8% in 1967 to 45% in 2005.
The same was true for high school seniors in 1976 compared
with those in 2005. Monitoring the Future, a study conducted
annually by the University of Michigan, found striking differences
in responses to the question “How important to your life is having
lots of money?” In 1976, 15.4% of 3,009 respondents thought it was
“extremely important,” compared with 25% of 2,587 young people
in 2005. And in 2005, 5.6% thought having lots of money was “not
important,” down from 11% in 1976.
Mark Ayoub, 20, a junior majoring in politics and religion at
Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., says at one time, he wanted to be
famous in national politics but changed his mind after seeing how
politicians have so little personal time. Rich, though, “appeals to me,”
says Ayoub, who grew up in Needham, Mass., a suburb of Boston.
“I don’t need to be filthy rich,” he says, “but I want to live above the
minimum — not just pay the bills but enjoy comfort in life and not
just provide a minimal experience for my kids.”
1. Why was this article written – what new information inspired it?
2. According to the article, how are Generation Y’s values different
from those of previous generations, and what may explain this?
For help, see “Analysis Angles: Fictional Texts”
4. Is the intended receiver of the article a young person or someone
older – or is the article written equally for both age groups? Give
examples from the text to support your answer.
Discussion
1. Do you agree with the picture that the article paints of
Generation Y? Why/why not?
2. Do you share the values and goals expressed by the two young
men (Johnson and Mark Ayoub) in the latter half of the text?
Why/why not?
3. How would you explain the differences between attitudes in
1967 and 2005 found in one of the surveys mentioned, p. xx?
Paralells
1. Compare Generation Y’s attitude to fame as presented in the
above article with Andy Warhol’s attitude to fame:
How important and desirable does fame seem to Warhol and
today’s young people, respectively?
Explain the differences in their attitudes to fame. Use the texts,
but also consider other factors, e.g. the stages they have
reached in their careers.
2. Based upon the last part of “Fame”, p. xx, what would Warhol
think of the “new development” in which we are “seeing the
common person become famous for being themselves”, p. xx?
3. How may the new generation’s goals be harmful or difficult to
achieve according to some of the experts interviewed?
4. Why is it that modern American life “has a lot to do with
acquisition” according to Professor Robert Thompson?
32 ANGLES
Roleplays
• In pairs, with one person being representative of 1967, the
other of 2005, discuss and defend the values of “developing a
meaningful philosophy of life” vs. being “very well off
financially”.
• In groups, imagine you are a family in which the teenager comes
home telling his/her parents that s/he wants to participate in a
reality show. How do the parents and siblings react? Why does
the teenager want to be in the show?
Writing
1. Brainstorm in class: What defines the type of article called an
“opinion piece”?
2. Individually, write such an article, in 400-500 words, for an
international newspaper. In it you must try to characterize the
values of your generation, i.e. people at your age plus/minus five
years. Base your description on yourself, your friends, schoolmates and the media. Also write what you think of these values.
3. Create word clouds from the article by pasting it into, e.g.,
www.wordle.net. Then circulate in class telling others about your
views on your generation’s values using the word clouds as your
only manuscript.
Pictures
1. Make a digital collage about your generation and their values
and interests. Find pictures illustrating this on the Internet and
arrange them with an online collage maker, e.g. the one on
www.photovisi.com. On this site, select a template, upload your
pictures, choose a background picture/colour, and add some
text, e.g. ad slogans, headlines from articles, quotes from song
lyrics or your own words. Make final adjustments to your collage,
save it by pressing the “Finish” button and then download it.
2. In groups, each person must show their collage and explain
why it represents their generation. The other students should
consider whether they agree with this portrayal of their/the
speaker’s generation.
INTRODUCTION
The following article is from BNET, an American online magazine on
issues of business management. The young writer sometimes uses the
name Entry-Level Rebel.
Is Facebook Turning
Generation Y Into a
Bunch of Narcissists?
Jessica Stillman, December 14, 2010
T
hroughout history, people have used tools to share plans,
build relationships and trumpet their achievements. Only in
the past they were more likely to use a telegraph, a pony
messenger or a campfire story than the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
That’s how the conventional wisdom goes at least.
But some experts are arguing that social media has fundamentally
transformed not only the means of communication, but the content
– and the people doing the communicating. And in the process, it is
altering an entire generation’s career ambitions.
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, a professor at USC’s School of Policy,
Planning and Development and author of the new book Starstruck:
The Business of Celebrity, contends that the confluence of a new
corrosive celebrity culture and the growth of technology that enables
oversharing has led to a spike in narcissism among young people. In
an interview with Entry-Level Rebel, she explains why broadcasting
what you had for breakfast on Facebook does more harm than boring
your friends.
Is there any hard evidence that young people are more
narcissistic on the whole than older generations?
There actually is.
34 ANGLES
Generation Y vestlige unge
født i 1980’erne og de tidlige
1990’ere (efter Generation X)
bunch (uform.) samling, flok
’narcissist narcissist, person
præget af overdreven
selvoptagethed og manglende
evne til at engagere sig i andre
‘trumpet (vb.) udbasunere
a’chievement præstation
con’ventional traditionel,
vedtagen
means middel
‘content indhold
‘alter ændre
USC University of Southern
California
‘policy (virksomheds)politik,
målsætning
‘starstruck benovet over
berømthed
con’tend hævde
’confluence sammenløb
cor’rosive nedbrydende
en’able muliggøre
spike kraftig stigning
’narcissism narcissisme,
overdreven selvoptagethed
og manglende evne til at
engagere sig i andre
’entry-level på begynderniveau;
i bunden af en organisation
’rebel oprører, rebel
’broadcast udsprede,
offentliggøre
’evidence beviser,
dokumentation
marked markant
’inventory liste af træk;
(egentl.) inventarliste
36 ANGLES
There’s been studies done that have
demonstrated that there’s actually
been a marked upswing in what they
call the Narcissistic Personality
Inventory since 2002.
What’s to blame for that?
The currency of celebrity in today’s society is oversharing. It’s all
about this collective obsession about them as people rather than
being film stars or looking gorgeous on the red carpet. It’s about
these banal details of their lives, and since that’s the currency in
which we create celebrities, anyone can play a role in that.
Facebook is such a perfect example of this. So many of us are
spending so much time on Facebook cultivating these personalities,
cultivating in our way a fan base through status updates about little,
intimate details of our lives, and there’s no question that that’s just
an incredible self-obsession at play.
The 1903 oil painting Echo
& Narcissus by the English
Pre-Raphaelite artist John
William Waterhouse
currency valuta
ob’session besættelse
’gorgeous pragtfuld
’’cultivate opdyrke
‘intimate privat
self-ob’session selvoptagethed,
(egentl.) ‘selvbesættelse’
‘decade årti
‘current nuværende
a’chievement præstation
as’sociate forbinde
re’quire kræve
pro’saic prosaisk, banal
‘entryway (her) adgangsbillet
’Cheetos majsmelssnack med
ostesmag
af’fect påvirke
e’laborate on uddybe, forklare
nærmere
Us Weekly a merikansk
sladderblad
hinge on afhænge af
scoop skefuld
en’gage with indlade sig med
’public (subst.) (her) publikum
end formål
’payback afkast, belønning
‘average gennemsnitlig,
almindelig
at the ex’pense of på
bekostning af
ap’ply for ansøge om
Movie and sports stars have been around for decades. What’s the
difference between celebrity now and celebrity in the past? Is it
just that we’re more interested in who stars are married to and
where they shop today?
Celebrity in current society doesn’t always have to do with
achievement. If you look historically at celebrity, it certainly was
associated with some sort of achievement, whether it was playing
sports or starring in films, those things require real talent.
Now, as a society, there’s no question that we’re more interested in
prosaic details than celebrities as icons of perfection. That may have been
their entryway into stardom. Angelina Jolie certainly became famous
because she is a beautiful, Oscar-winning actress. That was her channel,
but what we care now about is, oh my gosh, she fed her kids Cheetos!
And that’s totally strange and unlike anything we’ve seen before.
How do you think this change in the nature of celebrity is
affecting normal, non-celebrities? Can you elaborate on social
media’s role in this change?
The first thing is, of course, suddenly our stars become people “like us”
if we want to use Us Weekly’s mantra. That gives us more channels to
become our own version of celebrities. Reality TV stars’ celebrity
hinges on us getting scoops on their day to day lives. If we look at
Facebook “celebrities” it’s the same thing.
The people on our Facebook page that
get the most comments, that we spend
the most time looking at, are the ones
constantly sharing information about
themselves and engaging with their
public. The question is, to what end?
If you’re Angelina Jolie, if you’re on the cover you’re selling
magazines, maybe getting more film roles, so there’s an obvious
payback for your celebrity. But for the average person, spending too
much time on oversharing comes at the expense of doing something
else whether it’s reading a good book, applying for a job or writing
something that could get published.
[…]
I read a great post on a blog called wanderingstan recently that
talked about how all the author’s Facebook friends have these
38 ANGLES
shiny online personas that don’t accurately represent their less
shiny real lives, and that following them gives him a sense of
inadequacy. Has your research turned up anything similar?
What I think you’re getting at, which is so fascinating, is that there’s
almost a dichotomy out there. On the one hand things like Facebook
and Twitter enable us to share banality – the “so and so is eating a
bagel” “this is what I had for breakfast” stuff which is just totally not
interesting and yet for some reason we find it compelling. On the
other hand, when you look at people’s profiles they’re able to create
this more glamorous existence than they really have. People always
look great in their photos, they’re doing something quirky or
interesting, they have very obscure music interests. They create this
persona while also oversharing the stuff that’s not interesting. All of
that it speaks to the way in which we, on these social media sites,
actually cultivate a type of celebrity.
If you take out the fact that it’s your random friend from high
school and not Angelina Jolie, they engage in the same kind of
behavior. It’s the cultivation of a certain kind of outward appearance.
It’s also that we’re fascinated with these really small details. So it’s
actually not very different.
And the question is if we’re busy doing that are we not busy doing
things that are actually important? Are we ceasing to link recognition
with achievement? As a society do we stop saying the way in which
we gain acclaim is by working hard at the office, by achieving, by
promotion? Is it more like there’s a whole other way in which I can
create my own version of a fan base?
Comprehension
per’sona (her) identitet
i’nadequacy mangelfuldhed
dichotomy /dæɪˈkɒtəmi/
tvedeling, modsætning
com’pelling fængslende
’glamourous glamourøs,
betagende
’quirky finurlig
ob’scure lidet kendt
‘random vilkårlig, tilfældig
‘outward ydre
ap’pearance fremtoning
cease holde op med
link (vb.) sammenkæde
recog’nition anerkendelse
gain ac’claim opnå anerkenelse
pro’motion forfremmelse
1. According to Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, there is an increase in
narcissism among young people today. What is narcissism, and
who is Narcissus after whom the term is named? Use the picture
below in your answer.
For help, use an encyclopedia, e.g. Wikipedia.
2. What two factors have caused the increase in narcissism
according to Currid-Halkett?
3. What does “oversharing” mean in this context?
4. According to the article, how may oversharing be useful if
you are a celebrity, but a waste of time if you are not?
5. What are our two overall ways of using social networking
services according to the professor (what she calls “a
dichotomy”)?
6. Explain “the sense of inadequacy” felt by the blogger who is
mentioned on pp. xx.
Analysis
For help, see “Analysis Angles: Non-Fictional Texts”
Pictures
1. What type of article is the text?
2. What is the journalist’s attitude towards the interviewee?
Is she critical, neutral, in agreement or…?
2. Create a picture yourself titled Modern Narcissus. You may use
any medium or technique available whether it is painting,
drawing (programmes), photography, collage or mixed media.
Then circulate in class and explain the thoughts behind your
picture to a handful of classmates – one at a time.
3. In the text, how can we see that it is from a business magazine,
i.e. written for business people?
Discussion
1. Do you agree that many young people are narcissists and behave
as described? Why/why not?
2. Are you on Facebook, Twitter or another social networking
service? Why/why not?
3. Do you or someone you know use these networking websites to
give the impression of a “more glamorous existence” or to act
like an actual celebrity? If so, how is this done?
4. Do you ever feel a ”sense of inadequacy” (cf. comprehension
q. 6 above) when you look at other people’s profiles on social
media sites?
5. Do those of you who are on such a site have any advice for
newcomers (some do’s and don’t’s)?
Writing
1. Brainstorm: As a journalistic genre what characterizes an
interview?
2. Do an interview with a classmate on his/her use of social
networking services. Prepare questions before the interview, but
feel free to ask more questions. Remember to record the
interview (e.g. on a mobile phone) or take notes, and to take a
photo of your classmate.
1. How is narcissism portrayed in John William Waterhouse’s
painting below? Consider the persons and their facial
expressions, body language, eye gaze direction and surroundings
as well as the composition and use of light, colours and symbols.
Observation
1. Find a partner and, on one or more social networking websites,
observe and describe a phenomenon of your own choice. For
instance, you could look into
how status updates, pictures or stated hobbies are used to
create a certain persona
what types of responses status updates get (if any)
where, when and why emoticons (smileys) are used
to what ends certain politicians use their profiles or status updates
how Danes use English in their mutual communication
how correct the English is in terms of grammar and spelling and
whether correctness matters on these sites
2. Split up and individually circulate in class telling other students
what you have found out.
3. Turn your conversation into an article similar to the one above.
Edit what was said in order to avoid repetition and anything
irrelevant or unclear. Also, write a short introduction, come up
with a headline and write a caption for the picture.
4. Upload your article to the class website, or your blog, for your
classmates to read.
40 ANGLES
INTRODUCTION
Analysis
Teenage Paparazzo is an American documentary about
a 14-year-old paparazzi photographer named Austin
Visschedyk. Director Adrian Grenier (b. 1976) is best
known as an actor in the television series Entourage and
in the Hollywood film The Devil Wears Prada.
Teenage Paparazzo
Adrian Grenier, 2010
Pre-watching
1. At the beginning of the film, what techniques are used to present
paparazzi as something annoying and menacing? See e.g.
“Editing” and “Camera movement” in “Analysis Angles: Films”.
2. How do Austin’s life, behaviour and goals change during the film?
3. How does Adrian’s and Austin’s relationship develop?
4. How does the director give us a sense of how Austin and his
mother feel about the documentary and their roles in it?
5. Comment on what devices the film uses to give a sense of speed
and the adrenaline rush of the paparazzi. Think, for instance,
about camera movement, editing and other cinematic devices.
6. Does the film carry any messages, or is it neutral in its
presentation of the subject matter? Give reasons for your answer.
1. Read about the movie on the Internet in order to get an idea of
its content. Find information on at least two websites.
7. How is the film different from many other documentaries?
2. In pairs, tell each other what you have found out and what kind
of websites you used.
3. Read the comprehension and analysis questions below and in
class divide them among you. Start taking notes for your
questions while watching the film.
Comprehension
1. How do Adrian and Austin meet?
2. What do we learn about the life of each at the beginning of the film?
3. What do the people interviewed say about the relationship
between celebrities and the paparazzi/the media? How do they
think it has changed?
4. How do the interviewees explain people’s attraction to celebrities?
In their opinion, how and why has this interest changed?
5. Explain the origin and root meaning of the word “paparazzo”.
How do “paparazzo”, “paparazza” and “paparazzi” differ in
meaning/grammar?
6. Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases and, if
possible, the context in which they are used in the film: For help,
use dictionaries, e.g. an online advanced learner’s dictionary.
–
–
–
–
–
–
42 ANGLES
a fortuitous encounter
a stakeout
a tabloid (paper)
to hover over your child
double standards
to antagonize
–
–
–
–
–
–
to cross over the threshold
a luminary
a parasocial relationship
precocious
shallow
exploitation
Parralells
1. What observations and views in the movie echo those expressed
in the articles “Generation Y’s goal? Wealth and fame”, p. xx, and
“Is Facebook Turning Generation Y Into a Bunch of
Narcississists?”, p. xx?
2. Compare the fans we see or hear about in the movie to those in
Juliet, Naked, p. xx, and “Fame”, p. xx. How are they different, or
similar?
Pictures
1. Brainstorm: What characterises a documentary film?
2. In groups, prepare a short documentary film (c. 5 minutes) about
one or more fans – or a (minor) celebrity you know.
Who do you want to interview?
What questions should be asked?
Apart from the interview, what other footage would be relevant?
What structure do you want the film to have?
Discussion
1. What do you think of the fact that Austin’s parents allow him to
work as a paparazzo?
2. To what extent is Adrian to blame for the change in Austin’s
behaviour in the middle of the film?
3. At the end of the film, does Austin do the right thing in turning
down a TV offer and escaping media attention? Why/why not?
4. Are the paparazzi violating the celebrities’ privacy, or should the
celebrities accept them as part of their career? Give reasons for
your answer.
What camera equipment do you have (access to)?
Do you know how to edit your footage? If not, who might help you,
or teach you how?
3. Shoot and edit your documentary. Make room for new ideas as
you go along.
4. Show your film in class after a short introduction about your
intentions (and your problems realising them).
5. Should people stop buying gossip magazines if they do not
approve of the paparazzi’s methods? Why/why not?
6. Why do you think so many of us find celebrities’ private lives
fascinating?
Writing
1. Brainstorm in class: What characterizes a movie review?
2. Revision in class: What is an opinion piece? (Cf. the writing
exercise on p. xx to “Generation Y’s goal…”)
3. On your own, write one of the following texts in about 400 words:
a review of Teenage Paparazzo for an international youth
magazine
an opinion piece for an international newspaper commenting on
the use of paparazzi photos in the press
4. In your text, use at least four of the words or phrases in
comprehension question 6 above.
44 ANGLES
The original ladies’ man Lord Byron
INTRODUCTION
The following article is taken from The Sun, the biggest selling newspaper
in the United Kingdom. Lord Byron (1788-1824) was a famous (and
notorious) English poet. The journalist Oliver Harvey is the chief feature
writer at the paper.
His passions included brandy and
bling – and bedding hundreds of
lust-crazed groupies.
Lord Byron’s life
of bling, booze
and groupie sex
Oliver Harvey, August 15, 2008
Lord Byron skandaleombrust
engelsk digter (1788-1824)
bling (slang) smykker og andre
former for tilbehør
booze (slang) spiritus
groupie person (ofte ung
kvinde) der forsøger at møde
en bestemt berømthed, især
at have sex med denne
46for ANGLES
brandy brændevin der minder
om cognac
bed (vb.) gå i seng med
‘lust-crazed vanvittig af begær
More than 150 years before the wild excesses of today’s football and
pop stars, English Romantic poet and bedhopper Lord Byron was the
original “rock ‘n roll” celebrity. The dashing aristocrat’s racy lifestyle,
palatial homes and oceans of female fan mail created a circus not
unlike the one surrounding David Beckham today. The author of
epic romantic poem Don Juan, Byron seduced women with his verse
and was famously described by a lover as “mad, bad and dangerous
to know”.
Now never-before-published letters have emerged proving his
female fans were every bit as smitten as those who were later to
swoon over Becks and his fellow stars. Their letters had daring sexual
undertones for the times. One waxed lyrically: “Why, did my breast
with rapture glow? Thy talents to admire? Why, as I read, my bosom
felt? Enthusiastic fire.” The writer later told how she was “trembling”
as she gazed at her idol’s portrait.
Byron lived fast and died young, aged just 36. He claimed to
have bedded 200 women in two years in Venice alone – but was also
bisexual and had an affair with a teenage Greek boy, Nicolo Giraud.
Byron’s tousled, foppish look and love of outrage was uncannily
like Mick Jagger in his heyday, as well as modern-day shock
merchants Pete Doherty and Russell Brand. At a Rolling Stones
concert in London’s Hyde Park in 1969, Jagger even sported a Byronstyle white smock and read a poem by his poet pal, Percy Shelley.
Pre-dating today’s celebrity cribs, Byron’s palatial homes
included Newstead Abbey, Notts, and Swiss summer residence Villa
Diodati, on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said of meeting
him: “Such a fantastic, effeminate thing I never saw.” “It was all rings
and curls and lace . . . he looked more like a girl than a boy.”
ex’cess udskejelse
dashing flot, elegant
’racy vovet
pa’latial paladsagtig, prægtig
‘epic episk, fortællende
se’duce forføre
e’merge dukke op
smitten forelsket
swoon dåne
daring vovet
wax ’lyrically = (fejl for)
wax lyrical formulere sig
begejstret og poetisk
’rapture henrykkelse, ekstase
thy (ældre) din
’bosom bryst
tremble skælve
gaze stirre
’Venice Venedig
’tousled pjusket
’foppish lapset
’outrage skandale
un’cannily utroligt, uhyggeligt
Mick Jagger forsanger i den
engelske rockgruppe The
Rolling Stones
’heyday storhedstid
shock ’merchant person der
lever af at forarge, provokatør
Pete ’Doherty skandaleombrust
engelsk rockmusiker
Russell Brand excentrisk
og kontroversiel engelsk
komiker
Sport (vb.) være iført
smock blusekjole
pal kammerat
Percy Shelley engelsk
romantisk digter (1792-1822)
pre’date gå forud for
crib (slang) hus
‘Newstead ‘Abbey stort gods
(oprind. kloster), tilhørte i
århundreder Byrons slægt
indtil han tynget af gæld
solgte det
Notts = Nottinghamshire amt
i det centale England
Swiss schweizisk
Villa Diodati gods som Byron
lejede
Lake Ge’neva Genfersøen,
beliggende mellem Frankrig
og Schweiz
Vic’torian fra perioden 18371901 hvor Dronning Victoria
regerede Storbritannien
ef’feminate feminin
lace blonde
Pete Doherty, 2009
es’sentially i bund og grund
rack up akkumulere
ale type øl der er overgæret og
typisk mørk og bitter
ex’travagantly ødselt
item genstand
brooch broche
belt buckle bæltespænde
tooth pick tandstikker
im’mense enorm
WAGs = Wives And Girlfriends
brugt om hustruer og
kærester til professionelle
fodboldspillere
re’veal afsløre
irre’sistible uimodståelig
de’sire (sb.) begær
humble ydmyg
pay ‘tribute to hylde
shrine alter
48 ANGLES
David McClay, curator of the National Library of Scotland’s
John Murray Archive, where the newly published Byron fan mail is
kept, said: “I imagine that if Lord Byron was alive today he would be a
rock star.” “He was probably the first celebrity known across Europe
as well as Britain. He got lots of fan mail from women desperate to
meet him. Some were essentially stalkers.”
Byron racked up huge bills on booze and bling, and Mr McClay
said: “We have bills and receipts for large sums spent on brandy,
wine, ale and meals.” “He also spent heavily on jewellery, cosmetics
and tooth-cleaning powder.” “He spent extravagantly on items such as
brooches, belt buckles and even a gold tooth pick. His bills for
clothing were immense.”
Like today’s would-be WAGs, women would send him letters
begging for signed books, a lock of hair or the chance to get to know
Byron in whatever way he wanted.
The hundreds of fan letters to Byron have been studied by
Oxford University expert Corin Throsby. She revealed that one fan
called Anna wrote of the “irresistible desire” she felt “paying my
humble tribute at the Shrine Of Genius”.
Mick Jagger, Hyde Park, 1969
’Echo (i græsk mytologi) nymfe
der forelsker sig ulykkeligt i
ynglingen Narcissus
prompt foranledige
’gratify tilfredsstille
Green Park park i London
steamy hed
Led Zep = Led Zeppelin
engelsk rockgruppe
knickers trusser
Tom Jones walisisk popsanger
narrative fortællende
’instant øjeblikkelig
Another, simply calling herself Echo, wrote: “Should curiosity
prompt you, and should you not be afraid of gratifying it, by trusting
yourself alone in the Green Park at seven o’clock, you will see Echo.”
Such steamy passions would later be mirrored by modern rock
groupies jumping into bed with the likes of Jagger and Led Zep and
throwing their knickers at Tom Jones and Take That.
George Gordon Byron was born in London in 1788.
At just 24 his narrative poem, Childe
Harold’s Pilgrimage, won him instant,
reality TV-like fame.
Comprehension
Analysis
1. What was the occasion of the article; i.e. why was it written at
this specific time?
2. In what ways was Lord Byron like modern celebrities?
3. Why did Byron leave Britain?
For help, see “Analysis Angles: Non-Fiction Texts”.
1. How would you describe the language and tone of the article?
Give examples.
2. On what part(s) of Byron’s life does the article focus? Why?
3. Comment on the title. Why has the writer chosen this title?
’gra’dation (her) gradvis
opstigning
’mastery beherskelse
un’nerved nervøs
prim snerpet
’plagued plaget
in’cestuous incestuøs,
blodskams-
Kurt Co’bain amerikansk
musiker (1967-1994),
forsanger og guitarist i
Nirvana
Jim ’Morrison amerikansk
musiker (1943-1971),
forsanger i The Doors
pre’serve bevare
ex’hume opgrave
vault krypt
‘manhood (her) penis
50 ANGLES
One writer of the times reflected: “The effect was electric – his fame
had not to wait for any of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to
spring up, like the palace of a fairy tale, in the night.” And in an early
mastery of PR spin, as Byron’s fame grew his publishers made sure
his picture appeared on all his books. He understood the power of
fame and loved it.
In 1812 he began a scandalous affair with a married fellow
aristocrat, Lady Caroline Lamb – a woman so wild that even Byron
was unnerved. But just three years later, seeking respectability, he
married Caroline’s cousin Lady Annabella Milbanke, who was clever
and rich yet prim and religious – and totally unsuited to him. The
marriage ended after just one year – Byron was said to have forced
Annabella to do “unnatural acts” – yet he soon found himself plagued
by more rumours – this time over an incestuous affair with his
married half-sister Augusta. One of her children was probably his.
Aged 28, the shame forced him to leave Britain for Europe.
Like modern rockers Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison, Byron
died young – helping to preserve his myth. He passed away in 1824,
from fever, and fans greeted the news with disbelief. In 1938 his
coffin was exhumed from the family vault at Hucknall Torkard,
Notts, his body was examined and it was noted that his manhood
showed “quite abnormal development”.
As a celebrity, Byron is still the model today. Curator David
McClay said: “Two centuries later, many have never read a word of
his poetry but most have heard of his lifestyle.How many of today’s
stars will be remembered like that?”
4. What is a rhetorical question? Is David McClay’s question at the
end of the article rhetorical? Why/why not? How would you
answer his question? Why?
5. Are other rhetorical devices or special language used in the text,
e.g. imagery, alliteration or slang? If so, what is the purpose?
Discussion
1. Do you think the comparisons the article makes between Byron
and present-day celebrities are valid in general? Why/why not?
2. Do you think being called “mad, bad and dangerous to know”
helped or hindered Byron’s career? Why?
3. How may the fact that Byron, Morrison and Cobain died young
have helped to preserve their myths?
4. Do you understand the widespread fascination with artists and
other famous people who “lived fast and died young”?
Why/why not?
Observation
1. Tabloids and broadsheets are types of newspaper. What
characterizes each in terms of format and content?
For help, use an encyclopedia.
2. Give examples of Danish, American and/or British papers that fit
into either category (or do not fit into any of them).
3. What type of newspaper is The Sun? How is this reflected in the
above article?
Parralells
1. The article focuses upon similarities between today’s cult of
celebrity and that of earlier times. Consider what the differences
are by comparing the text to “Generation Y’s goal? Wealth and
fame”, p. xx, “Is Facebook Turning Generation Y Into a Bunch of
Narcississists?”, p. xx, and the Teenage Paparazzo film.
2. What other differences might there be? It may help you to
consider your parents’ or grandparents’ attitudes to celebrities
and fame.
Writing
1. Brainstorm: What is characteristic of a gossip article?
2. Write a short gossip article about an incident from Byron’s life.
Find inspiration in Oliver Harvey’s article and, as gossip writers
are said to do, use your imagination.
Or write what you think would be the most read gossip article on
the Internet so far. Choose one or more celebrities and give free
rein to your imagination.
Alternatively, imagine that you are Lord Byron and have decided
to reply to one of the letters in the article. What would your reply
look like?
3. Upload your 200-300 word text to a site where your classmates
may read it, e.g. the class website or your blog.
Dictation
Information
search
Several songs deal with fame, e.g. Britney Spears’ “Piece of Me”,
Michael Jackson’s “Tabloid Junkie”, Lady Gaga’s “The Fame”,
Kanye West’s “Monster” and Jennifer Lopez’ “Jenny from the
Block”. On www.songfacts.com you may find a list of “Songs
about dealing with fame” if you click “Browse the Categories”
and choose the category type “About”.
1. In pairs, find an English-language song about fame, listen to it,
read its lyrics and consider the following questions:
What aspect(s) of fame does the song deal with – e.g. the dream
of becoming a star, the fans or the media?
What picture does it paint of fame (or of a particular aspect of it)?
How do the music and the style of singing fit the lyrics (if they do
so at all)?
If there is an official video for the song (check YouTube), how
does it portray the theme?
What parallels could be drawn between the song and one or
more texts in this chapter (including Teenage Paparazzo)?
For instance, does the song focus on the same aspect of fame as
one of the texts, or adopt the same attitude to celebrity culture?
2. Split up and form groups with three or four other classmates. Play
them your song and tell them what you have found out about it.
1. What are the following punctuation marks called?
. , – ( ) ! ? : ; / […]
2. From the article, or other texts in this chapter, choose a 5-10 line
paragraph without too many names or difficult words.
3. Read it aloud quietly to yourself once or twice. To make sure
your pronunciation is correct use an online dictionary with sound,
e.g. the Cambridge or Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary.
4. Slowly and with several pauses, read the paragraph to a
classmate who writes it and then checks it by comparing it
to the original paragraph.
5. Switch roles.
52 ANGLES

the cult of celebrity - Gyldendal Uddannelse

Transcription

Similar documents

Official Game Poster

Discover Modern Luxury with Celebrity Cruises

Regis and Kelly • USA Today • ABC`s 20/20 Piers

downloadable pdf

CLAY WORKSHOP WITH ANNIE CHRIETZBERG

Print out for your friends and schools!

ANDY WARHOL 32 Campbell Soup Cans

Exclusive Non-Stop Flights from OTTAWA, ON to

Media Kit - Avani Media

Why Charter Celebrity to Galapagos?