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Abstract
New debates surrounding the digital remains of people who have died and the possibilities that new technologies raise in terms of symbolic immortality are generating significant interest. These issues provide exciting opportunities for sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists to further understand evolving attitudes to death and mourning. But what happens when the deceased is a popular media figure and the symbolic immortality extends to a digital resurrection played out through the media in new contexts and over an extended period of time? Drawing on sociological, anthropological, and cultural theory, this discursive article addresses some of the reasons for the perpetuation of media personalities whose posthumous careers often exceed their living careers, both in longevity and popularity. It is argued that digital technologies add a new dimension to the many parallels that can be drawn between celebrity culture and religion in what are becoming increasingly secularised societies. For many, digital technology and the Internet remain incomprehensible, leaving room for mythical and magical interpretations especially in relation to a prospect many prefer to deny: ultimate nonexistence. It is proposed that the disenchantment with religious belief, brought about by science and rational thought during the Enlightenment era, leaves many people with inadequate or unacceptable ways of understanding death and mourning. Ironically, it seems that science and new technology now provide the fuel for a re-enchantment of society, and the now normalized suspension of disbelief inherent in the consumption of media entertainment and popular culture helps to facilitate this process.
Acknowledgments
© Alexandra Sherlock
The author is currently studying for a doctorate in sociological studies at the University of Sheffield and lectures at Nottingham Trent University. This article has been developed from a thesis written during her master's degree study in material and visual culture at University College London. Thanks go to the Anthropology Department at UCL (specifically Chris Pinney, Graeme Were, and Victor Buchli), to Professor Jenny Hockey at the University of Sheffield, and to the anonymous reviewers, all of whom offered invaluable advice throughout the development of the article.
Notes
1. The term “digital resurrection” is used within the entertainment industry to refer to the types of posthumous media appearances discussed in this article. One of the earliest references can be found in 1993 in the High Technology Law Journal, which presciently speculated on the ramifications that new and emerging digital technologies would have on intellectual property and entertainment law (Beard Citation1993).
2. In addition, John Wayne promoted Coors Beer, Paula Abdul drank with Cary Grant and danced with a young Gene Kelly in a Diet Coke advert and Laurence Olivier appeared in the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow to mention just a few examples.
3. For example in a 60 Minutes programme for CBS news entitled A Living for the Dead, presenter Steve Kroft highlighted the many commercial advantages of representing and using the deceased for product campaigns, films etc. “Dead celebrities can be a lot more lucrative than live ones, and sometimes a lot less trouble” (Kroft in CBS Citation2010a).
4. For a full explanation see Pessino (2004), Laurens (2001), Collins (2002), and Anderson (2005).
5. It is worth defining what I mean by “secular societies”—a term that could be perceived to be overly generalizing and misleading. I write from a British perspective—Britain being one of the most secular nations in the Western world (Bruce Citation2002). In this respect Britain is perhaps central to the analysis, though North America is also pivotal, as much of the literature and examples on which this article draws are from the United States. Secular societies might more accurately be described as “liberal industrial democracies of the Western world” in which the social significance and authority of religion in official sectors (i.e., the government and the economy) has declined (3). The term, general though it is, is used here with the knowledge that no society is comprehensively secular, least of all America. The apparent stability of religious belief and behaviour in the United States is, in fact, often used as a rebuttal to the secularization paradigm. However, Bruce presents convincing evidence to suggest that this stability is weakening. In addition, he suggests that changes in social structure and culture (e.g., the technological innovations discussed in this article) reduce the demand for religion, therefore potentially eroding religious commitment and contributing to increased secularization (Bruce Citation2002, 4–5).
6. In addition, activity at the graveside, for example Christmas decorations (Francis et al. Citation2005), and the notion of ecological immortality (returning to the earth and continuing through nature) (Davies Citation2005) also facilitate continued social bonds with the dead.
7. In 2006 a young American man suffering from depression committed suicide and used the Internet to assert postmortem agency. He had regularly kept a web log and prior to his death he wrote many entries that were to be released on a time delay. This enabled him to have an effect over his friends and family from beyond the grave, reassuring them and explaining his decision while giving them a sense that he was still around. His family and friends would frequently post replies to his posts, as though they felt he was reading them.
8. In their essay The Ontology of the Photographic Image, Bazin and Gray (1960) explain that ancient Egyptians, who believed that life after death depended on the preservation of their physical bodies, also made statuettes as substitute mummies for extra insurance against ultimate nonexistence in the event of the body being destroyed. Inspired by the exploits of Greek heroes and legendary figures, Alexander the Great—often defined as the first famous person—tried to emulate the deeds of immortals by reproducing his image in iconography, sculptures, and coins (Giles Citation2000). Similarly, the Romans used their likeness on coins to achieve fame and renown, and the ius imagines, the right to have one's face preserved after death, was an important honor (Giles Citation2000). Advances in reproductive technologies in the Middle Ages, for example the printing press, and the invention of engraving, later to be succeeded by etching and then the photograph, meant that images could be reproduced in multiples and widely circulated, leading to the phenomenon known as fame: “Faces were appearing everywhere, and this enabled the famous to multiply the amount of recognition they could achieve” (Giles Citation2000, 16–17).
9. In addition to the kinship strategy for achieving immortality, Bauman (Citation1992) offers many other examples of the ways in which individuals might leave a posthumous legacy, such as building businesses, making money, collecting things, creating things, and adding to knowledge (as perhaps an author does when writing an article).
10. There is one other ingredient that should be acknowledged— charisma. Jenkins suggests that the individual must exhibit a special type of charisma to enchant the public (2000)—which would in turn translate to enchantment and longevity after death.
11. Halberstam links this desire to the desire for immortality by citing Socrates in his address in the Symposium: “all men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue, for they desire the immortal” (Halberstam Citation1984, 96).
12. Benjamin particularly draws on the practice of photography for the purpose of the remembrance of the absent or dead, in which the cult value—the use of the image for ritualistic practices—is maintained.
13. Gell explains that we are all ultimately responsible for images of ourselves, whether we are aware of them or not—without the original, the copy would not exist. However, the term “responsible” implies that one is answerable for images of oneself, which of course is not possible after death. In this case it might be more appropriate to regard the image as connected to the original, rather than answerable to the individual.
14. Benjamin finds this in an image of Franz Kafka as a boy, whose “immeasurably sad eyes” remind him of his own childhood (Duttlinger Citation2008, 87), and Barthes of one of his mother as a child (Barthes Citation2000 [1980]). Neither of them had seen the original—Benjamin never met Kafka and Barthes never met his mother in her childhood,
15. Many conduct relationships with noncelebrities through social networking sites in this way.
16. At the beginning of the 20th century more than half of all deaths in the UK occurred under the age of 45 years. In contrast, 4.4% of deaths in 2009 were under the age of 45 (Office for National Statistics 2010). Also postmortem or memorial photographs are now largely considered distasteful or taboo, except in the case of miscarriage or stillbirth, when the photograph is employed as a way of proving the baby existed and giving it a physical presence by which to be remembered (Layne Citation2000).
17. The death of Princess Diana, perhaps one of the earliest famous deaths to follow the invention of the Internet, provoked huge online activity (Walter Citation1999), and recent deaths, for example, those of Michael Jackson, Leslie Nielson, and Amy Winehouse, have generated a mass of related status updates and Twitter comments.
18. Similar to the strange feeling that people often remark of when faced with “live” photographs or the blog postings of those who have since died.
19. These were the types of adjectives used in comments made in response to clips of advertisements featuring digitally resurrected personalities on YouTube.
20. The advertisement received huge media exposure achieving international coverage. Many critics, however, questioned the ethics of the potential damage to his father's reputation in a self-indulgent exercise designed to try to restore his own reputation (CBS Citation2010b). Also, his father's own extramarital indiscretions seemed to have been eclipsed by the notion that he was speaking from beyond the grave.
21. In his essay “Car Crash Crucifixion Culture,” Darius alludes to the car as hierophany, particularly when it causes the death of a public figure. He proposes that celebrities become godlike and their death via car crash completes this ascent—he claims that James Dean's car crash created his cult following (Darius Citation2001). The parts of his Porsche were subsequently sold off and “In the end, like Christ's true cross, Dean's true car is lost to history, probably stolen by a crazed fan obsessed with celebrity relics” (310). In the same volume Brottman suggests that Princess Diana's accident constituted almost a ritual sacrifice. For those who actually accepted that she had died (and many still do not), Diana was martyred as a result of her suffering at the hands of the paparazzi. This crucifixion or sacrificial parallel is common (Rojek Citation2001). Many stars, during their lives, have claimed to have been crucified by the paparazzi; when they actually do die the metaphor continues. If celebrity death can be likened to sacrifice and crucifixion, then the digital replication of the deceased in the media can logically be considered resurrection.
22. Interestingly, while some suggest that postmodernism has deconstructed meta-narratives like religion—in part a result of alternative possibilities for understanding death—it has been acknowledged that postmodernism also creates “possibilities for religion that modernity denied it” (Bruce Citation2002, 233). Popular culture can lend visual substance and credibility to religious mythical beliefs, for example, the story of Jesus frequently retold on television and in film (Boyd Citation1958). Bruce does, however, conclude that there is now far too much choice in belief for the progress of secularization to be slowed (2002, 240).