Reading heat: The meanings and pleasures of star fashions and celebrity gossip

Abstract

Although the growth of celebrity gossip publications has recently outstripped that of the traditionally orientated women's weeklies, comparatively little work exists to account for the meaning and pleasures afforded by these particular texts. Although current research has proposed a textual reading of these magazines, this work has yet to engage with the ways in which audiences make use of such titles. Therefore, the present article will look at heat magazine and examine reader responses to this particular publication, highlighting the importance of star fashions and celebrity gossip for the target ‘twenty-something’ female reader.

Notes

1. I will be using the terms ‘star’ and ‘celebrity’ interchangeably throughout this work to foreground those famous personalities from the media and entertainment industries whose ‘private lives attract greater public interest than their professional lives’ (Turner 2004, 3).

2. The female readers in my focus group were all ‘White British’, although this may have less to do with the lack of ethnic diversity amongst the heat readership and more to do with the fact that more than 85% of the UK population were classified as ‘White British’ in the 2001 census. Moreover, even though a cursory glance at the magazine shows a focus on young white female celebrities, such coverage may be said to represent the lack of diversity in the wider entertainment landscape, rather than any agenda on the part of the publication. Although the title makes no claims about its appeal to a broad ethnic grouping, if one considers the ways in which celebrity coverage is seen to facilitate ‘conversations across social and cultural divisions’, then one may suggest that such star stories could also be seen to cross racial and ethnic classifications among the 18–34-year-old female population (Johansson 2006, 349).

3. Although intermediate levels of celebrity worship are characterized by intense personal feelings, reflecting an individual's belief that they may have a special bond with a celebrity, high levels are thought to resemble more social–pathological attitudes and behaviours that are held as a result of worshipping a celebrity (Maltby, cited in the Daily Mail 2003).

4. The tabloid media appear so keen to foster the spectacle of ‘train wreck’ or ‘crash and burn’ celebrity that a 1-day event has been sponsored by the School of Film and Television Studies at the University of East Anglia to examine how discourses of tabloidism, ‘reality’ and scandal shape the construction of female celebrity. The event organizers tell us that it originates with the broadly felt sense that a certain kind of female celebrity seems to be depreciating in value and, as such, they want to ask why this may be the case. After all ‘while work on … celebrity has acknowledged the existence of hierarchies of fame, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how such hierarchies are gendered’ (Holmes and Negra 2008).

5. Although heat seems to refer to specific star styles as being the work of a particular celebrity, it is relevant to note that the readers do not assume that such styles are the result of any one individual. Rather, they seem aware of the work of the labourers who help specific personalities to construct and maintain particular looks. Although the readers clearly have an investment in the celebrity system as a source of knowledge about contemporary fashions, these same readers are entirely aware of the production process behind this system. Therefore, rather than assume that an awareness of the construction of such star looks will challenge the readers' investment in the celebrity system, it is relevant to note that such an awareness appears to encourage the readers' investment in the culture of celebrity.