Su Holmes
In the not too distant future (or more specifically 2020), Celebrity Studies will be 10 years old. Although many popular commentators suggested at the time of its launch that a regular academic publication on celebrity culture ‘wouldn’t last’, we have proven these doubters wrong. Now published four times a year with an international reputation and readership, as well as large biennial conference attracting hundreds of submissions and delegates, Celebrity Studies is in very good health.
When Sean and I developed the journal (and it should be said here that the impetus came from him: I had to be gradually talked into what I saw as the daunting task of running a journal), we were excited at the idea of creating a regular, dynamic and contemporary context for the study of celebrity to flourish. Although a field of study with a 30 year history, journal articles would be published in disparate spaces across different disciplinary contexts. It is quite right that this should happen still – demonstrating how enmeshed the study of celebrity is with a range of fields and disciplines across Television, Film, Media, Communication, Marketing, Law and beyond. But we are proud of how the journal has developed as a key focus for debates about the interrogation of celebrity culture, and its cultural, ideological, political and economic implications.
During my time as co-editor, we have seen change, as well as continuity in the field. The study (and cultural prevalence) of social media celebrity has become increasingly central, igniting and reinvigorating longer debates about the ‘democratisation’ of fame in the 21st century. We have seen an increased intersection of the relations between popular feminism and celebrity – discourses which play a crucial role in discussions of feminism’s ‘new luminosity’, and much longer historical debates about the relations between feminism and popular culture (Gill, 2016). Although studies of western celebrities and celebrity cultures continue to dominate the field, we have seen increased focus on non-western and/or nationally specific articulations of celebrity, with the journal taking in studies of celebrity cultures from New Zealand, Japan, Canadian, Korean, Russian (to name but a few). Indeed, one of the pleasures and privileges of editing a journal is being on the frontline in terms of seeing how the field is developing – in terms of topics or methods, as well as responses to celebrity controversies or scandals.
At the time of writing (November 2018), it has just been announced in the UK that the Big Brother/Celebrity Big Brother (2000–2018, 2001–2018) – a format which shaped much of my early work on television celebrity, and which has been a staple part of my viewing habits for 18 years – will cease production. As much as I hate to see it go (and I still maintain that it is one of the most fascinating and integral celebrity texts of the 21st century), all good things must come to an end.
As I now end my role as co-editor, I know that the lively and necessary debate fostered by the journal will continue – as shaped and supported by our editors, authors and reviewers. In this regard, I would like to say a huge thank you to my co-editor Sean (for convincing me that this would ‘work’, and for journeying along beside me through good times and bad), and to Kath Burton and Sophie Wade at Routledge, for making Celebrity Studies happen at all. I would also like to extend a very warm welcome to our new co-editor, Erin Meyers, digital editor Celia Lam and book reviews editor Brandy Monk-Payton, and wish Sean, Erin, Gaston, Neil and Brandy all the best in taking the good ship Celebrity Studies forward from this point on. Most of all I would like to say thank you to everyone involved with the journal for confirming my belief – that I developed as a first year undergraduate reading Richard Dyer’s Stars (1979) – that stars and celebrities matter to us all.
Works cited:
Dyer, Richard (1979) Stars, London: BFI.
Gill, Rosalind, (2016) Post-postfeminism?: new feminist visibilities in postfeminist times, Feminist Media Studies, 16:4: 610–630.
Glitter
Sean Redmond
Su and I have been friends and research companions since the first day they cheekily asked me to define the difference between hegemony and ideology – not exactly the topic of Hollywood glamour – and on an area they excelled in. As I struggled to explain the difference, Su couldn’t help burst out laughing. Our conversations have always furrowed deep while holding onto the beautiful absurdity of all that we think and do. Su’s shining intellect and immaculate attention to detail – the deep rub of complex things – shaped our friendship like a magical coat the very first day we put it on. Together, we have edited books, co-written articles, and have given birth to this journal, something we are incredibly proud of.
It hasn’t always been plain sailing, however. When I asked Su if they would help me ‘pitch’ the proposal for the journal, to Routledge, they told me to, ‘fuck off, I am never working with you again’. We had fallen out over the word ‘hot’ in a previous book we had been working on. I knew though that without Su the journal wouldn’t be half as good, that its foundations and articulations would be much less secure; that its flightpath would be hindered and might fall short of its hopeful destination. More than this, I wanted one of my very best friends working with me. Su eventually came on board, and together we crafted the proposal, organised the editorial board, and set ourselves on what is now close to a successful 10-year journey with Celebrity Studies.
Su is a gifted editor, a remarkable reviewer, who quickly sees the worth of a work and the issues it might present to us. The work of a journal can be all-consuming, especially a successful one such as Celebrity Studies, with hundreds of reviews in play at any one time, and the constant need, desire, to provide the very best research counsel for our authors. In the early years, everything arrived via email, and our lives seemed to be overtaken by starry articles – so much so we would end up dreaming about the work. There is a cost, of course: no longer fully recognised by our universities as an activity that can be counted as work, we work all hours, a part of the neo-liberalised market place that steals our time like a ghostly zombie banker trailing their cash coffin in the long night.
We have also had such fun: seeing articles build and grow through the revision process; being challenged by new ideas and frameworks; being spellbound by a glorious piece of analysis; seeing nascent scholars becoming leaders in the field; amusing over hilarious typos. It has been an absolute pleasure and privilege to edit the journal with you, Su.
We have been wonderfully supported by our other editors, and a special note should be mentioned of the outstanding James Bennett, who shaped the Forum Section so that it too was a glittering success.
And so, it is with great regret that we say goodbye to Su, who has decided to stand down as co-editor. You leave the journal in the best of health because you helped give it critical life. We will miss working with you very much. You are made of glitter.
It is now with great pleasure that we introduce our new co-editor, the quite brilliant Erin A Meyers. Welcome Erin, let’s set sail….
Erin A. Meyers
Celebrity Studies was one of the first journals to ever publish my work. As a graduate student who was frequently met with questions of ‘you’re studying what?’ from both outside and inside the academy, it was thrilling to me to find a journal dedicated to exploring the complexity of celebrity culture and validating it as a legitimate and, indeed, serious academic sub-field. The journal and bi-annual conference have been instrumental in moving the field forward by offering critical and cutting-edge research that spans the breadth and depth of celebrity culture. For me, personally, I have long turned to the journal to support both my research and teaching. When the new table of contents alert arrives in my email in-box, my ‘to read’ list always gets a little bit longer.
Having worked with Su and Sean first as a contributor, then as a reviewer and editorial board member and, most recently, as a special edition co-editor, I have seen first-hand the dedication and passion that helped make the journal into the success it is today. I cannot thank Su enough for her work with the journal and am honoured to join Sean, Gaston, Brandy, Neil, and Celia to help guide the journal into its second decade.
The future of Celebrity Studies will be built on the successes of its past. I see the journal’s greatest strength as its role as a platform for theoretically and methodologically diverse approaches to understanding celebrity, examining new contours to this complex cultural phenomenon while always historicising such shifts. Contemporary celebrity is slippery. It includes international superstars and social media microcelebrities. It is at once a public and global phenomenon, and a private and intimate engagement. It offers the promise of democratisation and the realities of neo-liberalism wrapped up in images that spread across all parts of our media culture. The role of Celebrity Studies in this ever-changing context is to meet these complexities head-on by continuing to publish insightful and engaging research that takes celebrity seriously. I look forward to helping create a journal that continues to push at the boundaries of celebrity and popular cultures.