Stardom, Celebrity, and the Moral Economy of Pretending
Barry E. King · 2015
Stars and celebrities are exemplars and placeholders occupying a preferential place on the societal scale of worthiness or prestige. This place is a technologically produced and sustained order of excellence that creates what is called the moral economy of pretending. This chapter considers the general features of this economy by examining some key concepts: persona, identity in performance, interposition of technology, the relationship between technology and the body, and big fix. In considering stardom or celebrity, these principles need to be adjusted to the fact that we are addressing not social exchange in general, but social exchange occurring through the production of performance commodities, which entails a very specific set of sociological and economic constraints. The current priority given to the well-defined body and cosmetically maintained or surgically enhanced appearance can be considered as an assertion of ownership of “persona” effects and affects.