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The Importance of Being Famous: Behind the Scenes of the Celebrity-Industrial Complex
Vanity Fair's Maureen Orth covers lives led in public, on camera, at the very top-from Margaret Thatcher to Tina Turner, from the political theater of the Clinton White House to the strange kingdom of Princess Diana's almost father-in-law. Now this National Magazine Award-winning reporter pulls back the curtain to reveal those who flourish (or sometimes flame out) at these heady altitudes, unraveling their complex lives and exploring the chemistry, the very DNA, of celebrity today
The Importance of Being Famous is a portrait of an era where the media grew larger, the distinction between fame and infamy grew smaller, and celebrity ruled all. Orth delivers a revealing, sophisticated look at the big room of modern celebrity and the star-making machinery of the "celebrity-industrial complex."
The Importance of Being Famous is a portrait of an era where the media grew larger, the distinction between fame and infamy grew smaller, and celebrity ruled all. Orth delivers a revealing, sophisticated look at the big room of modern celebrity and the star-making machinery of the "celebrity-industrial complex."
- GenresNonfiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Maureen Orth
9 books34 followersMaureen Ann Orth is an American journalist who largely covers stories pertaining to pop culture. Before beginning her career in journalism, she served in the Peace Corps in Medellín, Colombia, from 1964 to 1966. In 1983 she married the political journalist Tim Russert, whom she met at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Russert died on June 13, 2008. They have a son, Luke, (b. 1985.)
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 10, 2015
The first thing you have to realize about Maureen Orth is that the lady is not what she seems. The media hype casts her as a fearless iconoclast, a hard-boiled Mencken style truth-teller who rips down the lies and exposes the naked ugliness of celebrity. But that's only partially true.
When you read Orth's pieces on the late Michael Jackson, it becomes very clear that she was never interested in attacking Jackson as much she was committed to defending white America. Certainly in retrospect it's easy enough to believe that the man was a hardened pedophile, a dangerous criminal who should have been locked up. But now that he's gone, it's as plain as the nose on this pathetic creature's face that four hundred years of racial hatred had something to do with his slow descent from human being to faceless monster.
A handsome black boy tears his face off to look white, and all Miss Orth has to say is that "this is a story of how power can corrode and corrupt."
Brilliant, Maureen. It's all about power. For four hundred years white people have had the power to decide who writes the stories, who sings the songs, who is beautiful and who is ugly. It was powerlessness, not power, that drove poor Michael Jackson to tear his face off in order to look more like you. No one in white America was shocked when this poor wretch spent his entire childhood singing and dancing for our amusement. But when it turns out the experience turned him into a pathetic half-mad wretch, suddenly we've got to "save" our children from him. When he was a child, no one was trying to save him -- and don't think he never figured out why!
Far from being a penetrating analyst, Maureen Orth is a genius at simply stating the obvious and ignoring the undercurrents. For example, she tells us over and over that Michael "got away with it" for years because he was making millions for certain powerful industry people. Fine. But wasn't there a bit more to it than that? Michael conned white America into thinking he was a child, and not a man -- and don't you think race had something to do with that? His whole alibi always came down to this, "you think I'm a man, but I'm really just a child, and that's all I'll ever be."
Now where would a black man get the idea that he's not really a man? Who thought that one up? Could it be, I don't know, SATAN?
Michael Jackson got away with it because he told racist white America exactly what it most wanted to hear -- "I'm not a man, I'm only a child, and I promise I'll never grow up." And the funny thing is, he kept his part of the bargain, which is probably why he never quite understood why everyone finally turned on him in the end.
If Maureen Orth were really the clear-sighted visionary she pretends to be, she would have explored some of these issues. She would have compared Michael Jackson to Emmett Till, the black boy who was lynched in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman back in 1955. Note that poor Emmett Till was everything Michael Jackson could never be. He was sexually normal, and white America murdered him for showing desire towards a white woman.
Now here comes Michael Jackson. He's no Emmett Till. Through years of excruciating self-torture, he molded himself into the ideal black man for white America. The thought of sex with any woman, black or white, literally made him ill. Like the ultraviolent Alex in Anthony Burgess' brilliant dystopia A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Michael Jackson was a superb example of social conditioning. As much as anything else, he was the black man white America created to very exacting specifications -- and now that he's dead, the same media that once fawned on him is more than happy to bury him and forget the truth. And fearless, truth-telling Maureen Orth is leading the pack, shovel in hand.
Some journalist! Some truth teller!
When you read Orth's pieces on the late Michael Jackson, it becomes very clear that she was never interested in attacking Jackson as much she was committed to defending white America. Certainly in retrospect it's easy enough to believe that the man was a hardened pedophile, a dangerous criminal who should have been locked up. But now that he's gone, it's as plain as the nose on this pathetic creature's face that four hundred years of racial hatred had something to do with his slow descent from human being to faceless monster.
A handsome black boy tears his face off to look white, and all Miss Orth has to say is that "this is a story of how power can corrode and corrupt."
Brilliant, Maureen. It's all about power. For four hundred years white people have had the power to decide who writes the stories, who sings the songs, who is beautiful and who is ugly. It was powerlessness, not power, that drove poor Michael Jackson to tear his face off in order to look more like you. No one in white America was shocked when this poor wretch spent his entire childhood singing and dancing for our amusement. But when it turns out the experience turned him into a pathetic half-mad wretch, suddenly we've got to "save" our children from him. When he was a child, no one was trying to save him -- and don't think he never figured out why!
Far from being a penetrating analyst, Maureen Orth is a genius at simply stating the obvious and ignoring the undercurrents. For example, she tells us over and over that Michael "got away with it" for years because he was making millions for certain powerful industry people. Fine. But wasn't there a bit more to it than that? Michael conned white America into thinking he was a child, and not a man -- and don't you think race had something to do with that? His whole alibi always came down to this, "you think I'm a man, but I'm really just a child, and that's all I'll ever be."
Now where would a black man get the idea that he's not really a man? Who thought that one up? Could it be, I don't know, SATAN?
Michael Jackson got away with it because he told racist white America exactly what it most wanted to hear -- "I'm not a man, I'm only a child, and I promise I'll never grow up." And the funny thing is, he kept his part of the bargain, which is probably why he never quite understood why everyone finally turned on him in the end.
If Maureen Orth were really the clear-sighted visionary she pretends to be, she would have explored some of these issues. She would have compared Michael Jackson to Emmett Till, the black boy who was lynched in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman back in 1955. Note that poor Emmett Till was everything Michael Jackson could never be. He was sexually normal, and white America murdered him for showing desire towards a white woman.
Now here comes Michael Jackson. He's no Emmett Till. Through years of excruciating self-torture, he molded himself into the ideal black man for white America. The thought of sex with any woman, black or white, literally made him ill. Like the ultraviolent Alex in Anthony Burgess' brilliant dystopia A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Michael Jackson was a superb example of social conditioning. As much as anything else, he was the black man white America created to very exacting specifications -- and now that he's dead, the same media that once fawned on him is more than happy to bury him and forget the truth. And fearless, truth-telling Maureen Orth is leading the pack, shovel in hand.
Some journalist! Some truth teller!
May 16, 2008
Not very good. It turned out to be a series of article that had appeared in magazines. It was all very self absorbing and dull.
June 17, 2013
Great writing, but I didn't realize when I picked up the book how old some of the articles were. Old news.
September 14, 2017
Most of the collected articles were from the 1990s, but I found it really fun to visit that era of celebrity again.
April 21, 2022
I enjoyed it more than I thought, although some of the essays said very little about their subjects.
May 8, 2022
Might have been good years ago (2004) but dated and stale now. Not worth wasting time. You can skim through it a bit, but I wouldn't go out of my way to source it and read it.
April 19, 2015
This is not a great book. Individual essays are (strangely) framed by accounts of the aftermath of Laci Peterson's murder, which makes absolutely no sense at all. I don't know half the people she's writing about, so I finally put it down. The Tina Turner and Karl Lagerfeld chapters were good, though.
March 7, 2016
I had such high hopes for this book, but she was writing about last generation's celebrities, and more than that, seemed to salivate at the very details she disparages the media for being addicted to. When it got to the Michael Jackson chapter, I gave up. The Laci Peterson debacle, glorying in Tina Turner's story of abuse and Woody Allen's gross familial dark secrets. No no no.
October 3, 2007
Really good collection of essays about celebrities. Any celebrity gossip lover would like this book.
July 24, 2009
Maureen is Tim Russert's wife.
October 24, 2013
I'm not sure what the hell this essentially lazy book was about.
February 18, 2016
Fascinating!
Extremely well-researched and well written.
Extremely well-researched and well written.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews