Celebrity has a high currency in contemporary western society, with widespread circulation, commercialization and notions of desire and emulation understood through the representation and dissemination of celebrity. Modern celebrity can be understood through a range of lenses; be it a social function, as a sign or star text (Dyer, 1979), as contributing to cultural identity, or as a process of manufacture and the celebrity as a commodity. Furthermore, celebrity is to some extent substantiated, exacerbated, celebrated and reproduced through promotion and the self-perpetuating effect of mass mediations which provide a vortex of subsidiary circulation for celebrity. Conversely, however, the animated series of South Park offers a challenge to this privileged position and reproduction of celebrity by undermining the representation, manufacture and value of contemporary celebrity. Through parody, South Park provides both a comical and insightful critique of celebrity, exposing and mocking the processes of manufacture, distorts the representational politics and public image of celebrities and generally questions the authenticity, value and place of celebrity in American culture. South Park’s critique also differs from other animated shows, such as The Simpsons, which lampoons modern celebrity but invites these celebrities to participate in the process through providing voice-overs for their animated characters. South Park, however, operates as an outsider discourse without permission to ridicule celebrities, although paradoxically is reliant on this cult of celebrity as material for their comedy. Drawing on South Park’s parody of well-known celebrities such as Russell Crowe, Jennifer Lopez, Winona Ryder, Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton, I suggest South Park subverts dominant representations and celebratory accounts of celebrity; instead fame is belittled, representations are unflattering, personas lack depth, achievements are without merit, and celebrities become mass-produced commodities. Additionally, the vulgarity (Winona Ryder and her ping-pong ball trick), humiliation (Mel Gibson’s deranged passion of Christ), violence (Russell Crowe’s fighting around the world), or utter absurdity (Eric Cartman’s hand becoming Jennifer Lopez and threatening the career and love-life of the ‘real’ Jennifer Lopez) of South Park’s parody of well-known celebrities makes South Park a subversive representation and critique of the culture and phenomenon of contemporary American celebrity that warrants further examination.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)