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Web Literacy: Fame and Power Part 1 295 Views


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Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:06

Power in Literature

00:07

Web Literacy

00:09

Fame and Power

00:12

Welcome to Power in Literature, Web Literacy.

00:15

This is Shmoop's excuse -- Or, uh, effort

00:18

at answering some core elements of the Common Core.

00:22

And we're doing it in a hopefully

00:24

not ungodly staring-at-paint-drying boring way

00:28

in that we're gonna use Hollywood gossip, celebrities,

00:32

hot button areas of the web,

00:34

to help you understand how to do research,

00:36

how to understand what quality information is,

00:39

and, generally speaking, how all elements fluffy and green

00:43

work in the web when you're perusing Hollywood.

00:46

So we're here with Deb from Shmoop

00:47

to help us navigate these difficult waters.

00:50

And after this course is done,

00:52

you'll kind of have a sense for high quality research, we hope.

00:57

[ dog barks ]

00:58

What gives fame its strange power over us?

01:01

You know, we're obsessed with fame.

01:02

This is why we watch TV, why we watch movies,

01:05

why we subscribe to People magazine.

01:08

There's a bunch of different reasons.

01:09

And everyone might have their own reason

01:11

for why they're obsessed with a celebrity

01:12

or kind of obsessed with this idea of fame.

01:14

One thing is just that

01:16

people have always been obsessed with fame.

01:18

It used to be royalty.

01:19

People would be obsessed with the royals.

01:21

And now celebrities in America are the royals.

01:25

You know, Brad and Angelina are essentially king and queen

01:28

of the United States.

01:29

So it kind of just continues this long tradition of always

01:32

looking at royalty as someone above you

01:35

and, you know, you're kind of awe-struck by them.

01:38

But that's kind of giving humanity a lot of credit.

01:41

Most of why I think that we are obsessed with fame

01:45

is because it's this kind of schadenfreude, right?

01:47

Meaning that you see someone in a worse position than you're in,

01:51

and you feel better about yourself.

01:53

Now you'd think, "Wait.

01:54

Celebrities aren't in a worse position than you are."

01:56

But that's exactly what they are.

01:58

They have everything.

01:59

They have fame, they have money.

02:01

They have an awesome lifestyle

02:03

and they're still miserable.

02:04

So when we're reading about famous people,

02:06

it's usually like, "Oh, someone got a DUI."

02:08

Or they got divorced or they're in a custody battle.

02:10

Or whatever the case is.

02:12

So we're looking at them and being like,

02:13

"Oh, okay, well I might not be famous,

02:15

but at least my life's not that crappy."

02:18

Or is another angle that

02:19

gosh, they were these lofty, vaunted personalities,

02:23

but who are human.

02:24

Because they actually get DUIs and divorces

02:27

- and drug addictions. - Absolutely.

02:28

Absolutely. It kind of, you know, puts things in perspective for us.

02:31

When you're watching someone on TV or in a movie,

02:33

you know, they're like this fake non-person.

02:35

But then, when you obsess about their --

02:37

about them as people, their real humanity comes out

02:41

and you see them like, "Yeah. They have issues, too."

02:43

And then, you know, it's a matter of escapism.

02:45

We don't have to deal with our own problems

02:48

because we can watch other people's.

02:50

And then the kind of last thing to remember

02:52

is that celebrities give us a common cultural thread.

02:56

If you're talking to a stranger,

02:58

there are only so many things you can talk about, right?

03:01

You're like, "Hey, how about the Yankees?".

03:04

Or like, "See the game last night?

03:06

It's been pretty rainy."

03:08

Eventually you get to, you know,

03:11

"Oh, did you hear so-and-so's adopted kid...

03:13

You know, custody..." This, that, and the other.

03:15

So it's kind of like a shared cultural capital

03:18

where we can all talk about it.

03:19

You and I can gossip about stuff

03:20

that we know personally,

03:22

but if I'm talking to someone I don't know,

03:24

then celebrity stuff is my gossip.

03:27

- It's easy. It's the weather. - Yep. It's the weather.

03:30

What would you do if you were famous?

03:33

If you want to be famous, I guess my advice is

03:36

think about why you wanna be famous.

03:37

That is a good question to ask yourself.

03:39

If the answer is because you wanna live

03:41

the celebrity lifestyle, don't do it.

03:43

If the answer is you wanna do good for the world,

03:45

then that's great.

03:46

Figure out what you're gonna do and how you're gonna do it.

03:48

I would probably be a terrible famous person.

03:50

I would probably

03:52

take whatever money I had,

03:55

give some of it away,

03:56

and have someone else figure out what to do with it.

03:58

I feel like there's a lot of

04:00

pressure involved with being famous

04:01

that you don't think about when you're like,

04:03

"Oh, I wanna be famous."

04:03

You don't think about like,

04:04

"Oh, well every time there's a natural disaster,

04:07

everyone in the country is waiting for me

04:09

to go donate half of my income to them.

04:12

Or to fly to Africa

04:14

and carry a child with Ebola."

04:16

Or whatever the case is.

04:18

That is a lot of pressure.

04:19

If you don't do it,

04:20

you're called a bad person,

04:22

you're ridiculed.

04:23

You're called whatever it is people say about you.

04:26

If you do it once,

04:27

then you're expected to do it every time.

04:29

So I think there is a lot of pressure

04:31

associated with fame.

04:32

And I don't think I'm cut out for it.

04:34

So I plead the fifth.

04:35

Fair enough. Well, you guys should

04:36

think about yourselves and that should be an assignment.

04:40

[ pen writing ]

04:42

Why are we attracted to celebrities?

04:44

If we really are.

04:46

Have we always had such a fascination with celebrities?

04:50

What would you do with your power if you were famous?

04:58

Ooh. Good mix.

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