Harvey, L, Allen, K orcid.org/0000-0002-5583-8519 and Mendick, H (2015) Extraordinary acts and ordinary pleasures: Rhetorics of inequality in young people's talk about celebrity. Discourse & Society, 26 (4). pp. 428-444. ISSN 0957-9265
Abstract
In this article, we start from the problem of inequality raised by the existence of a class of celebrities with high levels of wealth and status. We analyse how young people make sense of these inequalities in their talk about celebrity. Specifically, we revisit Michael Billig’s Talking of the Royal Family, and his focus on rhetorical strategies that legitimate inequalities of money and power. As he argued, in comparing their lives with those of the rich and famous, young people are making sense of the massive disparity between the two, often replacing envy or anger with pleasure in being ‘ordinary’. We extend Billig’s work by looking at a larger class of public figures than royalty, including those with a more permeable border between ‘them’ and ‘us’. In so doing, we expand his categories and attend to the relationship between the gender of celebrities and contemporary rhetorics of inequality.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Celebrity; discourse analysis; disgust; drugs; gender; inequality; ordinariness; philanthropy; rhetorical strategies; royalty; social class; young people |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Sociology and Social Policy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 20 Nov 2015 10:22 |
Last Modified: | 07 Nov 2017 07:42 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926515576636 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0957926515576636 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:92097 |