The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture

Contemporary celebrity culture embodies a dissonant tension between a want to end the social demand to “come out” and a hypervigilant culture of digital surveillance via social media that looks for traces of outness. Such that during a recent red carpet interview Billie Eilish describes how she did...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Author: Marra, Peter
Format: article
Publication Date:2024
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repository:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/63695
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/63695
https://dx.doi.org/10.37536/reden.2024.6.2553
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Celebrity
Closeting
Queerness
Coming out
Historia
Antropología
Literatura
History
Anthropology
Literature
id ES_b4cd338a9310a61bcdcc374a156dedfb
oai_identifier_str oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/63695
network_acronym_str ES
network_name_str España
repository_id_str
spelling The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity CultureMarra, PeterCelebrityClosetingQueernessComing outHistoriaAntropologíaLiteraturaHistoryAnthropologyLiteratureContemporary celebrity culture embodies a dissonant tension between a want to end the social demand to “come out” and a hypervigilant culture of digital surveillance via social media that looks for traces of outness. Such that during a recent red carpet interview Billie Eilish describes how she did come out, need not come out, does not believe in coming out, and, later, was outed. This article utilizes Eve Kosofsky Sedg-wick’s Epistemology of the Closetand Michel Foucault’s “will to knowledge” to explain how the closet works in contemporary celebrity culture. It outlines a successive chronology of celebrity coming out genres beginning with Ellen DeGeneres’ influential TIME magazine cover and continuing through deviations from this modern standard that trend toward more obscure and indirect expressions over time. It concludes that the contemporary closet door is best understood as “open,” meaning that nonchalant transparency is coveted, and yet personal interiority remains vulnerably put on display for scrutiny. This results in modern celebrity coming outs taking the form of puzzling incoherence, to the extent that whether a coming out has occurred is unclear, and viscerally direct statements seemingly designed to quell inquiry and accusations of queer baiting.Universidad de Alcalá. Instituto FranklinEditorial Universidad de Alcalá20242024-01-01journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501NAhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10017/63695https://dx.doi.org/10.37536/reden.2024.6.2553reponame:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcaláinstname:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)Inglésengopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/636952026-06-18T11:13:07Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
title The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
spellingShingle The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
Marra, Peter
Celebrity
Closeting
Queerness
Coming out
Historia
Antropología
Literatura
History
Anthropology
Literature
title_short The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
title_full The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
title_fullStr The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
title_full_unstemmed The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
title_sort The Closet Door Is Open: Coming Out (Or Something Like It) in Contemporary Celebrity Culture
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Marra, Peter
author Marra, Peter
author_facet Marra, Peter
author_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Celebrity
Closeting
Queerness
Coming out
Historia
Antropología
Literatura
History
Anthropology
Literature
topic Celebrity
Closeting
Queerness
Coming out
Historia
Antropología
Literatura
History
Anthropology
Literature
description Contemporary celebrity culture embodies a dissonant tension between a want to end the social demand to “come out” and a hypervigilant culture of digital surveillance via social media that looks for traces of outness. Such that during a recent red carpet interview Billie Eilish describes how she did come out, need not come out, does not believe in coming out, and, later, was outed. This article utilizes Eve Kosofsky Sedg-wick’s Epistemology of the Closetand Michel Foucault’s “will to knowledge” to explain how the closet works in contemporary celebrity culture. It outlines a successive chronology of celebrity coming out genres beginning with Ellen DeGeneres’ influential TIME magazine cover and continuing through deviations from this modern standard that trend toward more obscure and indirect expressions over time. It concludes that the contemporary closet door is best understood as “open,” meaning that nonchalant transparency is coveted, and yet personal interiority remains vulnerably put on display for scrutiny. This results in modern celebrity coming outs taking the form of puzzling incoherence, to the extent that whether a coming out has occurred is unclear, and viscerally direct statements seemingly designed to quell inquiry and accusations of queer baiting.
publishDate 2024
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2024
2024-01-01
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv journal article
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
NA
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10017/63695
https://dx.doi.org/10.37536/reden.2024.6.2553
url http://hdl.handle.net/10017/63695
https://dx.doi.org/10.37536/reden.2024.6.2553
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universidad de Alcalá. Instituto Franklin
Editorial Universidad de Alcalá
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universidad de Alcalá. Instituto Franklin
Editorial Universidad de Alcalá
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
instname:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
instname_str Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
reponame_str e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
collection e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
_version_ 1869417290722705408
score 15,812429

Similar Items