Americans are obsessed with celebrities. While our fascination with fame
intensified throughout the twentieth century, the rise of the weekly
gossip magazine in the early 2000s confirmed and fueled our popular
culture's celebrity mania. After a decade of diets and dates, breakups
and baby bumps, celebrity gossip magazines continue to sell millions of
issues each week. Why are readers, especially young women, so attracted
to these magazines? What pleasures do they offer us? And why do we read
them, even when we disagree with the images of femininity that they
splash across their hot-pink covers?
Andrea McDonnell answers these questions with the help of interviews
from editors and readers, and her own textual and visual analysis.
McDonnell's perspective is multifaceted; she examines the notorious
narratives of celebrity gossip magazines as well as the genre's core
features, such as the "Just Like Us" photo montage and the "Who Wore It
Best?" poll. McDonnell shows that, despite their trivial reputation,
celebrity gossip magazines serve as an important site of engagement for
their readers, who use these texts to generate conversation, manage
relationships, and consider their own ideas and values.
