con'tFame in the 21st century has become almost a career option, like accounting or working in IT, says Proffessor Graeme Turner, who co-wrote the book Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia.
"Being famous is something people think is within their reach," he says. "You see people in the auditions on Australian Idol who have no singing talent. How did they get to that point? Because they don't see their lack of ability being a fundamental problem — more importantly, they have a desire to be famous."
Since when did a lack of ability worry anyone? Media studies academic Catharine Lumby notes that, prior to the 20th century, the only people who were famous tended to be monarchs, religious figures or war heroes.
In the 20th century, we've seen the qualifications widen and the nexus between achievement and fame loosened, says Turner, director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland.
"In the past 50 or 60 years, we've seen a disconnection between fame and a body of achievements that would justify it," he says.
"There's a big difference between someone who's famous as a champion athlete and someone who's famous as a TV presenter who is able to present themselves as an ordinary good bloke.
"There's no doubt that the athlete is very good at something highly competitive."
That disconnection results in a snowball effect for some celebrities who cross a magic threshold suddenly becoming famous for being famous.
"In these cases, it's quite common that people's fame outstrips their achievements," says Turner. "People like Liz Taylor, Kylie and Pamela: they're famous for being famous. The media, particularly television, have discovered that they can create fame out of nothing."
TV host Andrew Denton last year surmised that the great achievement of Big Brother was that it proved what television executives had been hoping for years: that people really would watch grass grow and paint dry.
Lumby, associate professor of Media Studies at the University of Sydney, sees it, though, not as audiences switching their brains off, but, rather, turning their curiosity in a new direction.
"A great surprise of the 21st century is that people like watching other people living," she says. "They're curious to see how other people live, literally."
In research into media-consumption habits of teenage girls, Lumby was amazed by how eloquently participants spoke of the ethical dilemmas embedded in Big Brother.
Balancing the needs of the individual with those of the group, judging under what circumstances is it OK to lie, and to what extent appearances should matter were some of the questions the viewers had actively engaged in. Little wonder so many have auditioned to join each year's cast.
The danger though, should you have the skills or personality to make it on Big Brother or its reality TV kin, is thinking that your moment in the public's eye is going to be anything but fleeting.
"Under the old rules, you might build a body of work as an actor or musician and become famous," says Graeme Turner. "TV has proved you can short circuit that — but it doesn't necessarily lead anywhere."
People, Turner says, sign up for reality shows believing that fame is the prize on offer, and that they can build a career from that.
Instead, they find that they become very famous very quickly, and then suddenly they're displaced by the next generation of Big Brother housemates, who have to become famous as well.
"A lot of people feel a bit cheated," he says.
"You have to get used to the idea that you're only going to be famous for three months unless you're good at something.
"I did a round-up of the first couple of series of Big Brother contestants. Very few have changed their careers as a result. It's certainly changed their lives, but it hasn't generated a whole lot of new possibilities for them."
Killeen says Andy Warhol's idea that everybody gets 15 minutes of fame captures the new trend, but that, just because fame is brief, doesn't mean it can't be a rewarding experience.
"A really important part of reality TV is the recognition you get," she says. "Fame now is people knowing you, and it's a big thing to be recognised when you go to your supermarket or to a bar or at a bus stop.
"So now we know that massive exposure across the country makes you recognised — but we also know that it takes extra things to actually build a career out of it, and fame has to be appreciated for that experience.
"It's as if it turns the city into a country town where you walk down the street and everybody knows you. And that's not a bad thing: it's a life full of 'G'days'."
Sportsmen and women have long had that 'G'day' experience, but, in the past, it was only the very elite performers who might expect to parlay their athletic talent into a non-sporting career, for example endorsing products.
Now, though, every AFL footballer with a couple of seasons under his belt has a manager and, according to Craig Kelly, former Collingwood player and now a player manager with the ESP agency, most athletes would like fame off the field.
"One reason for the change is the increased exposure of sports and athletes in the media these days," he says. "Now we've got 24-hours sports channels, sports radio, the footy shows in prime time.
"In the old days, you didn't see the press conferences and the antics, but now it's all shown on the news.
"Also, TV and radio give such good coverage these days and the off-field stuff is more entertaining. That detail is reflected in things like the (recent) Allan Border Medal coverage."
But if athletes have been in the public eye at least since the ancient Olympics, reality TV is changing the rules about who else gets to be famous.
"You have to ask yourself why you want to watch people renovating a set of apartments in a prime real-estate area," says Ken Gelder, Reader in English at the University of Melbourne.
The answer, he says, is in seeing participants master their domain.
"You want to see self-determination; you want to see people drawing on their resources; but you also want to see them becoming autonomous. It's rabid territorialism: it's not ordinary, it's intensified."
Gelder thinks that audiences are gradually wearying of watching "ordinary" people, whether it be on webcams or TV — the latest stage in the fame game is focusing on what he calls "upwardly mobile ambitious career impersonators".
"In my view, the days of the reality shows that are about ordinary people and you just get to look at their ordinary lives unfolding are over. The cinematic model for that is The Truman Show, and I think that's old news now.
"The new model is the Leonardo Di Caprio flick, Catch Me If You Can, because that's about career impersonation. Now we want to see people becoming doctors, renovating houses, running restaurants, doing upper-middle-class professional things especially."
Lumby argues that this process of throwing people into the reality-TV spotlight democratises fame, drawing celebrities closer to their audiences.
"In the post-media age, fame is about a trade-off between the celebrity and the people," she says. "Your fame is dependent on them. The voting model in Australian Idol perfectly catches it.
"I think now, at one extreme, celebrities are trying to desperately protect what's left of their privacy and, on the other, people are willingly selling or providing it.
"What will define the 21st century is the blurring of that line between public and private."
The fact remains, Gelder says, that no ordinary person is intimate with celebrities.
"The intimacy is an illusion, and the gossip magazines are there to remind you just how different stars are from you. It's about remoteness. Stars dress better than you, they live better, they go on their vacations to better places, they have more money, more lovers.
"Something that's interesting about these new reality shows like Australian Idol is that they allow us to live out an intimacy with a set of potential celebrities for the first time.
"It's like watching someone being apprenticed into celebrity. It's quite different from screen actors or usual pop singers who come on to the screen fully formed."
Idol's Guy Sebastian, then, might be the exception that proves the rule, the reality- TV celebrity whose 15 minutes of fame lasts for years — because he has the distinctly old-fashioned talent of a great voice.
"I talk to the school kids about fame and how they think they're going to become famous," says Killeen. "If it's enduring fame you want, and the key word there is 'enduring', I would suggest you build your skills and talents."
www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/16/1076779904988.html
