“Publicity Rights and Political Aspiration: Mass Culture, Gender Identity and Democracy”
“Publicity Rights and Political Aspiration: Mass Culture, Gender Identity and Democracy”
“Publicity Rights and Political Aspiration: Mass Culture, Gender Identity and Democracy.” New England Law Review 26 (4): 1221-1280.
Abstract: Aspects of mass culture provide enabling resources for the construction of alternative gendered identities. In this article, I focus on the construction of celebrity persona in consumer cultures to consider how the celebrity functions in the expression and realization of popular aspirations. The law both engenders and endangers the production of alternatively gendered subjectivities. Legal regimes create and enable the realization of cultural and economic value through publicity rights. Focusing on how cultural practices can absorb and redefine the meaning of celebrity personas to assert new gendered identities, I will argue that celebrity images as personal property fails to address their cultural and social significance, ultimately reinforcing an impoverished understanding of freedom of expression and democracy.
Link to article
Date Published: 1992
Publisher: New England Law Review
Publisher Website: https://www.nesl.edu/practical-experiences/law-review