Popular Culture Celebrity Culture

Gr 9 Up—Despite coming from two different series, both books agree that celebrity culture is a global preoccupation and may well be altering the public's social consciousness. The first book hops all around the world, exploring how various laws affect pop culture such as music, manga, anime, and intellectual property rights. Some of the essays are quite sophisticated in legal content. It is a wide-ranging collection of topics that sound eclectic ("Jamaican Dancehall Performers Who Espouse Homophobia Should Be Prevented from Performing in Canada"), but that all come around to the same concept of free speech versus illegal content. Technology and the Internet play a crucial role in disbursement in such countries as China, Thailand, and Iran, where attempts at control by the government are futile. These essays also bring to light disturbing phenomena in Western culture such as obscene/pornographic manga and National Socialist Black Metal music supporting fascism and neo-Nazi white supremacy. A number of the essays revolve around intellectual property rights, including "sampling, Internet piracy, and BitTorrent' file sharing." Though Celebrity Culture is an "Opposing Viewpoints" book, even the "pro-celebrity" viewpoints have a hard time convincing readers of their inherent value to society, and ultimately just end up rationalizing the phenomenon. The vocabulary is challenging throughout, including such words as "effulgence," "verisimilitude," and "rebarbative," along with such nouvelle expressions as "prosti-tots" and "tragedy voyeurs." Nonetheless, it is an interesting and thought-provoking read.—Meredith Toumayan, The Governor's Academy, Byfield, MA