Emma’s Watson, celebrification, celebritization and media audience practice.
1.0 Introduction
Turner (2004, 8) defines celebrity as the point at which media attention for a public figure shifts from her public role to her private life. Celebrity, according to Jerslev, is a ‘coherent subjectivity,’ consisting ‘of a dynamic interaction between the roles (e.g., in films, series), the personality, and the image’ (2014, 173). The characters a celebrity has performed, the ways she has been described in the press, and the products she endorses are all examples of roles. The personality is the private-public aspect of a celebrity that she shares with her audience, whereas the image is the ‘shared idea,’ or the culturally produced, social practice. Turner (2004) claims that the primary function of such a social practice is commercial and promotional, as a celebrity’s name, clothes, or pictures “turned into things to be sold and consumed” (Driessens, 2011, 9). Thus, a celebrity is a part of the modern commodification of online information in the vicious circle of collection, sale, and return in the unrecognized form of advertisements (Cohen, 2014, 179).
Celebrities at the top of the public hierarchy, such as Emma Watson, receive a lot of attention in every aspect of their lives. This case study looks at how Emma Watson attained global fame due to her role as Hermione Granger and then transitioned to a political role as a UN Goodwill Ambassador and a feminist Activist. It examines how she was able to partially exchange her celebrity status for a political status by following traditional media practices, with a focus on her audience practice of maintaining a balance between distance and proximity. Watson’s traditional media practices, as well as her emergence as a global icon show that modern media practices are not always the best.
2.0 Celebrification and Celebritization
Celebrification is defined by Driessens (2011, 2) as the process by which an ordinary individual transforms into a celebrity. Watson’s celebrification began with her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, which is the third highest-grossing entertainment franchise in the world. Hermione Granger’s portrayal as a hardworking, courageous, and highly successful individual laid the groundwork for the development of her celebrity identity, which has been reinforced by her strategic movements and achievements (Watts & Chadwick, 2019, 10).
Emma Watson went on to have a successful acting career, appearing in films, such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Bling Ring, Noah, Beauty and the Beast, and Little Women.
Watson’s film debut in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone received three Academy Awards and seven BAFTA nominations, grossing 33 million dollars on the first day alone (Biography, 2014). This has made her the universal icon we know today, cementing her upcoming career and paving the way for her subsequent celebritization. Celebritization occurs when a celebrity no longer needs to succeed because her fame has already been established (Driessens, 2011, 3). In other words, celebritization occurs when a celebrity’s culturally changing image achieves global fame and cultural universality.
Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone. Source: Wizarding World
Once Watson has renown global fame, she was able to determine her shared image, by identifying as a feminist activist and a UN Goodwill Ambassador. As Bold (2019, 444) writes, “Watson’s celebrity fame from playing Hermione Granger…has helped her migrate from her field into a different field.” This is referred to as Transgression (coined by Marshall, 1997). Transgression is a characteristic of celebritization that Marshall defines as the way that the celebrity chooses her cultural signs, breaking her screen personality. Watson’s choice of a black and white image and her solemn expression in her first Instagram post in 2014 signified her formal entry into her new role as a UN Goodwill Ambassador (Haastrup, 2018, 106). Following this Transgression, she launches her own book club Our Shared Shelf (OSS) on Goodread in 2016, reaching 100 000 members only within the first month.
3.0 Watson’s audience approach
After her Transgression Emma Watson is more selective with her career choices and public movements, retaining her dual representation as an actress and a feminist activist. She maintains continuity[1] and consistency within her celebrity and political status by limiting the amount of information she shares with her audience.
For example, she turned down an offer to play Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh’s re-make, because it did not fit with her shared image. Despite some reservations, she reprises Belle in Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast in 2017, actively contributing to the creation of a more feminist Belle, who meets modern feminism standards. In the original movie, Belle helps her inventor father, Maurice, whereas in the re-make, she invents a washing machine so she can spend more time reading books.
[1] Producers should be aware of the concept of continuity at all times. Fans are likely to notice an inconsistent component within a narrative, which can have unintended consequences (see Sullivan, p. 198).
Source: Wallpaperuse
Emma Watson is also cautious about what she shares publicly, claiming that allowing people to have their say on everything about her would destroy her as a human being (Clevver News, 2017). She is happy to sign autographs or have conversations with her fans, but she refuses to take selfies with them. For Emma Watson, it is a matter of tracking data, stating that (2017, Vanity Fair),
If someone takes a photograph of me and posts it, within two seconds they’ve created a marker of exactly where I am within 10 meters. They can see what I’m wearing and who I’m with. I just can’t give that tracking data.
Even if some fans have labelled this as hatred towards her fans, I believe an overload of information about her personal life would result in an inconsistent effect in her shared image and an altogether commodification of her personal integrity. In this way, she can draw a distinction between her identity as a celebrity-and thus a commodity- and her other identities, as a sister, a daughter, or a family member (2019, British Vogue), while also providing a consistent outcome to her audience.
We believe Watson’s intention is not only to maintain a consistent shared image, but also to strike a balance between representation and identification, in order to achieve political recognition.
Celebrity commodification allows us to view celebritization through the lens of consumption and production, which includes to a large extent, the cultural practice of identification. A consumer, for example, should be able to envision herself using a particular product; otherwise, she will be hesitant to pay for it (Hall et al., 1997, 25). Similarly, no matter how much one admires Emma Watson, she should be able to identify with her, imagining herself to be such a role model. Simultaneously, celebrities or politicians must be careful not to “overplay their ordinariness,” in order to maintain their shared image and uniqueness (McKernan, 2011, 193).
In an interview with Meryl Streep (2019), Watson has been told that due to her being so famous, she must be feeling very lonely and that no one understands how she feels. Emma Watson, though, has responded by saying, “you might cannot imagine in this way, but you can imagine in other ways,” discussing how we all have similar experiences, and we can identify with one another. Here, we see how Watson attempts to get closer to her audience, by showing empathy and understanding while applying the audience practice of identification.
Her impersonal and professional stance in her book club ‘Our Shared Shelf’ (OSS) demonstrates her audience practice of distance and representation. Emma Watson took a distant approach, not rating any of the books on Goodreads, and focusing her online engagement on what was required for the book club to continue. Similarly, conversations were only held among community members and never with Emma Watson (Haastrup, 2018, 105).
The phrase “with and between you all” in her first OSS post in 2016 was a carefully crafted rhetorical move that justified her minimal interaction with her audience, and her OSS representative role (Watts & Chadwick, 2019, 4). In other words, Watson is with her audience as a role model and OSS representative, whereas “between you all” means she is also like everyone else.
Emma’s Watson audience practices follow a different pattern from the contemporary media influencers or media practices of the convergence between producers and consumers (Jenkins, 2006). Celebrities who interact with their audiences via social media platforms are generally regarded as more authentic than those who do not (Marwick & Boyd, 2011, 142). Despite this, when Watts and Chadwick (2019) interviewed some of the most engaged members of OSS, some participants stated that Watson is a trustworthy and genuine person, who has not been altered by the screen. This is also evidenced by her success in building a massive following audience and worldwide fame (Watts & Chadwick, 2019, 6). Emma Watson has 59,2 million Instagram followers in 2021, ranking among the top 50 on the platform globally. Watson’s traditional methods and eventual formation as a global, admirable icon demonstrate that traditional media practices have not been completely replaced or eclipsed by modern media practices.
4.0 Conclusion
To summarize, Emma Watson’s success in achieving global fame is based on her internalization of political practices as well as her habituation of her cultural image as a commodity. It appears that a consistent cultural representation and a private-public identification are quite effective in gaining the audience’s respect and admiration. Such a traditional approach contradicts evidence that modern media practices result in greater recognition and acceptance, and merits additional consideration and investigation.
5.0 References
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[3] British Vogue. (2019). Emma Watson Talks Turning 30, Working With Meryl Streep, And Being Happily Single. YouTube. Retrieved from: Emma Watson Talks Turning 30, Working With Meryl Streep, And Being Happily Single | British Vogue - YouTube. [Accessed 22nd of March 2021]
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