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August 12, 2008
The cult of celebrity refers to the way that fame has arguably eclipsed even money - with which it is so often paired - as the most desirable attribute to be pursued in an individualist culture based on excellence, performance and heroes.
The culture of celebrity has been constructed by the media for us in a society where the individual is the centre of the world. Morality and culture have been systematically privatised and relativised so that we are left with one's values or lifestyle.
The Olympic swimming stars are plugged into, and deepen, this culture of celebrity, since sport is seen as a vehicle for the media's apparatus to manufacture celebrity through a celebrity profile:
It is the culture that produces celebrity: they are picked as champions at an early age, then put under enormous pressure to perform, and then are hounded by the media. Some crack like a Wayne Carey or Ben Cousins in football and become constructed as the bad boys in the media.
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