Marina Hyde
Forfatter af What Just Happened?!: Dispatches from Turbulent Times
Værker af Marina Hyde
Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy (2009) 48 eksemplarer
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- Fødselsdato
- 1974
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- female
- Nationalitet
- UK
- Erhverv
- journalist
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- 100
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- #190,120
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- 3.9
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- 7
Marina Hyde manages to be extremely funny, while making some very serious points. Certain celebrities come in for more exposure than others – such as Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, Angelina Jolie and Britney Spears (in Britney’s case, Hyde discusses the relentless and disgraceful hounding of the star when she was in the midst of a breakdown – and recalls instances such as when a paparazzi photographer put a camera up Britney’s skirt and photographed the menstrual blood on her knickers, subsequently printing same as evidence that she wasn’t pregnant). She is withering towards Jolie, citing the time when Angelina and Brad decided to have their first biological child in Namibia. What wasn’t widely reported at the time was how journalists wishing to enter the country during the couple’s stay were told that they would need to seek written permission from Angelina and Brad before entering. How on earth did we get to the stage where two film stars are allowed to dictate who enters a country? And how was it ever allowed for civilians in that country to have their homes searched for evidence of photographs of the couple?
Why does Elmo from Sesame Street get invited to speak at the UN Congress? Yes, Elmo is a puppet. Who got invited to speak at UN Congress! If this happened in a satirical novel, the reader would probably dismiss it as a stupid storyline, but it actually happened.
Hyde also discusses the dangers of celebrities wading into areas of which they have little knowledge (witness Sharon Stone talking about how she beat cancer through lifestyle alone – a dangerous message to send to other cancer sufferers), and how the rise in celebrity adoptions from developing countries (as in the cases of Angelina Jolie and Madonna) have actually led to more children being left in orphanages in such countries.
My favourite chapter was the one about ‘celebrity’ magazines – I have a personal dislike of such publications as Closer, Reveal, New, etc. as they seem fixated on celebrities’ weight, and love to speculate wildly and without any basis in fact about the lives of people in the public eye.
Despite all this, the book remains full of humour and made me laugh out loud on a number of occasions, and I would absolutely recommend it.… (mere)