Media Magazine - ‘Celebrity Lockdown’

   

I read the Media Magazine’s article on Covid-19 specifically concerning celebrities and how they spent their time. The article firstly talks of how the years of Covid-19 changed the way humans interact as a whole and as how we all possibly felt lost and unsure how to navigate this new ‘normal’. Many celebrities aimed to come across a relatable to the general public during lockdown, as well as explaining how serious of a problem Covid-19 really was. One of the celebrities who did this was ‘Veteran Pop Star Madonna’, how ever the point of her video was undermined by the mise-en-scène as in the video she was laying naked in a bath with rose petals. Another celebrity who was criticised for their response to Covid-19 was television host Ellen DeGeneres as she referred to be locked away in our house during lockdown was like our own personal jails, however people were unpleased with her video as she lives in a multi-million dollar house which doesn’t come across as a jail to ‘normal’ people with ‘normal’ houses. 

This article does also cover the good that came from celebrities during lockdown such as fun, interactive TikToks from famous celebrities such as Florence Pugh, Jack Black etc. Regular talk shows that people frequently indulge in such as ‘James Corden’s’, ‘Jimmy Fallon’s’ and more took a more domestic setting so that they could continue entertains people from their own homes. And the idea of these hosts as ‘family men’ made them come across as more humane and likeable for audiences. And as new media was on hold during lockdown, celebrity participation was attractive as audiences were looking for new content which is shown through the cast of Hamilton doing an online Zoom performance so that everyone could enjoy. 

This article concludes that Celebrities during Lockdown had a majorly positive effect as they enabled people to forget the horrible thing happening in the world at the time but. It’s important to not fail to remember  that this did enhance the idea of par-asocial relationships becoming more normalised over the internet and people losing touch with reality which backs up Baudrillard’s Postmodernist theory.