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Vanessa Díaz
Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes VANESSA DÍAZ—jounalist, multimedia ethnographer, and assistant professor in the Department of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University—for a discussion of her book Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood. She will be joined in conversation by JONATHAN ROSA, Associate Professor of Education, Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at Stanford University.
In Manufacturing Celebrity Vanessa Díaz traces the complex power dynamics of the reporting and paparazzi work that fuel contemporary Hollywood and American celebrity culture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, her experience reporting for People magazine, and dozens of interviews with photographers, journalists, publicists, magazine editors, and celebrities, Díaz examines the racialized and gendered labor involved in manufacturing and selling relatable celebrity personas.
Celebrity reporters, most of whom are white women, are expected to leverage their sexuality to generate coverage, which makes them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and assault. Meanwhile, the predominantly male Latino paparazzi can face life-threatening situations and endure vilification that echoes anti-immigrant rhetoric. In pointing out the precarity of those who hustle to make a living by generating the bulk of celebrity media, Díaz highlights the profound inequities of the systems that provide consumers with 24/7 coverage of their favorite stars.
