Fame: What the Classics Tell Us About Our Cult of Celebrity

We may regard celebrities as deities, but that does not mean we worship them with deference. From prehistory to the present, humanity has possessed a primal urge first to exalt the famous but then to cut them down (Michael Jackson, anyone?). Why do we treat the ones we love like burnt offerings in a ritual of human sacrifice? Perhaps because that is exactly what they are. In this collection of essays, Tom Payne -- of the website Popcropolis and the "trenchant, unsettling, and darkly hilarious" Fame (New York Times Book Review) -- draws the narratives of the past and the immediate present into one intriguing story. Contents Introduction: Them and Us 1. A Certain Sacrifice: What Was Britney Telling Us When She Cut Her Own Hair? 2. Temporary Like Achilles: Why Do We Reject Our Heroes? 3. And What Became of Last Year's Snow: Are Celebrities Becoming Less Beautiful? 4. Sympathy for the Devil: Have Geniuses More Often Than Not Sold Their Souls? 5. Divas and Divinities: Are Celebrities (Anything) Like Gods? 6. Eternal Flame: Did the Early Christians Find a Way to Be Immortal? 7. I Want to Be Like You-hoo-hoo: Why Do Famous People Influence Us? 8. If You Want to Evict Jade, Vote Now: How Democracy Has Given Us Ways of Saying Whom We Like, or Dislike, or Both at Once 9. We're All Individuals (Yes. We're All Individuals): How the Scent of Mariah Carey Had the Power to Make Us All Part of Something Special 10. You Complete Me: How Celebrity Couplings Provide an Index on Celebrities and Ultimately on the Rest of Us 11. Too Much Information: How Well Do We Really Know Famous People? 12. Shades: Can the Famous Ever Shed Their Fame? Notes and Credits Acknowledgements Index