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Taking the extra out of the extraordinary: Paparazzi photography as a

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Taking the Extra out of the Extraordinary

Jerslev, Anne; Mortensen, Mette

Published in:
International Journal of Cultural Studies

DOI:
doi:10.1177/1367877913503425

Publication date:
2014

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Peer reviewed version

Citation for published version (APA):

Jerslev, A., & Mortensen, M. (2014). Taking the Extra out of the Extraordinary: Paparazzi photography as an
online celebrity news genre. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 17(6), 619-636. DOI:
doi:10.1177/1367877913503425

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Taking the extra out of the extraordinary: Paparazzi photography as an online celebrity news

genre

Mette Mortensen and Anne Jerslev

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

Paparazzi photography presently constitutes the largest genre of visual celebrity news on

the internet along with red carpet photography. With the emergence of digital media, this

genre has moved towards the centre of mainstream news and entertainment culture, and the

content has undergone a significant transformation. Trademark paparazzi photographs used

to be depictions of celebrities deviating from prevailing norms of proper conduct by exhibiting

bodily excess and/or transgressing social or moral codes. By contrast, a content analysis

conducted for this article shows that snapshots of famous people engaged in insignificant

everyday activities hold by far the largest share of today’s insatiable digital, globalized and

commercialized market for news pictures of celebrities off-duty. Re-examining the well-

known theorization of the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary in celebrity

culture studies, this article thus investigates the following research question:

How is the ordinary represented in paparazzi photographs as a genre of visual celebrity news in the

current, digital media landscape?

Keywords

celebrity culture, the everyday, middle region private-ness, online celebrity news, the ordinary and the

extraordinary, paparazzi photography

Introduction

Since Richard Dyer’s seminal work Stars, from 1979, the tension between ordinary and extraordinary

has comprised an important framework for understanding representations of celebrities. Discussions

about the ordinary and the extraordinary have proliferated especially over the past years due to

intensified celebrification processes (Couldry, 2004; Driessens, 2012; Gamson, 1994; Rojek, 2001). The

advent of reality TV and other entertainment formats have cultivated the mediated transformation of

the self, whereby ordinary people turn into celebrities, or ‘celetoids’, to borrow Chris Rojek’s (2001)

term, that is, individuals possessing ‘no particular talents’ (Turner, 2006: 156, see also Turner, 2010)

eagerly pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. However, while celetoid culture, as it might be

called, has been the subject of thorough scholarly scrutiny, less attention has been devoted to what is

today the main outlet in celebrity culture for the visual construction of the extraordinary as ordinary:

paparazzi photography. Just as popular media convert the ordinary into the extraordinary, paparazzi

photographs of the ordinary, everyday selves of the extraordinary, of celebrities, are sought-after and

widely circulated commodities.

Following the dissemination of a range of digital technologies, which enables everybody

to produce and distribute images, let us make it clear from the very outset that paparazzi photographs

need not be taken by paparazzi or celebrity photographers. They can be, of course; however, this is not

the focus of this article. Furthermore, photographs taken by paparazzi photographers need not be

taken of celebrities unawares or against their will – even though they may seem so. We use the term in

order to point to a particular and recognizable kind of celebrity news photography, which gives an

impression of celebrities caught off guard.

This article is based upon a content analysis of a large sample of online celebrity news

photography from entertainment news sites, which points to some pronounced tendencies. Overall,

paparazzi photography presently constitutes the largest genre of visual celebrity news on the internet,
along with ‘red carpet photography’, as the other main genre is commonly termed. Before the

emergence of digital media, paparazzi photographs were confined to a more marginal, though

conspicuous position in tabloids and gossip magazines. Today, this genre has moved towards the centre

of mainstream news and entertainment culture, and is distributed broadly across media platforms,

including gossip and entertainment sites, mainstream news media, fashion magazines, social

media, etc.

Regarding paparazzi photography specifically, our study indicates that this genre has

undergone a significant transformation concurrent with intensified multimedia consumption.

According to the existing literature in the field (e.g. Howe, 2005; Mendelson, 2007; Squiers, 1999,

2010), trademark paparazzi photographs used to depict celebrities exhibiting bodily excess and/or

transgressing social or moral codes. Our analysis, by contrast, shows that snapshots of famous people

engaged in insignificant everyday activities hold the largest share by far of today’s insatiable digital,

globalized and commercialized market for paparazzi photography. In other words, as a visual genre of

online celebrity news, paparazzi photography is predominantly characterized by a discourse of

ordinariness, firmly rooted in and contributing to celebrity culture’s tension between the ordinary and

the extraordinary.

This presents us with an intriguing paradox of a widespread genre of visual celebrity

news, which contains limited newsworthiness in terms of conflict and sensation, with inconspicuous

framings of celebrities seemingly caught unaware in a moment of privacy and self-absorption while

shopping, picking up their children from school, exiting gyms, passing through airports, etc.

Accordingly, this article addresses the following research question: How is the ordinary represented in

paparazzi photographs as a genre of celebrity news in the current digital media landscape?

To answer this question, the article consists of five sections. We first present the research

design and key findings of the content analysis of posted celebrity photographs in 10 major English-

language entertainment news sites from June 2011. In the second section, we review the existing
literature in the field and characterize paparazzi photography as an online celebrity news genre. The

third section offers a theoretical framework in which we argue for the need to be more precise in the

conceptualization of the central notion of ‘ordinariness’ in celebrity culture studies than is the case, for

example, in Dyer’s (1989 [1979]) work. Consequently, drawing on Erving Goffman (1990 [1959]) and

Joshua Meyrowitz (1985), we suggest the term ‘middle region private-ness’ to encompass paparazzi

photography’s particular staging of the ordinary. The fourth section engages analytically with this

concept and examines how the ordinary manifests itself in paparazzi photography as a performative

‘private-ness’ and a ‘look of everyday’. Finally, we conclude on the news value of contemporary, online

paparazzi photography in view of this construction of ordinariness.

Methodology and major findings

The ambition behind the content analysis was twofold: first, to facilitate a general idea of the main

genres of celebrity photography on entertainment news sites and, second, to examine the different ways

celebrities are represented on paparazzi photographs. Based on the hypothesis that digital modes of

production and distribution have changed the genre profoundly, the analysis focused exclusively on

online celebrity photography. In this way, the article differs from the previous literature in the field,

which has predominantly centred on celebrity photography in printed tabloids. If print media had been

included, the analysis might have disclosed patterns of cross-media distribution and given a broader

view of celebrity news photography. For example, Becker suggests that, in printed tabloids, ‘the plain

photograph of the person posing at home is probably the most common’ (2008: 89), and Johansson

claims that celebrities in British tabloids ‘appear to occupy a world of leisure, with snapshots from

parties, premiers, family life and holidays’ (2007: 112). Judging from these qualitative studies, the

representation of celebrities in printed tabloids differs significantly from the online celebrity news

photographs in our sample.

 While traditionally a qualitative field, a small number of celebrity studies have recently

opened up to quantitative methods such as Gorin and Dubied’s (2011) content analysis of celebrity

stories in print media and Marwick and boyd’s (2011) quantitative and qualitative analyses of celebrities’

use of Twitter. In the present article, we deploy a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Whereas the content analysis provides an overview of the domineering genres of celebrity news

photography online and detailed knowledge about the content of paparazzi photography, a

supplementary qualitative approach enables us to analyse at more depth how contemporary online

paparazzi photography reinterprets the idea of the ordinary.

The first step was to single out 10 of the most visited entertainment news sites, from

which the material was going to be procured. The list was created on the basis of website traffic

information supplied by Google Ad Planner and crosschecked with www.ebizma.com, www.alexa.com

and www.compete.com. Using these tools, the 10 most visited entertainment news sites as of June 2011

were: omg.yahoo.com, people.com, tmz.com, popeate.com, eonline.com, mediatakeout.com,

usmagazine.com, celebuzz.com, starpulse.com and gawker.com. Search terms for locating celebrity

entertainment sites were combinations of ‘celebrity’, ‘news’, ‘gossip’, ‘Hollywood’, ‘stars’ and

‘entertainment’. In case of differences in numbers, Google Ad Planner’s traffic counts were chosen.

However, the overall results show the same pattern: 10–15 much visited sites and a large number of

sites much less visited, that is, ‘a long tail’ structure (Anderson, 2006). As for traffic, we counted unique

visitors, reach, visits and total visits, but no marked differences showed. No differentiation was made

between independent sites and sites belonging to a media conglomerate (e.g. people.com).

The sampling was conducted on Tuesdays and Thursday in three successive weeks (7, 9,

14, 16, 21, 23 June 2011), and a total of 4737 photographs were registered. The photographs were

collected in the following manner: (1) all photographs on the opening page were counted; (2) at one

level deeper, all photographs were counted after clicking on image links on the front page; (3) all
photographs were counted after clicking on news text on the front page. Only photographs, not videos,

were counted.

The subsequent coding of the sample took place on three levels to answer the following

questions:

(1) What are most common genres of celebrity news photography?

(2) What are the most common subgenres of paparazzi photography, ‘ordinary’ or ‘compromising’?

(3) Which situations and activities are represented on the ‘ordinary’ paparazzi photographs?

Red  Carpet   Paparazzi   Others  

23%  
37%  

40%  

 
 
Figure 1: Total Number of Celebrity News Photography, n=4737. Survey conducted June 2011
(7th, 9th, 14th, 16th, 21st, 23rd) on the following celebrity news sites: omg.yahoo.com, people.com,
tmz.com, popeate.com, eonline.com, mediatakeout.com, usmagazine.com, celebuzz.com,
starpulse.com and gawker.com.

With respect to the first level, two distinctive genres of almost the same size turned out

to be the major ones within celebrity news photography (see Figure 1). ‘Paparazzi photography’ is the
largest with 1876 images (40%); ‘Red carpet photography’ is nearly the same size, with 1774 images

(37%). The remaining 1087 images (23%), consist of diverse photographic material: first, other official

photographs, for example press material, photographs from press meetings and magazine covers;

second, photographs from informal appearances in talk shows, performances at award shows, etc.;

third, a small number of exterior views of celebrities’ estates; and fourth, celebrities’ auto portraits from

Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. On a methodological note, dividing the pictures

on this overall level appeared rather unequivocal, as the two main genres never overlapped: paparazzi

photographs represent celebrities who do not seem to pose, either because they are engaged in

mundane doings or because they are caught in compromising situations. Red carpet photography

shows celebrities posing in front of cameras, when attending press-covered official events and

celebrations like award ceremonies, launches and charity events.

 
 
Concerning the second level, that is, the most common subgenres of paparazzi

photography, we initially divided the images into two groups: ‘ordinary’, showing celebrities in everyday

situations, and ‘compromising’, depicting celebrities in situations which appear to be less flattering to

their public image. Accordingly, the ‘ordinary’ is to be comprehended as the everyday, the uneventful,

following Roger Silverstone’s (1994) understanding of the term as the taken-for-granted, the routine

and rhythmically repetitive, which contributes to the ordering of day-to-day life. The ‘compromising’,

on the other hand, is characterized by dramatic and often sensational incidents, which break everyday

routines. ‘Ordinary’ definitely comprises the largest group with 1752 pictures (93%) of celebrities in

everyday situations: with their children, passing through airports, on the streets, on the beach, etc. Of

the 4737 pictures, only 124 (7%) expose celebrities in ‘compromising’ situations, mainly being drunk,

exhibiting bodily flaws or appearing in a criminal context, for example entering or exiting courthouses.
 Dining At home Vacation
1% 1% 2%
Shopping
4%
Other Leisure
Activites
Arriving 3% Working
2% 6%
Street
Airport 31%
4%
Car/Bike/
Motorcycle
etc.
3%

Beach
16%
Workout
4%
Parents and
children
17%
Celebration
6%

 
Figure 2: Paparazzi photographs of the ‘ordinary’, n=1752. For details about the survey and the
total number of photographs, see figure 1.

On the third level, the paparazzi photographs within the ‘ordinary’ category show some

noteworthy results regarding the activities and situations represented (Figure 2). When bearing in mind

the logistical and practical challenges of paparazzi photographers, it is hardly surprising that images

taken on the street, typically connoting both leisure and consumption, comprise the largest category

with 550 pictures (32%). The second largest is ‘parents and children’ with 307 photos (18%), of

celebrities with their children. ‘Beach’, associated with leisure and showing off a fit, disciplined body,

amounts to 273 (16%) and is the third largest. The smaller categories ‘work out’ (64 pictures/4%) and
‘other leisure activities’ (61 pictures/4%) similarly signify leisure and the perfect body, in opposition to

the limited number of paparazzi photographs in the sample showing bodily flaws. These results are

interesting in comparison with the thesis put forward by Dyer back in 1979 that the construction of

celebrities as ordinary focuses on ‘a lifestyle of leisure’ and ‘consumption’ (1989 [1979]: 35). Thus, the

analysis points to ‘parents and children’ as a noteworthy emerging theme, while ‘lifestyle of leisure’ and

‘consumption’ are still highly represented. Methodologically, these numbers should be read with the

reservation that the coding of the images was based upon an assessment of the most distinctive feature,

when two categories were relevant, for example, when a picture of a celebrity walking on the street with

his or her child could be categorized as both ‘parents and children’ and ‘street’.

In sum, the content analysis shows that paparazzi photography and red carpet

photography constitute the major genres of celebrity news photography. Yet more interesting, the

analysis also shows that the overwhelming majority of paparazzi photographs falls into the category of

‘ordinary’, with leisure, consumption and family life as the most common motifs. We return to the

empirical data below.

Paparazzi photography as a genre

Despite paparazzi photography’s ubiquitous presence, it has been the subject of little scholarly scrutiny

and, prior to the present article, no quantitative studies have been conducted on the genre.

Symptomatic of this tendency, Rojek’s (2010) four-volume collection Celebrity contains no articles about

paparazzi photography, and the genre is only mentioned in passing a few times in P. David Marshall’s

(2006) The Celebrity Culture Reader. Within the limited research tradition, Carol Squiers (1999, see also

2010) has authored a pioneering historical study of paparazzi photography from its conception in post-

war Rome, when a group of photographers determinedly pursued candid images of international movie

stars working in the city’s blooming film industry. This new branch of photographers gained their name
from the character Paparazzo in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). Moreover, scholars have discussed the

alleged role of the paparazzi in the death of Princess Diana in 1997 (Hellmueller and Aeschbacher

2010; Hindman, 2003; Squiers, 1999). Other approaches have included a juridical account of celebrities’

rights vis-à-vis paparazzi photographers (Willis, 2007), and a study of the particular ‘anti-aesthetics’

produced by celebrities fighting to maintain control over their public image (Mendelson, 2007). The

only study to focus on the genre in the digital era is McNamara’s (2011) notable enquiry into the

business model and organization of producers and distributors of paparazzi photography (but see also

Jerslev and Mortensen, forthcoming).

In this context, Squiers deserves notice for her historical framing of the genre as a hybrid

of several photographic forms: Despite its singular reputation, it is not a singular visual discourse.

Instead, it is a rough-edged hybrid that is patched together from the visual regimes and positivist

assumptions that constitute four types of photography that are practiced and consumed as if they were

distinct from one another: photojournalism; documentary; celebrity photography, which is itself a

hybrid of editorial and promotional photography; and surveillance photography. (1999: 271; see also

Mendelson, 2007: 170). According to Squiers, paparazzi photography first continues the tradition of

photojournalism insofar as the images are circulated as topical news. Second, paparazzi photography

shares documentary photography’s recording of reality, but not the social ideals conventionally fuelling

this genre. Third, Squiers calls attention to ‘celebrity photography’, in itself a hybrid between ‘editorial

photography and promotional photography’, as a predecessor to paparazzi photography. Fourth,

paparazzi photography draws on the monitoring and control of surveillance photography, even if the

visual paradigms work in opposing ways; the surveillance camera is set up to capture the unlawful,

irregular and, indeed, the extraordinary from the ordinary flux of everyday life, whereas the paparazzo

tries to capture the ordinary everyday life of the extraordinary persona.

While appreciating Squiers’ historical take, we disagree with how she does not

differentiate qualitatively between the influences from photojournalism, documentary photography,

celebrity photography and surveillance photography. From the perspective of this article, ‘celebrity

photography’ is not merely one of the ‘visual regimes and positivist assumptions’ (1999: 271),

contributing to the hybridity of paparazzi photography. Rather, we regard the broader concept of visual

celebrity news culture as the overall media matrix hosting and shaping paparazzi photography. We

therefore take a pragmatic point of departure and draw on Steve Neale’s classical definition of genre

within film and media studies as ‘systems of orientations, expectations and conventions’ (1980: 19), in

order to pinpoint paparazzi photography as a contemporary online celebrity news genre.

Paparazzi photography as online celebrity news

As the two dominating genres of online celebrity news photography, paparazzi photography and red

carpet photography are mutually interdependent and, to a large extent, constitute and structure one

another as the main sites for the staging of the ‘extraordinary’ and the ‘ordinary’ respectively. On the

one hand, red carpet photography shows celebrities posing at their most glamorous and extraordinary.

For reasons of image maintenance and often to fulfill contractual obligations, celebrities collaborate

with photographers when taking part in photo sessions at award ceremonies, premieres, fashion shows,

etc. Celebrities not only draw attention to a particular event, product or work, they also promote and

reproduce their star quality by exposing a photogenic self in accordance with the Hollywood

conventions. On the other hand, paparazzi photographs document ordinary appearances and mundane

doings. They function as a reverse makeover, in the sense that the ‘ordinariness’ of the pictures is

constituted by the ‘extraordinariness’ of red carpet photography and other representations of the

celebrity. In other words, the news value of paparazzi photography is intrinsically linked to the already

established celebrity persona. Paparazzi photographs only enter the journalistic flow as rejoinders to

preceding glamorous images of the celebrity.

 Therefore, paparazzi photography is to be understood within this tension between the

ordinary and the extraordinary. The genre functions as celebrity news due to the constant flow of

incoming images creating a continued narrative about the ordinary, everyday life of celebrities, which

parallels the everyday life of media users. Concerning paparazzi photography as online celebrity news

specifically, the genre is distinguished by three features: seriality, speed and interactivity.

First, regarding seriality, multiple images of the same situation are recorded and

disseminated and contribute to near endless rows of paparazzi photographs on entertainment news

sites featuring the ‘visual serialization of the celebrity’s public life’ (McNamara,

2011: 9; see also Jerslev and Mortensen, forthcoming). At first, the images are arranged according to

time in reverse chronological order, that is, on account of being recently taken they are ascribed news

value and compiled into a narrative. However, at the same time, the pictures are published in one and

usually more galleries devoted to specific celebrities, or themes such as ‘Moms & Babies’ and ‘Celebrity

Injuries’, where they remain after their limited time as top news stories has expired.1 The seriality

characteristic of paparazzi photography as online celebrity news genre should not be mistaken with the

journalistic news update, which Saltzis (2011) defines as every new version of a story, no matter how

significant or elaborated the additions. Paparazzi images accumulate in quantity, but do not necessarily

supply new information. To the celebrity-interested crowd, each picture functions as yet another

collector’s item, which provides the ideal starting point for talk and gossip about celebrities with the

undramatic, everyday scenes leaving room for identification, projections and fantasies. Ongoing online

gossiping about posted paparazzi photographs at once evaluates their newsworthiness and produces

them as news (see Jerslev, 2010).

Second, as for speed, digital technologies have almost collapsed the time between the

production and distribution of images. Paparazzi photographs can be uploaded and accessed within

minutes of their creation, and their relevance to the audience also depends on the speed of distribution

(McNamara, 2011: 8–12). Most of the pictures are carefully located in time and space; captions
establishing when and where the celebrity was recorded appear to be of great importance, which seems

somewhat puzzling in light of the uneventfulness typical of today’s paparazzi photographs. However,

the serial and successive documentation of the celebrity is itself to be understood as the point of this

activity, as the images secure the indexicality and authenticity of the flux of everyday-lived life.

Third, since digital platforms have introduced interactivity to the consumption of

celebrity culture, and invited users to post comments and gossip, and engage in other ways with

paparazzi photos, the distance between celebrity and audience, which has always been up for

negotiation in celebrity culture, has been reduced. Also, the sites extend to social networking sites like

Twitter and Facebook, mimicking the way users organize picture-sharing in their own social life.

Paradoxes of extraordinary ordinariness

To sum up the previous sections, the news value of present-day paparazzi photographs derives from

capturing celebrities at their most ordinary and insignificant, when they appear to be exactly like us,

walking along the street with a cup of coffee in their hands, talking on mobile phones and looking

unglamorous and off-stage: private people in public spaces. This begs the following theoretical

question: how are we to conceptualize this ordinariness produced over and over again, which is

apparently so important for constituting celebrities as objects of desire and maintaining their status as

extraordinary people epitomizing the spirit of an era?

The tension between ordinary and extraordinary, as already mentioned, has long

comprised a framework for understanding celebrity culture. For instance, in photographs from the

private homes of stars in American fan magazines from the 1930s (Dyer, 1998 [1979]: 40–1; see also

Jerslev, 1996), or in Sid Avery’s photos of Hollywood stars in the 1950s, celebrities made ‘themselves

available to the camera, submitting to the then current conventions of celebrity self-exhibition’

(Schickel’s introduction in Avery and Schickel, 1990: 8). The surroundings were private and the stars’

poses ordinary – they might read, cook, play with their children – but the self they projected was
nevertheless a public and formal self, and no backstage views are shown from their extraordinary

homes. While photographs from the stars’ homes constituted the private as public, most contemporary

paparazzi photographs constitute a sense of the private in the public.

In Dyer’s understanding of celebrity culture, the paradoxical projection of ordinariness can

be recognized on three different levels:

First, stars can be seen as ordinary people who live more expensively than the rest of us but

are not essentially transformed by this. Second, the wealth and success of the stars can be

seen as serving to isolate certain human qualities (the qualities they stand for), without the

representation of those qualities being muddied by material considerations or problems.

Both of these explanations fit with notions that human attributes exist independently of

material circumstances. Stars may serve to legitimate such notions. Finally, stars represent

what are taken to be people typical of this society; the specialness of stars may be then that

they are the only ones around who are ordinary! (1989 [1979]: 43)

The first paradox outlined by Dyer is that, apart from extraordinary wealth and conspicuous

consumption, celebrities lead ordinary lives; this corresponds to the grand narrative of the true self and

the unchangeable inner core also unfolded, for example, in the abundance of makeover stories in

contemporary popular culture (Heller, 2007; Weber, 2009). This is related to the second paradox that

extraordinariness enhances ordinary personal qualities, which have remained uncorrupted by success

and prosperity. The third paradox is Dyer’s first critical engagement with the crucial point, he develops

in later writings, that stars have achieved their position and continue to capture the popular imagination

because they embody ‘aspects of living in contemporary society’ (1986: 8). At once unique and general,

celebrities offer the perfect material for constructing narratives of the predominant societal aspirations,
struggles and ideals at particular historical times; this is why Dyer humorously concludes that stars may

be the ‘only ones around who are ordinary’ (1989 [1979]: 43).

Dyer’s definition of the paradoxical extraordinary ordinariness inherent in stardom grasps

the cultural meaning of celebrities at a general taxonomic level, and most of the paparazzi photographs

in our sample likely fit into this framework. This goes especially for pictures in the category ‘parents

and children’, which project the ordinary lives and genuine values of celebrities in the visualization of

affectionate parenthood. In these pictures, celebrities such as Katie Holmes, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer

Garner typically carry or embrace their children, thereby emphasizing the close family ties. Celebrities

are ascribed moral authenticity through this idealization of ‘ordinary’ family life, which reflects current

societal norms and values. By contrast, Dyer noted in 1979 that celebrity culture hardly features ‘the

developing relationship of a star and her/his child’ (1989 [1979]: 45). However, with the figure of the

‘power celeb mom’ evolving since the 1980s (Douglas and Michaels, 2004: 110–39), new attention is

given to the ideals of parenthood, and particularly motherhood, in picture-perfect work–life balance.

While Dyer’s taxonomy provides us with the overall frame for understanding contemporary paparazzi

photographs, the crucial question remains unanswered of how ordinariness is constructed in the

visuals. In the following, we would like to argue that the ordinary manifests itself as a performative

public ‘private-ness’.

Ordinary as middle region private-ness

The tension between private and public is of course not only central to understanding the dynamics of

paparazzi photography and celebrity culture at large, but also to a diversity of other contemporary

popular media formats, such as talk shows, reality TV and social network sites, where people perform

parts of their ‘private’ and ‘true’ selves. Along the same lines, paparazzi photographs put on display a

performative private-ness, which may best be understood with reference to Erving Goffman’s (1990

[1959]) classical micro-sociological deployment of theatre metaphors to conceptualize social behaviour

and the presentation of self in everyday communication, along with Joshua Meyrowitz’s (1985) analysis

of the impact of electronic media on culture and everyday life.

Performance is a central term for Goffman, signifying ‘all the activity of an individual

which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers

and which has some influence on the observers’ (1990 [1959]: 32). We are always audience and actors

for each other on shifting scenes, and depend on each other for the recognition and acceptance of the

impression of reality our performance is intended to project. Therefore, to Goffman, authenticity is a

question of acting authentic. His social architecture of two separate spaces, front and back stage or back

region implies that on the front (stage), behaviour is official and formal, in accordance with the socially

sanctioned script for a given role. Back stage is a private space, in which rehearsals take place and social

batteries are recharged. However, back stage does not necessarily equal the private home or the

intimate sphere, but may be located in many different spaces, as long as they are closed off from front

region.

Meyrowitz further develops Goffman’s terms to understand new cultural developments;

the appearance of still new (mediated) arenas for acting and still new (media) audiences. No Sense of Place

concerns the way electronic media have altered our access to information about everyday

performances, and call for ‘new sets of social performances’ (Meyrowitz, 1985: 39). According to

Meyrowitz, this has caused a blurring of boundaries between back stage and on stage, and a new

‘middle region’ area has emerged. Parts of the private spaces for rehearsal are now accessible to

audiences, who are offered a ‘“side-stage” view’ (Meyrowitz, 1985: 47). Correspondingly, actors adjust

their performance to the new information made available to the audience:

In middle region behaviours, the extremes of the former front region are lost because

performers no longer have the necessary backstage time and space; the control over

rehearsals and relaxations that supported the old front region role is weakened. The new
 behaviours also often lack the extremes of the former backstage behaviour because the

new middle region dramas are public (that is, performed before an ‘audience’) and,

therefore, performers adapt as much as possible to the presence of the audience, but

continue to hide whatever can still be hidden. (Meyrowitz 1985: 47)

In our understanding, middle region performance is suitable as a general labelling of what happens in

today’s most common paparazzi photographs.3 It is an exact expression of the consequences of the

intensified hunt for stolen moments, according to Sean Redmond’s almost Goffman-esque allusion to a

‘vision regime that leaves little if any space for them [celebrities] to be offscreen, out of print, switched

off’ (2006: 34). With the ubiquity of cameras and the ever-present possibility of being captured, the

photographs constitute celebrities being private in the sense of performing the private. Differently put,

we would like to argue that a particular middle region private-ness is presented in the pictures: the scenes

shown are not just private, for the sole reason that they take place in public. They cannot just be

considered public either, on account of their apparent candidness and intimacy.

Private-ness as performance

The concept of private-ness involves the audience in a double contract: on the one side, celebrities have

adapted to a media development characterized by audiences and media producers – and audiences as

media producers – potentially everywhere, and, on the other side, paparazzi images often function as an

informal method of public relations.

The ‘private’ self of celebrities is offered discursively as the capturing of a transient

moment, even though viewers may be and probably are well aware that this hardly constitutes an

entirely private self, but rather a ‘spectacle of invaded celebrity privacy’ (Sekula, 1984: 26). Most

prominently, middle region private-ness is negotiated through a striking lack of posing in most of the
photos in the sample: celebrities appear to be unaware of the photographer and absorbed in the

moment of ordinary life, hence the pictures give the impression of granting access to the private person

and offering a privileged gaze back stage. To this seeming lack of posing, one might ask whether it

might not be another pose, thus confronting us with a performative paradox. Or, in the words of Dyer,

whether paparazzi photography functions as a way of ‘authenticating authenticity’ (1991: 133). This

would also be in line with Roland Barthes’ reflections on the inevitability of posing as a bodily

interaction in the presence of cameras: ‘Once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I

constitute myself in the process of “posing”, I instantaneously make another body for myself, I

transform myself in advance into an image. This transformation is an active one’ (1984 [1980]: 10).

Empirically, it seems likely that celebrities are conscious of the lurking paparazzi lenses (see also

Becker, 2008: 89–90), and therefore transform themselves into an image in advance as ‘an authored

“ordinary” self’ (Tolson, 2001: 443), or enact ‘doing being ordinary’, to borrow an illuminating phrase

from Harvey Sacks’ (2003 [1984]) work on conversation analysis.

Along these lines, paparazzi photographers have accounted for their tacit or explicit

collaborations with celebrities (Currid-Halkett, 2010; Howe, 2005; McNamara, 2011; Mendelson, 2007).

Picture editor and journalist Peter Howe brings forward the example of newly divorced Angelina Jolie

visiting the playground with her son and creating a casual photo opportunity of harmonious and caring

single mom life (2005: 162–4). Another example of a seemingly unposed, ‘stolen’ photograph,

rumoured to be the result of a conscious PR strategy, is the much publicized picture of Chris Martin

alluding to his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow’s, pregnancy by touching her stomach when leaving a doctor’s

office in 2003. In the words of Howe:

Another example of a ruthless paparazzo intruding upon a joyful, private moment in order

to make a lot of money from an exclusive? No, it probably wasn’t. According to most

people in the business, it was an example of a new trend whereby a publicist sets up and
 controls a set of pictures that are made to look like paparazzi shots. (2005: 16)4

As media users are mostly not informed about the degree of implicit or explicit collaboration, the

pictures play upon this uncertainty as part of the middle region private-ness. In opposition to famous,

‘compromising’ images of celebrities such as Sean Penn and Britney Spears raging against

photographers and going back to the iconic images of stars aggressively trying to prevent

photographers from taking their pictures in Rome in the early 1960s, the images of celebrities as

ordinary invariably conceal the production situation, not only through celebrities (possibly) posing as

not-posing, but also as the visuals hardly ever show other photographers, even though they are bound

to be present at many of the same locations.

While most of the images in the ‘ordinary’ category in our sample might serve as an

example, we end this section by illustrating middle region private-ness with a pre-divorce photograph

of Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri, which falls into the category of ‘parents and

children’ already reflected on. Published on the site http://omg. yahoo.com/ and dated 19 June 2011,

the photograph shows the family walking in Miami Beach, Florida.5 Suri – already proclaimed to be a

style icon – is on her mother’s arm, wrapped in a towel and facing the other way, while Cruise and

Holmes are wearing casual clothes, hats and the obligatory dark sunglasses. Like many other paparazzi

photographs, this image resonates on a general level with Dyer’s three paradoxes of extraordinary

ordinariness. First, ordinary family life is on display; however, they do not appear ‘ordinary as an

ordinary person’ but clearly as ‘celebrity-being-ordinary’ (Tolson, 2001: 450). Second, the celebrity

status of Holmes and Cruise seems to have refined the authenticity inherent in their personalities, since

they could be ascribed moral credibility for the affectionate care of their child and the close family ties.

A smiling Holmes is carrying her daughter, and all family members are physically connected. Third, the

togetherness of the family contributes to contemporary celebrity culture’s idealization of motherhood.

With the towel wrapped around Suri resembling a cloth, the image is reminiscent of a secular Madonna
and child icon. Given Holmes’ status as an actress, the paparazzi photograph creates an idyllic union of

motherhood and career. But this image also points to paparazzi photography’s public transit spaces as

the proper backdrop for middle region performances of the private self. Holmes and Cruise seem to be

immersed in this moment of family life without considering themselves potential photographic

subjects. On the one hand, their accessories denote the wish for privacy and, simultaneously, once

documented by the camera, they provide the photograph with news value exactly on account of the

recorded ‘private’ moment. On the other hand, the sunglasses and hats can also be understood

discursively, as props in a performance, contributing to the construction of private-ness.

The look of everyday

Middle region private-ness further manifests itself in the everyday look of celebrities, which is conveyed

both by the contents and the aesthetics of the images. Routines and the trivial normally delineate

ordinary lives, apart from when this repetitive flow is punctuated by exceptional events like celebrations

or parties. The everyday repetitiveness is unglamorous and unmemorable, hence mostly not worth

photographing. As for paparazzi photography, the reverse is the case. Extraordinary people engaged in

everyday tasks are considered newsworthy and embody the positive values of the common man and the

essential, genuine self. Photographs of celebrities carrying coffee in public spaces, exiting cars or

hurrying through airports, wearing relaxed, high-street clothes and showing un-made-up appearances,

(looking) like everybody else, attach to their appearance an ‘aesthetics of authenticity’ (Lai, 2007). In the

same vein, Paddy Scannell argues that ‘any person appearing in the public realm who lays claim to

ordinariness’ projects sincerity; ‘[i]t is how you prove you are like the rest of us’ (1996: 74). Sincerity, to

Scannell, is a sign of interpersonal reliability; paparazzi photographs, however, transform everyday

sincerity into a look. What we mean by ‘a look’ might be explained by considering the affinity between

paparazzi photography and fashion street photography, that is, images of ‘stylish’ people in urban

spaces spotted by photographers or fashion bloggers. Even though celebrities’ clothes may appear
insignificant in their everyday ordinariness, the aesthetic framing inscribes celebrities as stylish and

timely, akin to this contemporary trend in fashion photography.

If the everyday is a look worn by celebrities, the digital snapshot aesthetics (Sandbye,

2007) passes on the look of the everyday to the picture surface. At a point in history when embellishing

and perfecting images is standard business in celebrity culture, the high demand for this basic,

vernacular format may be regarded as a counter-movement and claim to reality. The snapshot comes

across as casual and accidental, and is therefore perceived as more authentic than other photographic

genres. This conveys to the viewer a sense of proximity to the celebrity, or an ‘illusion of intimacy’, as

Schickel (2000 [1985]) puts it, which is essential to the celebrity–fan relationship (Hills, 2002; Turner,

2004). Paparazzi photography creates the illusion of a transparent and digitally unmanipulated record of

the meeting between photographer and celebrity, and could be regarded as part of the ‘regime of truth’

to which, Dovey (2000) has argued, camcorder recordings belong. The images contain the indexical

promise that what is depicted corresponds to what was in front of the camera, and in this way situate

the spectator as eyewitness by proxy. This is enhanced by the fact that this could be ‘us’, the viewers,

casually meeting the celebrity on the street, and contributing to celebrity news by snapping a photo

with our mobile phones. Professional photographers specialized in the field are experiencing

competition from citizen paparazzi or celebrity stalkers, and websites and mobile phone apps have been set

up for tracking celebrities (Lavallee, 2008; McNamara, 2011; Schofield, 2010). In this manner, the

everyday of middle region private-ness is constructed both by means of unglamorous motifs and an

aesthetic which emphasizes proximity and contingency. This might be another reason for the large

amount of this subgenre of paparazzi photography online. The photos function as mirrors of a

contemporary culture of the specular and mediatized self (Marshall 2010); by flaunting their ‘ordinary’

selves, celebrities contribute to the ‘democratization of public personal revelation’ (Marshall, 2010: 500)

through the internet and social media, and hence create an improved sense of proximity.
Conclusion

In this article, we have examined how paparazzi photography can be conceptualized as an online

celebrity news genre in the current, digital media landscape. To this end, our discussion has primarily

focused on the visual construction of celebrities’ ordinariness.

Starting from the content analysis of paparazzi photographs on entertainment news sites,

we have demonstrated that what we usually think of as paparazzi photography – images showing

celebrities trying to hide from or else aggressively reject indiscreet photographers, or alternatively

disclosing juicy, even scandalous details from their private lives – hardly corresponds with the genre

today. Even if the scandalous paparazzi photographs might draw more attention, as was the case with

the release of the images of Kate Middleton sunbathing, the majority of contemporary paparazzi

photographs depict famous people as ordinary human beings: looking unremarkable, doing everyday

things.

Present-day paparazzi photography is a prime provider of pictures of the ordinary in

celebrity culture, which fits with the spread of digital image technologies and the possibilities for

photographers to circulate and publish photographs more widely. The ubiquitous photos of celebrities

as ordinary mirror a seemingly insatiable market to fill the large amount of entertainment news sites.

Moreover, we have emphasized how paparazzi photography at once feeds on and is defined by what is

absent in the photos, the glamorous and extraordinary images of perfection. Hence, paparazzi

photography can only be understood when framed within the field of tensions crucial to the theoretical

confines of celebrity culture, in which the tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary is

fundamental.

The article contributes to celebrity culture studies with a clarification of the notion of the

ordinary as analytically more complex than just the opposite of the extraordinary. We have pointed out
that the ordinary in online paparazzi photography is constituted visually by means of what we call middle

region private-ness. The particular content in contemporary online paparazzi photography provides the

images with news value; moreover, the content may also be the reason for the continued demand for

this kind of photo. First, despite the profusion of paparazzi images, each one gives the impression of

immediacy and of a rare and true moment captured; conceivably, the very lack of the sensational holds

a news value in and of itself. Second, by means of their everyday aesthetics, the photos furnish an

impression of access and proximity to the famous. Third, their lack of drama notwithstanding, they add

new information to the fans’ scrapbooks. Fourth, due to their openness and photographic displacement

of the back stage authentic, and due to the construction of the private as middle region private-ness,

the photographs invite discussion and guessing, assumptions and gossip. And finally, on account of this

yielding to the curiosity and narrativized meaning-making strategies of the viewers, they evoke the need

for more information, more news – more paparazzi photographs.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-

profit sectors.

Notes

1. See: http://www.usmagazine.com/momsbabies, http://photos.tmz.com/galleries/celebrity_

injuries#tab=most_recent

2. Even though Dyer’s book is titled Stars and celebrity studies discuss differences between celebrities
and stars (in Redmond and Holmes, 2007 for example), this distinction is not important to this study.

3. Despite the 1985 publication being mainly preoccupied with television, No Sense of Place is also
valuable for understanding the last decade’s general development in celebrity culture, which puts our
analysis in perspective. Meyrowitz observes that new middle region behaviour fosters ‘deep backstage’
and ‘forefront’ behaviour, which are extreme versions of former back and front behaviour (1985: 47).
On the one side, the small amount of ‘compromising’ paparazzi photography in our sample may be
said to frame deep back stage. On the other side, we see still more examples of celebrity forefront
performances, most notably the media and entertainment industries’ glamorous self-celebrations and
extended live broadcasts from red carpet events, and the increased circulation of photographs of young
European royalty transformed into celebrities.
4. According to Currid-Halkett (2010), the photograph was taken and sold to the media by Paltrow’s
brother.

5. Due to copyright restrictions, we are not able to reproduce the picture. However, it is available
online, see for instance: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/tom-cruise/images/23031381/ title/tom-
cruise-katie-holmes-miami-with-suri-photo (accessed 29 May 2013).
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Author biographies

Mette Mortensen is associate professor at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication,
section of Film and Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has published widely in the
fields of conflict and new media, journalism, and visual culture.

Anne Jerslev is professor at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, section of Film
and Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She has published numerous books and articles on
celebrity culture, reality television and realism.

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