Full Description
With the prominence of one-name couples (Brangelina, Kimye) and famous families (the Smiths, the Beckhams), it is becoming increasingly clear that celebrity is no longer an individual pursuit—if it ever was. Accordingly, First Comes Love explores celebrity kinship and the phenomenon of the power couple: those relationships where two stars come together and where their individual identities as celebrities become inseparable from their status as a famous twosome.
Taken together, the chapters in this volume interrogate the ways these alliances are bound up in wider cultural debates about marriage, love, intimacy, family, parenthood, sexuality, and gender, in their particular historical contexts, from the 1920s to the present day. Interdisciplinary in scope, First Comes Love seeks to establish how celebrity relationships play particular roles in dramatizing, disrupting, and reconciling often-contradictory ideas about coupledom and kinship formations.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction
Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
I. Golden Couples
Introduction
Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
'Gilbo-Garbage' or 'The Champion Lovemakers of Two Nations': Uncoupling Greta Garbo and John
Gilbert
Michael Williams, University of Southampton, UK
'The Most Envied Couple in America in 1921': Making the Social Register in the Scrapbooks of F.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
Sarah Churchwell, University of East Anglia, UK
'Good Fellowship': Carole Lombard and Clark Gable
Michael Hammond, University of Southampton, UK
II. Kinships
Introduction
Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
Filial Coupling, the Incest Narrative, and the O'Neals
Maria Pramaggiore, Maynooth University, Ireland
A Star is Born?: Rishi Kapoor and Dynastic Charisma in Hindi Cinema
Rachel Dwyer, SOAS, University of London, UK
Eddie Murphy's Baby Mama Drama and Smith Family Values: The (Post-) Racial Familial Politics of Hollywood Celebrity Couples
Hannah Hamad, King's College London, UK
Momager of the Brides: Kris Jenner's Management of Kardashian Romance
Alice Leppert, Ursinus College, USA
III. Marriage
Introduction
Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
Diana's Rings: Fetishizing The Royal Couple
Margaret Schwartz, Fordham University, USA
Behind Every Great Woman...?: Celebrity, Political Leadership, and the Privileging of Marriage
Anthea Taylor, University of Queensland, Australia
It's the Thought That Counts: North Korea's Glocalization of the Celebrity Couple and the Mediated Politics of Reform
David Zeglen, George Mason University, USA
Ellen and Portia's Wedding: The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage and Celesbianism
Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK
Audrey Hollander and Otto Bauer: The Perfect (Pornographic) Marriage?
Beccy Collings, University of East Anglia, UK
IV. Love
Introduction
Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
The Return of Liz and Dick
Suzanne Leonard, Simmons College, USA
'Brad & Angelina: And Now . . . Brangelina!': A Sociocultural Analysis of Blended Celebrity Couple Names
Vanessa Diaz, University of Michigan, USA
Jane Fonda, Power Nuptials, and the Project of Aging
Linda Ruth Williams, University of Southampton, UK
The Making, Unmaking and Re-Making of 'Robsten'
Diane Negra, University College Dublin
The Good, the Bad, and the Broken: Forms and Functions of Neoliberal Celebrity Relationships
Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
Index
