April 17, 2021 • 42 mins
Celebrity studies PhD and new Buzzfeed features writer Anne Helen Petersen stops by the show to talk about the rise of Hollywood scandal, female stars, celebrity gossip and feminism in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
steffand ever told you protection of I Heart Radio. So, Samantha,
were you ever into celebrity gossip? Was that everything? Yeah?
(00:25):
I So I'm not gonna lie. When I see a
listical by BuzzFeed about celebrities, I'm gonna I'm gonna go
look at it. Probably now. Of course, there's some that
I'm just like what, and then some that's just happening
on Twitter, and then I get caught up in it.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, So has that been like for
a long time? Yeah? I think I definitely. If I'm
(00:47):
at a place where there's magazine, so let's say I'm
waiting for the doctor, I'm going to go for the
you know, entertainment weekly. That's what I'm gonna look at
before anything else. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I was
more like I diditely Entertainment Weekly. I was more into
like teasers of like the next Harry Potter movie, and
lessened to the celebrity gossip aspect. And I only have
(01:10):
like one exception in Bryan Gossing. I went all in
and I like no facts about his life that I'm
ashamed of at this point, I actually did not like
I just love see. I know I've made this distinction before.
I usually I love the fictional character and I do
love the actor that played them, but I don't really
look them up. I don't really know much about Mark Cambill,
(01:31):
to be honest, okay, other than what time is sweets?
But didn't you love Kana Reeve just him? Was it
a character? Yeah? General too, because you and I had
the whole debate about where he was from, and you
were like, no, is this it was so adamant? And
you're right. I mean, I there's certainly like in his
(01:55):
instance and else Mark Hamill. I watched other things they
did that I probably would not have watched to this day.
I refused to watch Point Break again because it disturbed
me so badly. It could also be that I I
didn't have like ready access to the internet, and the
only magazine I subscribed to at the time was Adventure
(02:19):
Disney Adventure, So whatever was in there was my celebrity gossip.
I guess I did know a lot about Billy Joe Armsure. Yeah,
I say, did you not watch Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood?
Because I definitely watched all those No I didn't, but
I did watch. I watched late night talk shows, but
I actually usually left when the guests come on, which
(02:40):
is still true to this day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
think there's something about it that makes me nervous that
I feel weird, like I'm invading privacy. Except for hot ones. Yeah,
even then, even then I get weird about especially if
it's like a personal question. I feel awkward, like the
(03:01):
way you feel awkward watching like people get embarrassed. That's
why I'm like, oh no, I don't want to I
don't want to know this personal detail about your life.
I feel straight good to know. Yes, I think it's complex,
is what I'm saying. Fair, my history with it is complex.
(03:22):
But that being said, we wanted to bring back the
history of gossip in Hollywood and scandal in Hollywood because
of some episodes we have coming up about the women
of the nineties, which has been a huge topic of
conversation lately. Yes, so please enjoy this classic episode. Welcome
to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House top Works
(03:45):
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we have a very special
guest on the podcast, doctor and Helen Peterson. That's right.
Dr and Helen Peterson writes a whole lot of awesome
(04:06):
stuff on so many websites. Where when does she sleep? Um,
focusing on star studies, celebrity culture, and especially celebrity scandals. Yeah.
She received her PhD from the University of Texas at
Austin in the Department of Radio, Television and Film. And
I'm explaining this because you might be thinking, how does
one study celebrities? Well, this is how you do it.
(04:28):
She also wrote a dissertation called the Gossip Industry, Producing
and Distributing Star Images, Celebrity gossip and Entertainment News. And
it's fascinating to look into the history of Hollywood gossip.
It says so much about our society and about how
you know, we're we're such a tabloid society today. And
(04:51):
she is working on a book that will be published
in May by Plume Penguin called The Scandals of Classic Hollywood,
based on her column for The Hairpin by the same name.
And so we decided, but we got to talk to
Dr Peterson, Annie about scandal that's right, the show, the history,
(05:13):
the gendered aspects of course, yes, and some feminism. We
have a lot to talk about, so let's get on
with our scandalous conversation with Anne Helen Peterson. The title
of your blog is Celebrity goss of Academic Style. And
for listeners who aren't familiar with your work, can you
fill us in a little bit about how you've built
(05:34):
your career around the intersection of celebrity in academia. Yeah. So,
celebrity studies is something that you know, I have by
no means invented. It's been There's something called star studies,
which is a sub field of media film studies. UM,
that's really been around the late seventies and eighties. There's
this scholar named Richard Diard wrote this book called Stars
(05:57):
that like, when I first read it was like one
of those horm moments, really saying that you can look
at a star and read it a star's image the
way that you would read any other media text. So
think about what they're suggesting in terms of like gender
and sexuality and all sorts of things about living in
the world. Um. And the reason my blog is called
(06:19):
Celebrity Gossip Academic Style, Uh, you know, I wanted it
to be very very clear about precisely what I was doing,
which was focusing on celebrity gossip, which everyone everyone, lots
of people really enjoy, but then also um making it
clear that I would be looking at it not from
a critical angle, but from an introspective and analytical angle.
(06:44):
And so I think that the reason so many people
like my blog is because they wanted to think deeper
thoughts about this gossip that they're consuming, and I provide
kind of a roadmap about how to do that. Um. Now,
this is probably a question that you've been asked a
lot or maybe not, um, what is the academic value
(07:06):
of studying and analyzing celebrity scandal and gossip? Because I
have a feeling that you've probably encountered some people who
are like, celebrity gossip that's not worth studying. Oh yeah, well,
I think that I mean, whatever we consume, right, whether
it's television or books or magazines or comic books, like,
(07:26):
whatever media we consume is shaping us in all sorts
of ways. And I think that like most people would
agree to that that, Like, you know, this is no
but like whether it's what we call trash or if
it's high quality doesn't matter, Like, these are things that
give us pleasure so why don't we think about why
we were consuming to things that were thinking that worked
(07:46):
to um And I mean that's really a turn actually
that in in media studies, it's only happened in the
last say, like thirty years. Is instead of decrying all
of this pop culture stuff as tray ash and saying like, oh,
this is just numbing the masses, instead thinking about how
individuals take pleasure from them, but also looking at them
(08:08):
more closely and thinking about the messages that they propagate.
So like celebrity, I mean every single celebrity, I could
tell you what they're doing in terms of like how
they're suggesting a certain sexuality or gender performance, or a
way of being romantic, or a scenario that is in
some way palatable like the The thing that I always
(08:31):
get is people like when they when I say a
study celebrity, they almost always say something like, I don't
understand why so and so is the celebrity And ten
years ago that was always Paris Hilton and now it's
Kim Kardashian and what I love to do there? And
this isn't this isn't I didn't come up with this.
My friend Alice Lebert came up with this, but to say, okay,
(08:52):
so look at Kim Kardashian's family. She has like this
thundering dad. She has like she's the older sister who
who's a prize but isn't really not interesting. She has
a younger sister who is really interesting but not as
traditionally beautiful. She has a gaggle of younger siblings who
the mom is all concerned getting married off. And she
(09:14):
has a mom who is trying to salvage a once
for the best family. And that scenario to think about it, if,
I mean, it's pride and prejudice, and so to think
about why, you know, it's not that Kim Kardashian herself
is so compelling. I mean, there's all these other things
that make her interesting, but how she is acting now
as scenario that oh, that has been compelling to us
(09:36):
for you know, hundreds of years. Okay, So that's that's
a really interesting statement. I never thought about celebrity worship
or following celebrities that way. Um What I'm interested in
what appeals to you personally and how you ended up
in this field. But what appeals to you personally about
following celebrities lives? Um? So there's this uh scholars. His
(09:57):
name is Joshua Gamson, and he came up with he
did this huge study of gossip consumers and he came
up with five different ways that people consume gossip. And
there are a very front things from people who read
the magazines and believe every single thing that they read,
to people who beat them as pure camp, right, is
just total artifice. And the one though that really is
(10:20):
so compelling to me and really I identify with, is
called the game player, which is someone who looks at
gossip as a puzzle. So trying to figure out, Okay,
why did their pulicies say this? Like what are they
doing by appearing at this event? Like why after there's
rumors that Ben Affleck has been cheating on Jennifer Garner,
does paparazzi conveniently appear and take pictures of her children
(10:41):
in the park? Um? So thinking about it as this
puzzle that like every every celebrity is trying to put
together this image. So I am much more interested in
production side and thinking that through. So growing up, though,
where did you follow celebrity gossip? Where you always kind
of the trying to figure out that puzzle to at
a young age. Oh no, I was much more interested
(11:04):
in just like entertainment broadly. I lived in a really
small town in northern Idaho, so there wasn't my My
exposure to the media world was through the magazine that
came to my house, and we got Entertainment Weekly from
the very beginning, and I was like a twelve year
old child. I was devouring every single issue like I
(11:26):
would this is so embarrass student, but I would put
it together in like a database that I had on
my Apple TV and put like the different things catalog unit,
and then I would grade the issue, like if the
issue was like a B plus, and it's like I
just I read it cover to cover, even though all
(11:47):
of this industry information, like you know, this was when
Entertainment Weekly was much more industrially focused, So like there's
all this stuff on Sundance and Harvey Weinstein and sex
Lights videotape, and I knew all every thing about those movies,
but I have never seen them and I wouldn't see
them for another ten years. And so I think that
that focus on production and on kind of the game
(12:09):
plane behind the scenes really translates well into my focus
on solving data. So you're currently writing a book about
the quote scandals of classic Hollywood and UM quick plug
for any listeners who have not seen your series by
the same name on the hairpin, it is fantastic. Um.
So could you talk a little bit about these old
(12:32):
school scandals, like, how do old Hollywood scandals compare to
the sex scandals we hear about today? I mean, are
we are we still the public still being shocked by
the same type of star behavior. Well, scandal generally is
always culturally specifics. So what I mean by that is
(12:54):
that you something only become scandalous when it rushures the
status quote that time, so Ingrid Bergman in n cheated
on her husband with Roberto Russell Mini, who was her director,
was an Italian, the umber Less director. And now, you know,
if someone cheats on their husband, but it's you know,
(13:16):
it's slightly gameless. But Ingrad Bergman was denounced on the
Senate floor as an instrument of evil and essentially ended
her American career. You know, that sort of a backlash
would not happen today. So what it was is that
she was challenging what was very firmly a part of
the status quo at that time. So you know things
today like even coming out as as gay right like
(13:38):
Rock Hutson refused even after it was revealed that he
had aids to come out as homosexual. And now, I mean,
I think that there's there's a reason why Tom Cruise
like refuses or not just not suggesting that Tom CRUs gay,
I am suggesting that he has won lawsuits against people
who have suggested that he is gay by claiming that
(14:00):
heterosexuality is crucial to his image and so like, it's
not necessarily I don't want to say that it's super
super easy to be our in Hollywood today, but there's
it's not what we would think of as scandalous. So
I would say that difference is that, um, so early Hollywood,
like early twenties, before they had the stars, kind of
(14:22):
like on Lockdown, there were a series of events that
emphasized that the like things were a little bit crazier.
So um, there was a lot of drinking and drug
use and more sexual experimentation basically sex out of my
luck than what we would what the rest of America
wanted to leave of their film idels. And so the
(14:45):
m p A, which is the Association of Studios, decided Okay,
let's lock it down. And for the rest of the
twenties and thirties and forties, essentially there was just, you know,
absolutely the only thing that came out about the stars
with the thing that the studios wanted to say about
the stars. So until Robert Mitchum got caused smoking pot
(15:06):
in nineteen four seven forty eight, there wasn't a scandal.
Like it was just Hollywood was perfect. And even things
that happened like Clark Cable clearly like not living with
his wife and living right next door to Carol Lombard,
you know, there was a way that the studios collaborated
with the fan magazines and the rest of the gossip
(15:27):
apparatus to be like they're just dating and they like
they are meant for each other and kind of keep
that on the download. So, I mean, I think that
now it's harder for stars to keep their images in control,
simply because there are so many different UH outlets, both
(15:51):
sanction and unsanctioned, that are attempting to tell their story
and attemption to get to the truth of their images.
But otherwise, I mean, stars of always been wild, like
that hasn't changed. Yeah, because it sounds like I mean
a lot of the things that we would read about
in say Star magazine today, like someone cheating on someone
else or someone doing drugs at a club, Like those
(16:12):
kinds of behaviors aren't anything new. But maybe it's just
the level of exposure that we're actually now just like
seeing it and hearing about it. Yeah, and I actually
think that that does it right, that likes someone cheating
just because we see it so often. Although the thing
I mean, I would say that we still think we
still want to find out the truth of someone's sexuality,
(16:35):
like that is still at the bottom the site of
often too truth. So whether that and I'm not saying
just like heterosexuality or homosexuality, it's also like is this
person is a woman super sexual? Or like is there
any other predilections in bed? Like that is somehow really
if we can find that out, it seems like you
(16:56):
can somehow I'll understand the true identity person in right,
And that whole gender divide is something that we were
really interested in, particularly um in your dissertation where you
talk about how early Hollywood scandal in the twenties in
particular was especially damning for female stars and why do
you think why were studios so anxious about these women's
(17:17):
images and how did they try to keep their female
stars so squeaky clean. I mean, I think in the
teens and twenties, there was already this anxiety about the
new woman and the flapper and like the woman being
out of the home and just like all sorts of
disruption in terms of traditional female gender rules, and a
lot of the stars acted that out. So someone like
(17:39):
Clara Bow was on screen like she was just she's
the perfect they called her like the flapper par excellence.
But then off screen when she did similar behaviors that
somehows seems that deemed can't scandal us, so they try
to um, they really tried to suggest that this person
(18:01):
is only acting this way on screen and not that
way offscreen. So when it became clear that like Clara
but was having lots of boyfriends and like Corey, like
she loved hanging out with the USC football team and
that sort of thing, that that I've caused more societal
and anxiety. But I think throughout Hollywood women have always
(18:21):
had a harder time of trying to keep their images
simultaneously sexual on screen and non sexual off screen. Yeah,
I was gonna ask whether or not you thought that
Hollywood scanals are still even today more potentially damaging for
female stars were justs male stars. I feel like, especially
(18:41):
in terms of fidelity, like if we find out that
the whole thing with you know, the build up to
the Vanity Fair piece that never happened about Gwyneth Paltrow,
everyone wants to hear that she's cheating on Chris Martin,
and it's just like this weird like we're just like
salivating for her to do something wrong. Yeah, totally no.
(19:01):
And I think, like trying to think of another example,
So someone like Claire Danes, who was the other woman
with Billy krut Up and Mary Louise Parker, she didn't
work in Hollywood for several years after that because like
both of their names were kind of smeared. Um. Yeah,
I think that it's just like still as supposedly progressive
(19:22):
as we are now about women's sexuality, which you know,
if you've watched politics over the last five years, clearly
we're not. There. Still is this idea that a woman
should like look like they really want to have sex
on the cover g Q, but then not actually have
any sex. Well, what does it what does it say
about us and about our cultural relationship with sex that
(19:44):
we are so and we have always been so wrapped
up in celebrity sex scandals. UM. I would say, like anything,
that there is this anxiety about that their people like
freak out about shows that it's something that we as
a culture still trying to figure out how we feel
about it. And so that continual anxiety about women's sexuality
(20:04):
shows that this is still something very much um in
play and that, uh, while there are different things that
seem progressive about women's rights, we still are hung up
on the idea that a woman should, uh should at
heart beat like only one to have sex with one
(20:25):
man and that man is her husband. It's a very
like puritan ideal of female sexuality. Well, we certainly have
more questions for an Annie. Dr Peterson, so many, so
many different names by which to call you when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
(20:46):
to the show. Just not a curiosity. Um. In your research,
have you noticed whether or not this is more of
an American or Western centric kind of culture of the
obsession with a sex scandal, or is this something that
you're gonna see in tabloid culture around the world. Um,
(21:07):
I would say that it's the obsession with sexual revelations,
like that's definitely the case. There's been a huge scandal
recently in China about some Chinese stars and sexual revelations
female ones. And but in Europe, I think it works
somewhat differently. Um Like, I think that when when Ingrid
Bergman left the United States after there was huge hoopla
(21:30):
and she went and worked in Italy for the next
fifty years. And you know this, even though you're at
that time, you know, post World War Two, it wasn't
the super progressive Europe that we think of today. There's
still is just more. I think there's a larger understanding
that somehow someone's sex life is their private life, right,
(21:52):
and even the fact like if you look at France,
like yes, they're always going to cover the president's um
sexual lives and the fact that they have mr this
isn't that sort of thing. But even the fact that
they have a mistress, right, that makes it like the
fact that the president of France can have a mistress
somehow makes that would be speakable, like different arrangements speakable
(22:14):
in France. That makes sense. But I wonder though, is
that is that more progressive the fact that it's like
fine for the him to have a mistress, you know
what I mean, I would say that it's less luck shamy. Yeah,
I mean yeah, I don't think that like allowing a
man to have many sexual partners is necessarily progressive. But
(22:35):
instead of making the woman kind of fair the brunt
of these these sexual scandals, it makes uh, it makes
it more of a conversation about what like the whole
thing that makes sense? Well, speaking of scandal in politicians,
this is the perfect time to transition to, um, what
(22:56):
is honestly my TV guilty leisure that I rarely tell
anyone that I watch, Uh, And that's Scandal, And that's
a show that you write about the watches. Um, yeah,
I don't. I don't know why I'm so conflicted about
my my scandal habit, but I definitely have one. Um.
But you wrote on your blog that it's quote a
(23:17):
show that's doing some of the most interesting network work
in storytelling, female desire, post feminism, race, and the intersections
between all of the above, which first of all makes
me feel a lot better about my scandal habit. You know,
there's so many things going on on that show. Yeah,
can you talk a little bit about in the in
the fictional realm of Scandal and that show sort of
(23:39):
what you mean by all of those intersections going on? Yeah, well,
I actually think so the first season of Scandal, they
did a lot more in terms of solving like a
single scandal each episode, remember this, Yeah, Yeah, much more
episodic in terms of like, Okay, so here's a politician
(23:59):
who is gay, right, and how do we deal with
the fact that there is clear proof and like a
newspaper is that I need to reveal it? So how
does Olivia Pope and the rest of the team fix
a scandal? And that, to me, I mean that is
super super fascinating, this idea of like fixers out there
(24:20):
who you know, it's the same as George Cluney's role
in Michael Plaine, and they had tons of fixers in
classic Hollywood who, like anytime star got wasted and drove
home drunk and ran into a telephone poll, that sort
of thing would go in there and fix the situation.
And I mean that's just so much harder now because
because there's paparazzi falling starts everywhere. But that sort of
(24:44):
kind of defense, playing defense against things that could come
out and change the image of the star. I think
that that uh, showing the kind of the inners of
that production, of that that process makes people think more
about how these things were. I mean, it's fictionalized, but
at the same time, just showing that there are five
people who are who are doing all of these things
(25:06):
to make sure that the release of a piece of
information goes smoothing. And then I mean, I think that
the show, I mean, the show really got its wheels
when it started just focusing on the relationship between Olivia
and Fits. But at the same time, that's when it
lost some of the more interesting focuses, like the more
(25:26):
interesting emphasis on what was going on with fixing scandals
that didn't have anything to do with actually Olivia. Right,
I was actually sick earlier this week, so I caught
up on my scandal, so I've kind of been thinking
about it and not to you know, to give spoilers
or anything to people listening, you might not be caught up.
(25:48):
But the the intense focus on her relationship with Fits,
I feel like almost undercuts the feminism of Olivia Pope's role,
which is frustrating. Yes, because her identity really becomes subsumed
in this romance, when otherwise it's clear that she's like
(26:09):
this ball busting, take no prisoners woman, right, and who
has in the past. It's not that she's not a
sexual person, right, She's had relationships and she's had sexual
encounters with people who aren't fits, And but she just
becomes so passive and weak when it comes to his
power over her. I think, like the the identity of
(26:32):
a female showrunner and a female showrunner of color is
really I mean, I like, it's important to have people
like Shonda Rhimes working in the industry. But then also
how discussions of race, Like it wasn't really until the
end of season two that there was any invocation that
the real scandal if it came out that the president
(26:53):
was having an affair with one of his former staffers,
wouldn't be that it would be that like he was
white and she was black, Like that would amplify that
scandal so much more. And they just because the show
really trucks in kind about post race color blind world,
the fact that it took that long to be invoked
and that it hasn't really been brought up again, I
(27:13):
don't know, I don't know how progressive that is either. Unfortunately,
scandal can't be everything for us as we might want
it to be. Um, well, outside of fictionalized television. How
do you think celebrity scandal intersects with feminism, particularly sort
of in this gossip air we find ourselves in where
so many of our feminist leaning blogs do discuss scandal. Yeah. Well,
(27:38):
you know, I wrote this article for Bitch Magazine that's
called Ken's Celebrity Gossip Ever be feminist? And my thesis
is basically that if you practice academic celebrity gossip, then yes,
because if you're looking instead of looking at someone who
you think, Um, I'm trying to think of a good example.
The example I uses that when Blake light Lay started
(28:00):
dating leonarder DiCaprio, this is several years ago, I was like, uh,
I can't believe it. Like I was just really angry
at Played Lively and so instead of like you know,
slut shaming her or making funt of the fact that
she has no talent, I sat there and I thought,
for a second, Okay, why am I reacting this way
(28:21):
to her dating Leonardo DiCaprio, And I had everything to
do with how Leonardo DiCaprio resonates with me as someone
who fell in love with him and Romeo and Juliette
when I was fifteen years old, right, and how I
the sort of relationship that I want him to be
in and the sort of woman that I think deserves
him that sort of thing. Right, Obviously I don't know
(28:43):
any I mean, he has clearly betrayed me on that
over and over and over again. But just basically doing
a little bit of analysis of my relationship to his
star image, I could see why I was reacting and
get a way to it to another female. So, like,
I think the blogs that do a lot of just
(29:06):
like body snarking and that sort of thing. I mean,
it's not feminist, Like there's no way to there's no
way to talk about that um with Like, there's no
way to so what I'm looking for and to defend that.
But I do think that something like on a lot
of feminist sites, what they're talking through is basically what
I do. So what about that star is interesting? What?
(29:31):
Like why so like when Amy Poehler and Will Arnett
broke up last year, Like, why is there's such a
heartfelt reaction to that? So instead of just like I mean,
I think that oftentimes gossip has democrated this just a
bunch of women like screaming in a corner or something
like that. But I think that there's real thoughtful work
(29:53):
going on about why we love the people we love
and why we just like people we just like. Yeah,
and and that very point of gossip, celebrity gossip often
being pegged as just this frivolous woman thing as any
kind of like female fandom in a way often is
like taken down a notch, is just being like too
(30:13):
girly and who cares? Um. I appreciate the you know,
the taking the time to actually pause and look into
it and analyze it. Um. I was actually reading last
night that You're a hairpin Scandals of Old Hollywood piece
on Hetty Lamar who. Up until I read that, I
had just thought of her as this, you know, stem
(30:34):
heroine who was a really beautiful woman of old Hollywood
who then invented this thing that basically gave us WiFi
now and lo and behold, there's this tragic backstory and
it was all sort of like tied up in sexuality
and gender and how we perceive we as the public
perceive and consume women's bodies, and Um, I don't know,
(30:57):
it was like it was, it was very lightning, and
I feel like that's we could use more of that,
I think in celebrity gossip. Yeah. Well, and the other
thing is that talking about sports players is celebrity gossip.
You know, like like sports talk is celebrity gossip. It's
just masculinized. And so I really try to emphasize the
(31:19):
fact that, you know, this is not something that only
women do. It's not something that is exclusive to celebrities.
It's just a type of talk about prominent figures. Well.
Tying everything back to the book that you're working on, Um,
do you have a favorite classic Hollywood scandal? I mean,
(31:42):
I really like the Robert Mitchum scandal because it's because
it was the first scandal to kind of rupture what
had been going on, the cover ups that have been
going on in classic Hollywood. He was on This is
Again nineteen forty eight. He was half on contracts, he
had like a contract with a studio, but then also
(32:03):
kind of was his doing his own thing. And so
what that made it possible is that he at first
was like when he got caught was like, screw it,
I'm going to jail. My career is over, like very
frank about it um. And then the studio people got
to him and he was like, okay, all right, I'll
try to like basically met good. So while he was
(32:26):
in jail, he allowed photographers from like magazine to come
in and take pictures of him. So there's all these
great photos of him, like sweeping his cell in jail,
and then he gets out and here permissions like this,
like he just looks like a dastardly dude, and you know,
he's just like the eyes and scars and stuff. But
(32:48):
then he sits for these interviews with like Photoplay and
a fan magazines where he's like, I just want to
go fishing with my son's and like, my wife has
been so supportive. And it was made very clear in
the five six years afterwards that that was all how
much of a first that was. But at the time
it's just so performative what was going on with scandal.
(33:10):
But I mean, for me, I like all of them.
I think some people are like, oh, why did you
write a Scandals of Closet, Polly, what about Robert Redford?
There was no scandal there I was like, I mean sure,
every star, though, has a way that they had to
make their image into something that wasn't scandalous. So anything
like I cried a column on any star and make
(33:31):
it interesting. I mean, it's even possible, though these days,
with as much like exposure as stars get too, to
closely control their image to the degree that they might want.
I mean, is scandal avoidable unless you are like legit,
you know, just on the up and up, always doing
everything that you should I think. I mean, Angelina Jolie
(33:52):
should have had at least fifty scandals in the last
ten years, and she has so definitely played that game
that I like, I'm just in awe of her. Um,
she's like the you know, the one that I don't
have enough distance from. I'm just like, oh, we played
that so well, amazing. So everything from the way that
(34:12):
they managed the revelation of her relationship with Bram Pitt
to the adoption and then giving birth to all of
these children, and the fact that they're still not married. Um,
and then recently with basically, you know, with her double
most sectomy, she that could have been the discussion could
have been about now she's no longer a sex Salifon right,
(34:34):
like she's her breast was so fundamental to her sexuality.
But the way that she got in front of the
story and wrote this New York Times editorial, like she
made the story about her sacrifice and her trying to
be a model for other women. So definitely, And now like,
if you talk about the loss of her breasts as
(34:58):
any in any sort of denigrating tone, you're a horrible person.
And the way that she played that made that possible.
So yes, I do think that it's possible to play
the game. Also, I mean, if you don't live in
Hollywood or New York, it's super possible. Like Julia Roberts,
I think just got fed up with everything, moved to
tags in Mexico and she has so much control over
(35:20):
her image. Um, well, so when when is the book
coming out? When can people go pick it up? It's
coming out at the end of September, and that's from
Plume Books, which is an imprint and Penguin, And there's
also there's a pre order right now on Amazon, So
if you really want to get in line. Um, but
I'll be I'll be writing various things in the in
(35:41):
the mid term. But I'm really excited for it. Yeah,
how would you form for listeners? How would you describe
the book? What could they expect from from this? So
it it's all new content. So there are a couple
of people featured in it who I wrote previous scandals
of classic Colly would about, so like Montgomery Clift or
(36:01):
Dorothy Dandridge, but it's much more expanded and contextualized for
those people. And then there's a ton of people that
I've never written anything about on Scandals of Class Hollywood.
And it starts with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, which
is the Hollywood's first couple who divorced both of their
(36:22):
spouses so they could be together, and how they managed
to not make that scandalous. It's just a fascinating story.
And it goes all the way through James Dean, uh
and it I think there are sixteen different stars um
that I cover in each chapter as its own star.
But you know they're the coupled with other stars who
(36:42):
were dealing with similar things. So like UM, James Dean,
Marlon Brando, and Montgomery Clift are are all of one
part because they were all dealing with how to be
these kind of emotive masculine, but new type of masculine
stars in Hollywood and men in the early fifties. Well,
speaking about creating new content for your book, something that
(37:03):
kind of blew me away and looking over your writing
is that you do you sleep like you write, so
you write so much? How do you have time to
do all this? Uh? Well, I mean the thing that
is always important to make visible is that I don't
have children. So I think that a lot of that
that how much I write is due to the fact that, like,
(37:25):
I don't have other obligations outside of, um, being a
writer and being a teacher. But I you know, what
I always say is that writing is a muscle, and
the more that you use it, the more in shape
that it is. So when I'm in good writing shape,
like I can sit down and just write like all afternoon. Um.
(37:45):
And then also I really like writing different and different
tones and for different audiences. So it's really productive for
me too, instead of just always writing my book or
always writing my blog post or always writing an academic thing,
to switch it up and and keep nimble in that way. Well, Annie,
I hope this isn't a weird compliment, But if writing
is a muscle, you totally have a six pack. That's
(38:09):
the best compliment I've ever seen. Well, in the meantime,
where can folks go to find more about you and
all of your fantastic writing and insights into celebrity gossip
and more. They can google my blog Celebrity Gossips academic style.
But also I'm on Twitter. In my handle is a
Helen so a n N e h e U e
(38:31):
N and that's basically where you can find all sorts
of things about me. So thanks again so much to
Ann Helen Peterson for taking the time to talk to us.
Also a congratulations to an Annie. She also refers to
herself because she is now heading out of academia and
(38:53):
is going to become a full time features writer for
buzz Feed, So definitely keep an eye out for her articles.
I'm sure they will be amazing, as his all of
her writing. You can follow her at and Helen That's
Anne with any and check out her work at Anne
Helen Peterson dot com. And Caroline, you're gonna you're gonna
watch some scandal? You're gonna watch scandal with me? Nope, sorry, no,
(39:17):
I just not don't do it. Not my thing. I
will have to continue watching it in guilty isolation. Don't
be guilty. Enjoy it. Yeah, I enjoy it. I do, honestly.
I tend to watch it in the background while i'm
meticulously uh stock my dishwasher. It's kind of my weekend thing.
(39:39):
So with that, we want to hear from you. What
do you think about celebrity gossip Scandal? Is anybody out
there watching scandal as well? Please help me not feel
quite so guilty, mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can email us, and we've got a couple
of emails to share with you right now. I've got
(40:02):
a note here from Christopher about our revenge porn episode
from a little while back, and he said, hey, guys,
I just wanted to send a quick note. I don't
know anyone personally who this has happened to, this being
revenge porn, but I've heard of reports of certain hackers
slash stalkers who have used software to essentially override a
user's computer camera to take discrete photos of the user
(40:24):
without their knowledge. This is actually one of the key
reasons that the MacBook and I'm at cameras won't operate
unless that green light next to it goes on. Unfortunately,
this wasn't incorporated into the iPhone or iPad. I'm not
doing a value judgment for people who choose to take
these photos to each their own. I'm just saying it's
possible to essentially have your life ruined by one of
(40:45):
these sites without even confiding in a date or a lover.
So good to be aware of that, too. Creepy, Yes,
so creepy, So very creepy. So thanks Christopher for giving
us a heads up on that. I have a areously
subject lined email here from Kathleen about our Women in
Cars episode. The subject line, by the way, is I
(41:08):
am the Caroline of my relationship, to which I say,
I know, write me too. Uh. She says, I just
listened to your men and Cars episode and was struck
by some strange similarities between Caroline and myself. Like Caroline,
I am the driver in my heterosexual relationship. My partner
prefers to navigate, which is helpful as I have no
sense of direction. I am also emphatically not the dishwasher.
(41:31):
The coincidence does not stop there, however, as I too
drove jeeps before recently switching to a smaller sedan, and
I too was recently diagnosed with hashimotos, which your podcast
definitely helped me understand, as well as explained others when
close friends were confused by the vague symptoms, I tried
to explain. I sent them the link to your podcast.
(41:52):
Just thought these coincidences were too funny not to relay
to you both. So thank you, Kathleen. I feel like
we're like you're like bizarro Elaine to me or something.
I mean, is Kathleen just your your pen name than
I'm ailing into. I wrote you this email, Kristen because
I just wanted to talk about myself somewhere alright. So
(42:14):
thank you for your letter, Kathleen and anyone else who
wants to send us letters Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send them, or if you
want to reach it out to us on social Also
check out all of our podcast blogs and viggios. There's
one place to go. It's stuff Mom Never Told You
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(42:36):
Does it How stuff Works dot com
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
steffand ever told you protection of I Heart Radio. So, Samantha,
were you ever into celebrity gossip? Was that everything? Yeah?
(00:25):
I So I'm not gonna lie. When I see a
listical by BuzzFeed about celebrities, I'm gonna I'm gonna go
look at it. Probably now. Of course, there's some that
I'm just like what, and then some that's just happening
on Twitter, and then I get caught up in it.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, So has that been like for
a long time? Yeah? I think I definitely. If I'm
(00:47):
at a place where there's magazine, so let's say I'm
waiting for the doctor, I'm going to go for the
you know, entertainment weekly. That's what I'm gonna look at
before anything else. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I was
more like I diditely Entertainment Weekly. I was more into
like teasers of like the next Harry Potter movie, and
lessened to the celebrity gossip aspect. And I only have
(01:10):
like one exception in Bryan Gossing. I went all in
and I like no facts about his life that I'm
ashamed of at this point, I actually did not like
I just love see. I know I've made this distinction before.
I usually I love the fictional character and I do
love the actor that played them, but I don't really
look them up. I don't really know much about Mark Cambill,
(01:31):
to be honest, okay, other than what time is sweets?
But didn't you love Kana Reeve just him? Was it
a character? Yeah? General too, because you and I had
the whole debate about where he was from, and you
were like, no, is this it was so adamant? And
you're right. I mean, I there's certainly like in his
(01:55):
instance and else Mark Hamill. I watched other things they
did that I probably would not have watched to this day.
I refused to watch Point Break again because it disturbed
me so badly. It could also be that I I
didn't have like ready access to the internet, and the
only magazine I subscribed to at the time was Adventure
(02:19):
Disney Adventure, So whatever was in there was my celebrity gossip.
I guess I did know a lot about Billy Joe Armsure. Yeah,
I say, did you not watch Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood?
Because I definitely watched all those No I didn't, but
I did watch. I watched late night talk shows, but
I actually usually left when the guests come on, which
(02:40):
is still true to this day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
think there's something about it that makes me nervous that
I feel weird, like I'm invading privacy. Except for hot ones. Yeah,
even then, even then I get weird about especially if
it's like a personal question. I feel awkward, like the
(03:01):
way you feel awkward watching like people get embarrassed. That's
why I'm like, oh no, I don't want to I
don't want to know this personal detail about your life.
I feel straight good to know. Yes, I think it's complex,
is what I'm saying. Fair, my history with it is complex.
(03:22):
But that being said, we wanted to bring back the
history of gossip in Hollywood and scandal in Hollywood because
of some episodes we have coming up about the women
of the nineties, which has been a huge topic of
conversation lately. Yes, so please enjoy this classic episode. Welcome
to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House top Works
(03:45):
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we have a very special
guest on the podcast, doctor and Helen Peterson. That's right.
Dr and Helen Peterson writes a whole lot of awesome
(04:06):
stuff on so many websites. Where when does she sleep? Um,
focusing on star studies, celebrity culture, and especially celebrity scandals. Yeah.
She received her PhD from the University of Texas at
Austin in the Department of Radio, Television and Film. And
I'm explaining this because you might be thinking, how does
one study celebrities? Well, this is how you do it.
(04:28):
She also wrote a dissertation called the Gossip Industry, Producing
and Distributing Star Images, Celebrity gossip and Entertainment News. And
it's fascinating to look into the history of Hollywood gossip.
It says so much about our society and about how
you know, we're we're such a tabloid society today. And
(04:51):
she is working on a book that will be published
in May by Plume Penguin called The Scandals of Classic Hollywood,
based on her column for The Hairpin by the same name.
And so we decided, but we got to talk to
Dr Peterson, Annie about scandal that's right, the show, the history,
(05:13):
the gendered aspects of course, yes, and some feminism. We
have a lot to talk about, so let's get on
with our scandalous conversation with Anne Helen Peterson. The title
of your blog is Celebrity goss of Academic Style. And
for listeners who aren't familiar with your work, can you
fill us in a little bit about how you've built
(05:34):
your career around the intersection of celebrity in academia. Yeah. So,
celebrity studies is something that you know, I have by
no means invented. It's been There's something called star studies,
which is a sub field of media film studies. UM,
that's really been around the late seventies and eighties. There's
this scholar named Richard Diard wrote this book called Stars
(05:57):
that like, when I first read it was like one
of those horm moments, really saying that you can look
at a star and read it a star's image the
way that you would read any other media text. So
think about what they're suggesting in terms of like gender
and sexuality and all sorts of things about living in
the world. Um. And the reason my blog is called
(06:19):
Celebrity Gossip Academic Style, Uh, you know, I wanted it
to be very very clear about precisely what I was doing,
which was focusing on celebrity gossip, which everyone everyone, lots
of people really enjoy, but then also um making it
clear that I would be looking at it not from
a critical angle, but from an introspective and analytical angle.
(06:44):
And so I think that the reason so many people
like my blog is because they wanted to think deeper
thoughts about this gossip that they're consuming, and I provide
kind of a roadmap about how to do that. Um. Now,
this is probably a question that you've been asked a
lot or maybe not, um, what is the academic value
(07:06):
of studying and analyzing celebrity scandal and gossip? Because I
have a feeling that you've probably encountered some people who
are like, celebrity gossip that's not worth studying. Oh yeah, well,
I think that I mean, whatever we consume, right, whether
it's television or books or magazines or comic books, like,
(07:26):
whatever media we consume is shaping us in all sorts
of ways. And I think that like most people would
agree to that that, Like, you know, this is no
but like whether it's what we call trash or if
it's high quality doesn't matter, Like, these are things that
give us pleasure so why don't we think about why
we were consuming to things that were thinking that worked
(07:46):
to um And I mean that's really a turn actually
that in in media studies, it's only happened in the
last say, like thirty years. Is instead of decrying all
of this pop culture stuff as tray ash and saying like, oh,
this is just numbing the masses, instead thinking about how
individuals take pleasure from them, but also looking at them
(08:08):
more closely and thinking about the messages that they propagate.
So like celebrity, I mean every single celebrity, I could
tell you what they're doing in terms of like how
they're suggesting a certain sexuality or gender performance, or a
way of being romantic, or a scenario that is in
some way palatable like the The thing that I always
(08:31):
get is people like when they when I say a
study celebrity, they almost always say something like, I don't
understand why so and so is the celebrity And ten
years ago that was always Paris Hilton and now it's
Kim Kardashian and what I love to do there? And
this isn't this isn't I didn't come up with this.
My friend Alice Lebert came up with this, but to say, okay,
(08:52):
so look at Kim Kardashian's family. She has like this
thundering dad. She has like she's the older sister who
who's a prize but isn't really not interesting. She has
a younger sister who is really interesting but not as
traditionally beautiful. She has a gaggle of younger siblings who
the mom is all concerned getting married off. And she
(09:14):
has a mom who is trying to salvage a once
for the best family. And that scenario to think about it, if,
I mean, it's pride and prejudice, and so to think
about why, you know, it's not that Kim Kardashian herself
is so compelling. I mean, there's all these other things
that make her interesting, but how she is acting now
as scenario that oh, that has been compelling to us
(09:36):
for you know, hundreds of years. Okay, So that's that's
a really interesting statement. I never thought about celebrity worship
or following celebrities that way. Um What I'm interested in
what appeals to you personally and how you ended up
in this field. But what appeals to you personally about
following celebrities lives? Um? So there's this uh scholars. His
(09:57):
name is Joshua Gamson, and he came up with he
did this huge study of gossip consumers and he came
up with five different ways that people consume gossip. And
there are a very front things from people who read
the magazines and believe every single thing that they read,
to people who beat them as pure camp, right, is
just total artifice. And the one though that really is
(10:20):
so compelling to me and really I identify with, is
called the game player, which is someone who looks at
gossip as a puzzle. So trying to figure out, Okay,
why did their pulicies say this? Like what are they
doing by appearing at this event? Like why after there's
rumors that Ben Affleck has been cheating on Jennifer Garner,
does paparazzi conveniently appear and take pictures of her children
(10:41):
in the park? Um? So thinking about it as this
puzzle that like every every celebrity is trying to put
together this image. So I am much more interested in
production side and thinking that through. So growing up, though,
where did you follow celebrity gossip? Where you always kind
of the trying to figure out that puzzle to at
a young age. Oh no, I was much more interested
(11:04):
in just like entertainment broadly. I lived in a really
small town in northern Idaho, so there wasn't my My
exposure to the media world was through the magazine that
came to my house, and we got Entertainment Weekly from
the very beginning, and I was like a twelve year
old child. I was devouring every single issue like I
(11:26):
would this is so embarrass student, but I would put
it together in like a database that I had on
my Apple TV and put like the different things catalog unit,
and then I would grade the issue, like if the
issue was like a B plus, and it's like I
just I read it cover to cover, even though all
(11:47):
of this industry information, like you know, this was when
Entertainment Weekly was much more industrially focused, So like there's
all this stuff on Sundance and Harvey Weinstein and sex
Lights videotape, and I knew all every thing about those movies,
but I have never seen them and I wouldn't see
them for another ten years. And so I think that
that focus on production and on kind of the game
(12:09):
plane behind the scenes really translates well into my focus
on solving data. So you're currently writing a book about
the quote scandals of classic Hollywood and UM quick plug
for any listeners who have not seen your series by
the same name on the hairpin, it is fantastic. Um.
So could you talk a little bit about these old
(12:32):
school scandals, like, how do old Hollywood scandals compare to
the sex scandals we hear about today? I mean, are
we are we still the public still being shocked by
the same type of star behavior. Well, scandal generally is
always culturally specifics. So what I mean by that is
(12:54):
that you something only become scandalous when it rushures the
status quote that time, so Ingrid Bergman in n cheated
on her husband with Roberto Russell Mini, who was her director,
was an Italian, the umber Less director. And now, you know,
if someone cheats on their husband, but it's you know,
(13:16):
it's slightly gameless. But Ingrad Bergman was denounced on the
Senate floor as an instrument of evil and essentially ended
her American career. You know, that sort of a backlash
would not happen today. So what it was is that
she was challenging what was very firmly a part of
the status quo at that time. So you know things
today like even coming out as as gay right like
(13:38):
Rock Hutson refused even after it was revealed that he
had aids to come out as homosexual. And now, I mean,
I think that there's there's a reason why Tom Cruise
like refuses or not just not suggesting that Tom CRUs gay,
I am suggesting that he has won lawsuits against people
who have suggested that he is gay by claiming that
(14:00):
heterosexuality is crucial to his image and so like, it's
not necessarily I don't want to say that it's super
super easy to be our in Hollywood today, but there's
it's not what we would think of as scandalous. So
I would say that difference is that, um, so early Hollywood,
like early twenties, before they had the stars, kind of
(14:22):
like on Lockdown, there were a series of events that
emphasized that the like things were a little bit crazier.
So um, there was a lot of drinking and drug
use and more sexual experimentation basically sex out of my
luck than what we would what the rest of America
wanted to leave of their film idels. And so the
(14:45):
m p A, which is the Association of Studios, decided Okay,
let's lock it down. And for the rest of the
twenties and thirties and forties, essentially there was just, you know,
absolutely the only thing that came out about the stars
with the thing that the studios wanted to say about
the stars. So until Robert Mitchum got caused smoking pot
(15:06):
in nineteen four seven forty eight, there wasn't a scandal.
Like it was just Hollywood was perfect. And even things
that happened like Clark Cable clearly like not living with
his wife and living right next door to Carol Lombard,
you know, there was a way that the studios collaborated
with the fan magazines and the rest of the gossip
(15:27):
apparatus to be like they're just dating and they like
they are meant for each other and kind of keep
that on the download. So, I mean, I think that
now it's harder for stars to keep their images in control,
simply because there are so many different UH outlets, both
(15:51):
sanction and unsanctioned, that are attempting to tell their story
and attemption to get to the truth of their images.
But otherwise, I mean, stars of always been wild, like
that hasn't changed. Yeah, because it sounds like I mean
a lot of the things that we would read about
in say Star magazine today, like someone cheating on someone
else or someone doing drugs at a club, Like those
(16:12):
kinds of behaviors aren't anything new. But maybe it's just
the level of exposure that we're actually now just like
seeing it and hearing about it. Yeah, and I actually
think that that does it right, that likes someone cheating
just because we see it so often. Although the thing
I mean, I would say that we still think we
still want to find out the truth of someone's sexuality,
(16:35):
like that is still at the bottom the site of
often too truth. So whether that and I'm not saying
just like heterosexuality or homosexuality, it's also like is this
person is a woman super sexual? Or like is there
any other predilections in bed? Like that is somehow really
if we can find that out, it seems like you
(16:56):
can somehow I'll understand the true identity person in right,
And that whole gender divide is something that we were
really interested in, particularly um in your dissertation where you
talk about how early Hollywood scandal in the twenties in
particular was especially damning for female stars and why do
you think why were studios so anxious about these women's
(17:17):
images and how did they try to keep their female
stars so squeaky clean. I mean, I think in the
teens and twenties, there was already this anxiety about the
new woman and the flapper and like the woman being
out of the home and just like all sorts of
disruption in terms of traditional female gender rules, and a
lot of the stars acted that out. So someone like
(17:39):
Clara Bow was on screen like she was just she's
the perfect they called her like the flapper par excellence.
But then off screen when she did similar behaviors that
somehows seems that deemed can't scandal us, so they try
to um, they really tried to suggest that this person
(18:01):
is only acting this way on screen and not that
way offscreen. So when it became clear that like Clara
but was having lots of boyfriends and like Corey, like
she loved hanging out with the USC football team and
that sort of thing, that that I've caused more societal
and anxiety. But I think throughout Hollywood women have always
(18:21):
had a harder time of trying to keep their images
simultaneously sexual on screen and non sexual off screen. Yeah,
I was gonna ask whether or not you thought that
Hollywood scanals are still even today more potentially damaging for
female stars were justs male stars. I feel like, especially
(18:41):
in terms of fidelity, like if we find out that
the whole thing with you know, the build up to
the Vanity Fair piece that never happened about Gwyneth Paltrow,
everyone wants to hear that she's cheating on Chris Martin,
and it's just like this weird like we're just like
salivating for her to do something wrong. Yeah, totally no.
(19:01):
And I think, like trying to think of another example,
So someone like Claire Danes, who was the other woman
with Billy krut Up and Mary Louise Parker, she didn't
work in Hollywood for several years after that because like
both of their names were kind of smeared. Um. Yeah,
I think that it's just like still as supposedly progressive
(19:22):
as we are now about women's sexuality, which you know,
if you've watched politics over the last five years, clearly
we're not. There. Still is this idea that a woman
should like look like they really want to have sex
on the cover g Q, but then not actually have
any sex. Well, what does it what does it say
about us and about our cultural relationship with sex that
(19:44):
we are so and we have always been so wrapped
up in celebrity sex scandals. UM. I would say, like anything,
that there is this anxiety about that their people like
freak out about shows that it's something that we as
a culture still trying to figure out how we feel
about it. And so that continual anxiety about women's sexuality
(20:04):
shows that this is still something very much um in
play and that, uh, while there are different things that
seem progressive about women's rights, we still are hung up
on the idea that a woman should, uh should at
heart beat like only one to have sex with one
(20:25):
man and that man is her husband. It's a very
like puritan ideal of female sexuality. Well, we certainly have
more questions for an Annie. Dr Peterson, so many, so
many different names by which to call you when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
(20:46):
to the show. Just not a curiosity. Um. In your research,
have you noticed whether or not this is more of
an American or Western centric kind of culture of the
obsession with a sex scandal, or is this something that
you're gonna see in tabloid culture around the world. Um,
(21:07):
I would say that it's the obsession with sexual revelations,
like that's definitely the case. There's been a huge scandal
recently in China about some Chinese stars and sexual revelations
female ones. And but in Europe, I think it works
somewhat differently. Um Like, I think that when when Ingrid
Bergman left the United States after there was huge hoopla
(21:30):
and she went and worked in Italy for the next
fifty years. And you know this, even though you're at
that time, you know, post World War Two, it wasn't
the super progressive Europe that we think of today. There's
still is just more. I think there's a larger understanding
that somehow someone's sex life is their private life, right,
(21:52):
and even the fact like if you look at France,
like yes, they're always going to cover the president's um
sexual lives and the fact that they have mr this
isn't that sort of thing. But even the fact that
they have a mistress, right, that makes it like the
fact that the president of France can have a mistress
somehow makes that would be speakable, like different arrangements speakable
(22:14):
in France. That makes sense. But I wonder though, is
that is that more progressive the fact that it's like
fine for the him to have a mistress, you know
what I mean, I would say that it's less luck shamy. Yeah,
I mean yeah, I don't think that like allowing a
man to have many sexual partners is necessarily progressive. But
(22:35):
instead of making the woman kind of fair the brunt
of these these sexual scandals, it makes uh, it makes
it more of a conversation about what like the whole
thing that makes sense? Well, speaking of scandal in politicians,
this is the perfect time to transition to, um, what
(22:56):
is honestly my TV guilty leisure that I rarely tell
anyone that I watch, Uh, And that's Scandal, And that's
a show that you write about the watches. Um, yeah,
I don't. I don't know why I'm so conflicted about
my my scandal habit, but I definitely have one. Um.
But you wrote on your blog that it's quote a
(23:17):
show that's doing some of the most interesting network work
in storytelling, female desire, post feminism, race, and the intersections
between all of the above, which first of all makes
me feel a lot better about my scandal habit. You know,
there's so many things going on on that show. Yeah,
can you talk a little bit about in the in
the fictional realm of Scandal and that show sort of
(23:39):
what you mean by all of those intersections going on? Yeah, well,
I actually think so the first season of Scandal, they
did a lot more in terms of solving like a
single scandal each episode, remember this, Yeah, Yeah, much more
episodic in terms of like, Okay, so here's a politician
(23:59):
who is gay, right, and how do we deal with
the fact that there is clear proof and like a
newspaper is that I need to reveal it? So how
does Olivia Pope and the rest of the team fix
a scandal? And that, to me, I mean that is
super super fascinating, this idea of like fixers out there
(24:20):
who you know, it's the same as George Cluney's role
in Michael Plaine, and they had tons of fixers in
classic Hollywood who, like anytime star got wasted and drove
home drunk and ran into a telephone poll, that sort
of thing would go in there and fix the situation.
And I mean that's just so much harder now because
because there's paparazzi falling starts everywhere. But that sort of
(24:44):
kind of defense, playing defense against things that could come
out and change the image of the star. I think
that that uh, showing the kind of the inners of
that production, of that that process makes people think more
about how these things were. I mean, it's fictionalized, but
at the same time, just showing that there are five
people who are who are doing all of these things
(25:06):
to make sure that the release of a piece of
information goes smoothing. And then I mean, I think that
the show, I mean, the show really got its wheels
when it started just focusing on the relationship between Olivia
and Fits. But at the same time, that's when it
lost some of the more interesting focuses, like the more
(25:26):
interesting emphasis on what was going on with fixing scandals
that didn't have anything to do with actually Olivia. Right,
I was actually sick earlier this week, so I caught
up on my scandal, so I've kind of been thinking
about it and not to you know, to give spoilers
or anything to people listening, you might not be caught up.
(25:48):
But the the intense focus on her relationship with Fits,
I feel like almost undercuts the feminism of Olivia Pope's role,
which is frustrating. Yes, because her identity really becomes subsumed
in this romance, when otherwise it's clear that she's like
(26:09):
this ball busting, take no prisoners woman, right, and who
has in the past. It's not that she's not a
sexual person, right, She's had relationships and she's had sexual
encounters with people who aren't fits, And but she just
becomes so passive and weak when it comes to his
power over her. I think, like the the identity of
(26:32):
a female showrunner and a female showrunner of color is
really I mean, I like, it's important to have people
like Shonda Rhimes working in the industry. But then also
how discussions of race, Like it wasn't really until the
end of season two that there was any invocation that
the real scandal if it came out that the president
(26:53):
was having an affair with one of his former staffers,
wouldn't be that it would be that like he was
white and she was black, Like that would amplify that
scandal so much more. And they just because the show
really trucks in kind about post race color blind world,
the fact that it took that long to be invoked
and that it hasn't really been brought up again, I
(27:13):
don't know, I don't know how progressive that is either. Unfortunately,
scandal can't be everything for us as we might want
it to be. Um, well, outside of fictionalized television. How
do you think celebrity scandal intersects with feminism, particularly sort
of in this gossip air we find ourselves in where
so many of our feminist leaning blogs do discuss scandal. Yeah. Well,
(27:38):
you know, I wrote this article for Bitch Magazine that's
called Ken's Celebrity Gossip Ever be feminist? And my thesis
is basically that if you practice academic celebrity gossip, then yes,
because if you're looking instead of looking at someone who
you think, Um, I'm trying to think of a good example.
The example I uses that when Blake light Lay started
(28:00):
dating leonarder DiCaprio, this is several years ago, I was like, uh,
I can't believe it. Like I was just really angry
at Played Lively and so instead of like you know,
slut shaming her or making funt of the fact that
she has no talent, I sat there and I thought,
for a second, Okay, why am I reacting this way
(28:21):
to her dating Leonardo DiCaprio, And I had everything to
do with how Leonardo DiCaprio resonates with me as someone
who fell in love with him and Romeo and Juliette
when I was fifteen years old, right, and how I
the sort of relationship that I want him to be
in and the sort of woman that I think deserves
him that sort of thing. Right, Obviously I don't know
(28:43):
any I mean, he has clearly betrayed me on that
over and over and over again. But just basically doing
a little bit of analysis of my relationship to his
star image, I could see why I was reacting and
get a way to it to another female. So, like,
I think the blogs that do a lot of just
(29:06):
like body snarking and that sort of thing. I mean,
it's not feminist, Like there's no way to there's no
way to talk about that um with Like, there's no
way to so what I'm looking for and to defend that.
But I do think that something like on a lot
of feminist sites, what they're talking through is basically what
I do. So what about that star is interesting? What?
(29:31):
Like why so like when Amy Poehler and Will Arnett
broke up last year, Like, why is there's such a
heartfelt reaction to that? So instead of just like I mean,
I think that oftentimes gossip has democrated this just a
bunch of women like screaming in a corner or something
like that. But I think that there's real thoughtful work
(29:53):
going on about why we love the people we love
and why we just like people we just like. Yeah,
and and that very point of gossip, celebrity gossip often
being pegged as just this frivolous woman thing as any
kind of like female fandom in a way often is
like taken down a notch, is just being like too
(30:13):
girly and who cares? Um. I appreciate the you know,
the taking the time to actually pause and look into
it and analyze it. Um. I was actually reading last
night that You're a hairpin Scandals of Old Hollywood piece
on Hetty Lamar who. Up until I read that, I
had just thought of her as this, you know, stem
(30:34):
heroine who was a really beautiful woman of old Hollywood
who then invented this thing that basically gave us WiFi
now and lo and behold, there's this tragic backstory and
it was all sort of like tied up in sexuality
and gender and how we perceive we as the public
perceive and consume women's bodies, and Um, I don't know,
(30:57):
it was like it was, it was very lightning, and
I feel like that's we could use more of that,
I think in celebrity gossip. Yeah. Well, and the other
thing is that talking about sports players is celebrity gossip.
You know, like like sports talk is celebrity gossip. It's
just masculinized. And so I really try to emphasize the
(31:19):
fact that, you know, this is not something that only
women do. It's not something that is exclusive to celebrities.
It's just a type of talk about prominent figures. Well.
Tying everything back to the book that you're working on, Um,
do you have a favorite classic Hollywood scandal? I mean,
(31:42):
I really like the Robert Mitchum scandal because it's because
it was the first scandal to kind of rupture what
had been going on, the cover ups that have been
going on in classic Hollywood. He was on This is
Again nineteen forty eight. He was half on contracts, he
had like a contract with a studio, but then also
(32:03):
kind of was his doing his own thing. And so
what that made it possible is that he at first
was like when he got caught was like, screw it,
I'm going to jail. My career is over, like very
frank about it um. And then the studio people got
to him and he was like, okay, all right, I'll
try to like basically met good. So while he was
(32:26):
in jail, he allowed photographers from like magazine to come
in and take pictures of him. So there's all these
great photos of him, like sweeping his cell in jail,
and then he gets out and here permissions like this,
like he just looks like a dastardly dude, and you know,
he's just like the eyes and scars and stuff. But
(32:48):
then he sits for these interviews with like Photoplay and
a fan magazines where he's like, I just want to
go fishing with my son's and like, my wife has
been so supportive. And it was made very clear in
the five six years afterwards that that was all how
much of a first that was. But at the time
it's just so performative what was going on with scandal.
(33:10):
But I mean, for me, I like all of them.
I think some people are like, oh, why did you
write a Scandals of Closet, Polly, what about Robert Redford?
There was no scandal there I was like, I mean sure,
every star, though, has a way that they had to
make their image into something that wasn't scandalous. So anything
like I cried a column on any star and make
(33:31):
it interesting. I mean, it's even possible, though these days,
with as much like exposure as stars get too, to
closely control their image to the degree that they might want.
I mean, is scandal avoidable unless you are like legit,
you know, just on the up and up, always doing
everything that you should I think. I mean, Angelina Jolie
(33:52):
should have had at least fifty scandals in the last
ten years, and she has so definitely played that game
that I like, I'm just in awe of her. Um,
she's like the you know, the one that I don't
have enough distance from. I'm just like, oh, we played
that so well, amazing. So everything from the way that
(34:12):
they managed the revelation of her relationship with Bram Pitt
to the adoption and then giving birth to all of
these children, and the fact that they're still not married. Um,
and then recently with basically, you know, with her double
most sectomy, she that could have been the discussion could
have been about now she's no longer a sex Salifon right,
(34:34):
like she's her breast was so fundamental to her sexuality.
But the way that she got in front of the
story and wrote this New York Times editorial, like she
made the story about her sacrifice and her trying to
be a model for other women. So definitely, And now like,
if you talk about the loss of her breasts as
(34:58):
any in any sort of denigrating tone, you're a horrible person.
And the way that she played that made that possible.
So yes, I do think that it's possible to play
the game. Also, I mean, if you don't live in
Hollywood or New York, it's super possible. Like Julia Roberts,
I think just got fed up with everything, moved to
tags in Mexico and she has so much control over
(35:20):
her image. Um, well, so when when is the book
coming out? When can people go pick it up? It's
coming out at the end of September, and that's from
Plume Books, which is an imprint and Penguin, And there's
also there's a pre order right now on Amazon, So
if you really want to get in line. Um, but
I'll be I'll be writing various things in the in
(35:41):
the mid term. But I'm really excited for it. Yeah,
how would you form for listeners? How would you describe
the book? What could they expect from from this? So
it it's all new content. So there are a couple
of people featured in it who I wrote previous scandals
of classic Colly would about, so like Montgomery Clift or
(36:01):
Dorothy Dandridge, but it's much more expanded and contextualized for
those people. And then there's a ton of people that
I've never written anything about on Scandals of Class Hollywood.
And it starts with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, which
is the Hollywood's first couple who divorced both of their
(36:22):
spouses so they could be together, and how they managed
to not make that scandalous. It's just a fascinating story.
And it goes all the way through James Dean, uh
and it I think there are sixteen different stars um
that I cover in each chapter as its own star.
But you know they're the coupled with other stars who
(36:42):
were dealing with similar things. So like UM, James Dean,
Marlon Brando, and Montgomery Clift are are all of one
part because they were all dealing with how to be
these kind of emotive masculine, but new type of masculine
stars in Hollywood and men in the early fifties. Well,
speaking about creating new content for your book, something that
(37:03):
kind of blew me away and looking over your writing
is that you do you sleep like you write, so
you write so much? How do you have time to
do all this? Uh? Well, I mean the thing that
is always important to make visible is that I don't
have children. So I think that a lot of that
that how much I write is due to the fact that, like,
(37:25):
I don't have other obligations outside of, um, being a
writer and being a teacher. But I you know, what
I always say is that writing is a muscle, and
the more that you use it, the more in shape
that it is. So when I'm in good writing shape,
like I can sit down and just write like all afternoon. Um.
(37:45):
And then also I really like writing different and different
tones and for different audiences. So it's really productive for
me too, instead of just always writing my book or
always writing my blog post or always writing an academic thing,
to switch it up and and keep nimble in that way. Well, Annie,
I hope this isn't a weird compliment, But if writing
is a muscle, you totally have a six pack. That's
(38:09):
the best compliment I've ever seen. Well, in the meantime,
where can folks go to find more about you and
all of your fantastic writing and insights into celebrity gossip
and more. They can google my blog Celebrity Gossips academic style.
But also I'm on Twitter. In my handle is a
Helen so a n N e h e U e
(38:31):
N and that's basically where you can find all sorts
of things about me. So thanks again so much to
Ann Helen Peterson for taking the time to talk to us.
Also a congratulations to an Annie. She also refers to
herself because she is now heading out of academia and
(38:53):
is going to become a full time features writer for
buzz Feed, So definitely keep an eye out for her articles.
I'm sure they will be amazing, as his all of
her writing. You can follow her at and Helen That's
Anne with any and check out her work at Anne
Helen Peterson dot com. And Caroline, you're gonna you're gonna
watch some scandal? You're gonna watch scandal with me? Nope, sorry, no,
(39:17):
I just not don't do it. Not my thing. I
will have to continue watching it in guilty isolation. Don't
be guilty. Enjoy it. Yeah, I enjoy it. I do, honestly.
I tend to watch it in the background while i'm
meticulously uh stock my dishwasher. It's kind of my weekend thing.
(39:39):
So with that, we want to hear from you. What
do you think about celebrity gossip Scandal? Is anybody out
there watching scandal as well? Please help me not feel
quite so guilty, mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can email us, and we've got a couple
of emails to share with you right now. I've got
(40:02):
a note here from Christopher about our revenge porn episode
from a little while back, and he said, hey, guys,
I just wanted to send a quick note. I don't
know anyone personally who this has happened to, this being
revenge porn, but I've heard of reports of certain hackers
slash stalkers who have used software to essentially override a
user's computer camera to take discrete photos of the user
(40:24):
without their knowledge. This is actually one of the key
reasons that the MacBook and I'm at cameras won't operate
unless that green light next to it goes on. Unfortunately,
this wasn't incorporated into the iPhone or iPad. I'm not
doing a value judgment for people who choose to take
these photos to each their own. I'm just saying it's
possible to essentially have your life ruined by one of
(40:45):
these sites without even confiding in a date or a lover.
So good to be aware of that, too. Creepy, Yes,
so creepy, So very creepy. So thanks Christopher for giving
us a heads up on that. I have a areously
subject lined email here from Kathleen about our Women in
Cars episode. The subject line, by the way, is I
(41:08):
am the Caroline of my relationship, to which I say,
I know, write me too. Uh. She says, I just
listened to your men and Cars episode and was struck
by some strange similarities between Caroline and myself. Like Caroline,
I am the driver in my heterosexual relationship. My partner
prefers to navigate, which is helpful as I have no
sense of direction. I am also emphatically not the dishwasher.
(41:31):
The coincidence does not stop there, however, as I too
drove jeeps before recently switching to a smaller sedan, and
I too was recently diagnosed with hashimotos, which your podcast
definitely helped me understand, as well as explained others when
close friends were confused by the vague symptoms, I tried
to explain. I sent them the link to your podcast.
(41:52):
Just thought these coincidences were too funny not to relay
to you both. So thank you, Kathleen. I feel like
we're like you're like bizarro Elaine to me or something.
I mean, is Kathleen just your your pen name than
I'm ailing into. I wrote you this email, Kristen because
I just wanted to talk about myself somewhere alright. So
(42:14):
thank you for your letter, Kathleen and anyone else who
wants to send us letters Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send them, or if you
want to reach it out to us on social Also
check out all of our podcast blogs and viggios. There's
one place to go. It's stuff Mom Never Told You
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(42:36):
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