Commodities up the ying-yang!

I thought that Benjamin’s idea of producing the “cult of the movie star” as a response to the shrivelling of the aura in cinema very interesting. He discusses how the screen actor’s aura is lost in translation, from himself to the audience, due to the use of a camera. Since the actor’s aura cannot be replicated, due to it being tied directly to presence in time, the actors “personality” is built up outside of the studio. Benjamin goes on to say that this is not actually replacing the aura of the actor but rather creating a fake commoditization of the actor. I think that this very representative of Hollywood today. We all gossip about the latest news surrounding our favourite celebrities and the ones we love to hate. We want to know and learn about these peoples personal lives and this marketing campaign does, at times, work to sell movies. The adage that no press is bad press can defiantly hold true in many situations; it always seems that when celebrity is set to release a new movie, personal news about them just happens to be leaked out to the public to create a “buzz”.
This commoditization of the actor can also be seen through advertisements and commercials. Mimi White discusses this in her article with the example of an actor who plays a doctor on television appearing in a commercial as himself to sell cough syrup. Another example would be the L’Oreal hair dye commercials which always use celebrities to sell the product (even though the celebrities themselves would not be using the 10 dollar hair dye). However, we are able to recognize and identify with the “spectacle” of the celebrity on the television commercial or advertisement and thus a personal spin is put on the product itself. Debord’s theory of the “spectacle” as the complete commodification of the image sphere is an interesting concept which can been seen throughout our culture today. As Mimi White discusses we, as viewers, are commodities for networks to sell to advertising companies, and celebrity personalities are produced to sell products therefore, producing a whole mass of commodities to be bought and sold.