The Geography Of Fame

I can think of at least three reasons at the moment why the geography of fame important.

First, friend and fellow DMTC Stage Manager Julia Thompson has been invited to walk the red carpet at the Oscars. Yay! As she states on Facebook:

For those of you who have been waiting on pins and needles with me...THE DRESS IS HERE! I have held it in my hands! I have tried it on and it is more than I could have imagined!

Second, Facebook friend and dance singer Kelsey B is heading to Miami next month for the Winter Music Conference. Yay! As she states on Facebook:

coming to Miami soon to perform for y'all!!

Plus, yesterday, I learned on KFBK radio that Jessica Chastain, who has received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for "The Help", attended El Camino High School in Sacramento. A hometown girl in the running!

So, what is it that's important regarding the geography of fame? The art of getting photographed:

The Oscars are a key part of the secret economy of celebrity. A glance at the glossies at the grocery check-out aisle makes it clear that how and where a celebrity gets photographed can catapult — or sink — a career.

...Say you’re a film actor struggling to be taken seriously or trying to recreate your image. The tragic Lohan, the waning Hilton or the precipitously hanging on Kardashian come to mind. For celebrities who don’t have a lot of talent, the key to stardom is getting your picture taken many times over.

...But frequency is only part of the story. Where one gets photographed is also reflective of one’s stardom. We find that 80 percent of all photos are taken in just three cities that comprise the backbone of the celebrity circuit: Los Angeles, New York and London.

...For those whose stardom relies on non-stop media attention, the most valuable places to be photographed are Los Angeles and Florida broadly drawn. Gold standard stars such as Oscar winners and nominees Jolie, Nicholson, George Clooney and Brad Pitt literally live in a different world. The geography of stardom for talented stars extends to Tokyo, Paris, Cannes and Madrid, where they show up for movie premiers, film festivals and gala events. With very little effort and not too much travel, they are guaranteed to draw crowds of fans, which is why cities far from Hollywood bother to host major events around them.

So what does all this camera flashing tell us about the Oscars? Ironically, despite the fact that the Oscars are a celebration of the best and brightest in Hollywood, our research suggests that for talent-driven stars there is little career need to show up at all. Those A-listers not nominated won’t gain or lose anything from walking the red carpet, other than perhaps ending up on a best-dressed or worse-dressed list, while those in the running for an award might as well have it couriered and avoid the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. After all, once a star ends up being nominated or winning an Oscar, they are catapulted to the top echelons of Hollywood elite, which means they should be spending less time in Los Angeles and more time at events around the globe (or signing on to the next Harvey Weinstein production).

For media-driven stars, it’s another story all together. Statistically speaking, Los Angeles is the most valuable place in the world to uphold their celebrity status and the Oscars is the zenith of this ritual. In the days and weeks after the ceremony, pages and pages of glossy tabloids are devoted to an event that may ostensibly be about talent but is, for the rest of the world, primarily about celebrity.

...To us folks eating pizza and watching on our flat screens, Oscar night seems like a grand, cohesive affair, with the industry’s most talented actors receiving praise from their peers for their work and contributions to film as art. But adulation is one thing, the business of celebrity is another. For the vast majority of those in attendance, showing up and being photographed is all that counts.