Meet our baby: celebrities’ children and childhood between comfort, refuge, and futurity

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate representations of celebrities’ children and childhood in the context of the US during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how discourses around the famous offspring serve social and cultural functions within the celebrity context and beyond. The increased exposure of children in celebrities’ homes has created kinship ties through a strengthening of parasocial relationships through the performance and illusion of intimacy. Furthermore, this paper aims at understanding the larger implications of discourses around celebrities’ children in the US context. By employing Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of retrotopia, it will be argued that representations of celebrities’ children can be seen as idealised versions of the present which harken back to an imagined, romanticised past. This will be read in light of a current moment that is marked by precarious living conditions and national crises, the COVID-19 pandemic only being the most current one. Moreover, Lauren Berlant’s idea of national sentimentality will be used to show that these representations can also be seen as visions of futurity. It will be demonstrated how narratively and visually embedded illusions of intimacy create a glorified image of childhood and construct childhood and family as a place of comfort, refuge, and thereby futurity.