Taking down the sacred: fuck-me vs. fuck-you celebrity

Abstract

I argue that we must talk about fucking in order to dissect the tangle of power, gender and sex that has upheld Hollywood-built celebrity. Celebrity has always been a machinery of desire organised around acts as well as fantasies of fucking, which processes of medial sublimation turn into the aura of the sacred. In the spirit of desublimation and desecration, I make a distinction between fuck-me and fuck-you celebrity, drawing on examples such as Caitlyn Jenner, Tess Holliday and Rose McGowan. Whereas fuck-me celebrity abides by standards of feminine beauty, fuck-you celebrity openly addresses sex and power. In the post-Weinstein era, it may be that the celebrity system, which has heavily favoured the fuck-me over the fuck-you, is beginning to shift.