‘She really gets my blood boiling': moral judgements, dislike and celebrities

Abstract

Despite ample evidence that morality is a significant component of audiences’ feelings about and responses to celebrities, its explicit impact has been investigated infrequently in explorations of audiences’ negative reactions to media figures. Understanding media audiences’ moral responses is important in our contemporary culture in which ‘cancelling’ is a frequent response to public figures’ transgressions. We argue that audiences’ feelings of dislike are an ideal site for exploring moral orientations to media figures because dislike often surfaces moral judgements. The 43 interviews we conducted demonstrate that audiences use moral intuition and reasoning to form opinions about media figures whom they dislike. We discuss the major themes that developed from the interview data, including participants’ moral intuitions and reactions, the moral domains of participants’ dislike and possibilities for transforming participants moral judgements.