Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity (Hardcover)

by Richard Schickel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Film critic and author Schickel examines the "celebrity system" that pervades popular culture and judges that it has, among other things, confused the realms of public and private life, encouraged fantasizing at the expense of reason, and trivialized and simplified complex issues. "Provocative, disturbing and often brilliant," PW commented.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
A fascinating, disturbing book. -- Library Journal

Cogent...Schickel offers white-hot jeremiad. -- Melvin Maddocks, Time

Intimate Strangers is, simply, in my estimation, the single most important book about celebrity. -- Neal Gabler --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 299 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Books (March 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385123361
• ISBN-13: 978-0385123365
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,036,414 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There Are None So Blind, June 20, 2003

By	I've Gotta "blankagenda2" (Brookshire, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity (Paperback)

I got this initially to assist in my study of celebrity life (ala movie actors and rock stars), and I discovered a much more interesting subject in the process. The effects of the media on our culture, society, morals, ethics and most importantly the voting process, and how the mass media has served not to make a better informed public but one drowning in information we can not possibly sort through before new information is again introduced. Covering the famous from Charlie Chaplin and Ronald Reagan, Schickel explores all of the reasons for the rise and fall of celebrities, and the relationship between those who have and those who believe they have not. In the end, it is simply that the false intimacy that has been created prevents real intimacy, and that in this world of 900 channels we are losing our humanity and replacing it with long distance rightness.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great celebrico-politico-culturo analysis, January 21, 2008

By	B. L. Williams (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity (Paperback)

Schickel's book is a good read. He may be long on film criticism at times, but he makes up for those irrelevant tangents into the recesses of Marlon Brando's film career by imbuing the work with clever insights into the beliefs and attitudes that shape how Americans think about living life under the gaze.

And Shickel is right about at least one thing: great reasoning isn't attended by a flash of popularity or excessive revenue--the hallmarks of modern celebrity. Only in places older than America--places where a premium has historically been placed on the life of the mind--do we encounter figures who have posthumously transcended popularity in public consciousness. Giants of contemplative rationality--Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Martin Luther, Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Newton, Darwin, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, Freud, and many others--have all attained a once-and-for-all celebrity to which no current celebrity, American or otherwise, can approximate.

If it ever occurs to you to wonder, "Why is America so dumb?", Shickel wants you to realize that the answer probably has something to do with how our culture esteems the wrong kind of people for the wrong kinds of things. In the long run, when the sun burns out and the universe shrinks back down to a pinhead, wouldn't you rather have been Einstein than Madonna??

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine Book, February 11, 2006

By	Alan Shapiro (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity (Paperback)

An incisive and clearly delineated look at celebrity, especially astute in dealing with the fading of celebrity. In a time of omni-celebrities the book becomes pertinent in being able to understand such impossible figures as one called Paris Hilton, how a woman of no talent can propell herself into the ranks of most recognizable "celebrities." Schickel's book is, also, a pleasure to read