Celebrity and (Bad) Taste

Round table discussion and Q&A, 19th September 2019

Pompeu Fabra University. Poblenou Campus, 138 Carrer de Roc Boronat, 08018 Barcelona

Celebrity culture is a space where ideas about what is and is not acceptable get circulated, tested and reproduced. Good taste can be an social code, determining who is 'in', who 'gets it', who knows the rules. Bad taste can be a source of humiliation and shadenfreude, but can also be extremely fun in its pleasures of excess and rebellion. As celebrities are either applauded or shamed, they serve as an instructional example for audiences in terms of what society deems worthy in terms of behaviour, aesthetics, consumption and so forth. In this policing and flouting of rules we see the politics of taste. Of course, ideas of good and bad taste are often classed and gendered. In our 7th Celebrity Culture Club our panel of academics and creative industry professionals discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of bad taste celebrity.

Speakers include:

• Dr Mercè Oliva, Lecturer in Communication at Pompeu Fabra University, researches representations and stereotypes of gender and class in Spanish media and the connections between popular media culture and neoliberal values. She sits on the Editorial Board for Celebrity Studies Journal.
• Simon Foxall is a Fine Artist whose work explores ideas of celebrity and camp. He trained at the Royal College of Art, held a residency at the prestigious FAAP arts institute in SaoPaulo, Brazil, and has taught both fine art and art history at Slade School of Fine Art, Central St Martins, University of Brighton, Teeside University, Hollins University and Oxford Brookes University.
• Joe Speck is a Marketing Strategist with expertise in the ways certain media content communicates with audiences. He runs Brand New Beat, putting on club nights, music projects and events. Before moving into marketing he worked as a policy advisor to MP Tessa Jowell, working on the run up to the 2012 Olympics in London.
• Chair: Dr Hannah Yelin, Senior Lecturer in Media and Culture, Oxford Brookes University.