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Power in Literature

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Web Literacy

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Fame and Power

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Welcome to Power in Literature, Web Literacy.

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This is Shmoop's excuse -- Or, uh, effort

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at answering some core elements of the Common Core.

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And we're doing it in a hopefully

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not ungodly staring-at-paint-drying boring way

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in that we're gonna use Hollywood gossip, celebrities,

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hot button areas of the web,

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to help you understand how to do research,

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how to understand what quality information is,

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and, generally speaking, how all elements fluffy and green

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work in the web when you're perusing Hollywood.

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So we're here with Deb from Shmoop

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to help us navigate these difficult waters.

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And after this course is done,

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you'll kind of have a sense for high quality research, we hope.

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[ dog barks ]

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What gives fame its strange power over us?

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You know, we're obsessed with fame.

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This is why we watch TV, why we watch movies,

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why we subscribe to People magazine.

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There's a bunch of different reasons.

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And everyone might have their own reason

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for why they're obsessed with a celebrity

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or kind of obsessed with this idea of fame.

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One thing is just that

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people have always been obsessed with fame.

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It used to be royalty.

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People would be obsessed with the royals.

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And now celebrities in America are the royals.

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You know, Brad and Angelina are essentially king and queen

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of the United States.

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So it kind of just continues this long tradition of always

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looking at royalty as someone above you

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and, you know, you're kind of awe-struck by them.

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But that's kind of giving humanity a lot of credit.

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Most of why I think that we are obsessed with fame

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is because it's this kind of schadenfreude, right?

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Meaning that you see someone in a worse position than you're in,

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and you feel better about yourself.

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Now you'd think, "Wait.

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Celebrities aren't in a worse position than you are."

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But that's exactly what they are.

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They have everything.

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They have fame, they have money.

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They have an awesome lifestyle

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and they're still miserable.

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So when we're reading about famous people,

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it's usually like, "Oh, someone got a DUI."

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Or they got divorced or they're in a custody battle.

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Or whatever the case is.

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So we're looking at them and being like,

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"Oh, okay, well I might not be famous,

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but at least my life's not that crappy."

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Or is another angle that

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gosh, they were these lofty, vaunted personalities,

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but who are human.

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Because they actually get DUIs and divorces

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- and drug addictions. - Absolutely.

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Absolutely. It kind of, you know, puts things in perspective for us.

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When you're watching someone on TV or in a movie,

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you know, they're like this fake non-person.

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But then, when you obsess about their --

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about them as people, their real humanity comes out

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and you see them like, "Yeah. They have issues, too."

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And then, you know, it's a matter of escapism.

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We don't have to deal with our own problems

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because we can watch other people's.

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And then the kind of last thing to remember

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is that celebrities give us a common cultural thread.

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If you're talking to a stranger,

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there are only so many things you can talk about, right?

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You're like, "Hey, how about the Yankees?".

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Or like, "See the game last night?

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It's been pretty rainy."

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Eventually you get to, you know,

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"Oh, did you hear so-and-so's adopted kid...

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You know, custody..." This, that, and the other.

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So it's kind of like a shared cultural capital

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where we can all talk about it.

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You and I can gossip about stuff

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that we know personally,

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but if I'm talking to someone I don't know,

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then celebrity stuff is my gossip.

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- It's easy. It's the weather. - Yep. It's the weather.

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What would you do if you were famous?

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If you want to be famous, I guess my advice is

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think about why you wanna be famous.

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That is a good question to ask yourself.

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If the answer is because you wanna live

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the celebrity lifestyle, don't do it.

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If the answer is you wanna do good for the world,

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then that's great.

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Figure out what you're gonna do and how you're gonna do it.

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I would probably be a terrible famous person.

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I would probably

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take whatever money I had,

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give some of it away,

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and have someone else figure out what to do with it.

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I feel like there's a lot of

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pressure involved with being famous

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that you don't think about when you're like,

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"Oh, I wanna be famous."

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You don't think about like,

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"Oh, well every time there's a natural disaster,

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everyone in the country is waiting for me

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to go donate half of my income to them.

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Or to fly to Africa

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and carry a child with Ebola."

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Or whatever the case is.

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That is a lot of pressure.

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If you don't do it,

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you're called a bad person,

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you're ridiculed.

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You're called whatever it is people say about you.

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If you do it once,

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then you're expected to do it every time.

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So I think there is a lot of pressure

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associated with fame.

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And I don't think I'm cut out for it.

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So I plead the fifth.

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Fair enough. Well, you guys should

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think about yourselves and that should be an assignment.

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[ pen writing ]

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Why are we attracted to celebrities?

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If we really are.

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Have we always had such a fascination with celebrities?

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What would you do with your power if you were famous?

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Ooh. Good mix.

Full Transcript