The line between celebrities and their fans is blurring with reality TV, fame through social media, and show business personalities branching out into lifestyle brands. The term “parasocial” describes the way fans feel invited into the lives of people who in other generations would have been appealing in part because they were unapproachable.
In four days this week I saw three documentaries about some of the most documented lives of the 1960s-90s, both as performers and, often less flatteringly, as celebrities: Brooke Shields, Michael J. Fox, and John Lennon. As we begin to look back on the lives of the influential and interesting of the mid-to-late 20th century, documentarians have vastly more images to draw from and we can only imagine what we will see when we start telling the stories of people in the post-social media era.
While the Michael J. Fox film, “Still,” is the most innovative, all three films use images and archival clips to underscore, illuminate, complement, and comment on the real-life story. Here they recontextualize as well. No one who sees this film will ever be able to—or even want to—watch the Malle drama that this film addresses by reclaiming its title. The same goes for “The Blue Lagoon” and “Endless Love,” two other highly sexualized roles. The clips of Brooke as herself, or at least the self she presented to the world on talk shows, are also hard to watch because the questions are so often insensitive or downright offensive.
Shields is frank about her most difficult challenges. After she took time off for college, she had a hard time re-introducing herself as an adult to the industry. “Is that ‘Brooke’ with an ‘e?’” she recalls being asked after once being on hundreds of magazine covers and ads. She would not give up. We see the silly commercials she did to earn a living, the Japanese ones particularly fun to watch. With courage and determination, she took on some of the most demanding roles in show business, singing and dancing on Broadway. No retakes or photoshop to fix any mistakes.