Toxic
About This Book
The early 2000s form the backdrop: Perez Hilton held sway over celebrity gossip, sex tapes circulated, and rival tabloids competed with photographers desperate for a picture. Online spaces were largely ungoverned, and mocking women for their sexuality or weight, or sharing intimate images without consent, passed for ordinary entertainment. Fame was treated as something to be bought and consumed, and famous women drew the most attention when they were falling apart. Sarah Ditum examines nine women who came to embody the cruelty of that period. Drawn from pop music, film and television acting, reality programming and professional wrestling, they include names many readers will recognize and others who have faded from memory. Rather than casting them as blameless casualties or as calculating manipulators, the book looks at people trying to live under relentless scrutiny from a media that kept changing. It asks how each woman tried to shape her own story, and with what results, which were more often disappointing than not. Ditum also argues that these experiences foreshadowed the constant public observation most people now face, particularly through social media, and that the way these women were portrayed still influences how women in general are judged. The book revisits an era that offered no route back to acceptance for fallen stars, and follows the aftermath of a decade spent condemning public figures. Its threads reach the arrival of YouTube, the growth of online pornography, and Donald Trump's rise as a political force. The book invites readers to consider how that period shaped their own views of their bodies, relationships, ambitions and place in the world. Ditum's position is that everyone who lived through that decade was formed by it.
ISBN: 9780349727158
You might also like
Unlock Exclusive Content
Experience the hidden layers of 'Toxic'. Scan the book cover with the Appilog mobile app to see behind-the-scenes videos, author reviews, and interactive digital stories.
Available on iOS & Android
