Sometimes fans’ moral expectations have a sense of political activism or voter demands as a politician: the power of celebrity influence is ultimately provided by the public and can be undone. As Jenny Odell writes in her book, How to Do Nothing, “attention may be the last resource we have to withdraw.”
Protesting in the personal space of politicians is one thing when this person’s decisions have a direct impact on the daily lives of citizens. (This has certainly been the case lately – protests in the homes of Supreme Court justices, for example, or Senator Ted Cruz is confronted with gun control while dinner dries with his family.) the trial involves a domestic dispute. What responsibility do these figures owe to society?
All this lecturing, teasing and complaining can also be seen as the way the moral police we see on social media are carried out on the sidewalk. As illustrated by the “gold digger” moment, personal revelations of celebrity behavior can have all the fury of a fiery war on Twitter. The normalization of these reactions of the fans reveals the increasingly tense intersection between the online and the real, where the actions of prominent people become parables of weak moral codes.
It is also worth noting that we are in an era where fans are exerting unprecedented influence on our popular cultural stories – returning canceled TV shows and even shifting storylines based on fan theories. This year alone, the Oscars have created a new award for fans’ favorite films, which has infuriated some traditionalists. You can see how an audience accustomed to being able to resurrect a favorite character or inspire a spin show for a minor superhero can also expect to be able to criticize celebrities for what they do in their personal lives.
“People don’t just want to watch anymore,” Dr. Turkle said. “They want to act.”
What is the effect of all this on the celebrities themselves? While it can be difficult to gain sympathy for those who have a lot of money and power, the stakes are real, and the injury can be. Ms. Hurd spoke in court about the trauma of the harsh public attention she received: “I am harassed, humiliated, threatened every day,” Ms. Hurd told the court during the trial. “People want to kill me and they tell me every day. People want to put my baby in the microwave and they tell me that.
Just as the celebrity enjoys the attention of her audience, she is also captivated by it. In her memoir My Body, model and actor Emily Ratajkowski observes this complex dynamic of power. “In the early twenties, it never occurred to me that women who gain their strength from beauty are indebted to the men whose desire has given them that strength in the first place,” she wrote. “These men were the ones in control, not the women the world was making fun of.
Being the object of intense fan charm can be difficult for both male and female celebrities, of course, but the dynamics shown in the Hurd-Depp process seem to reflect the dynamics of gender. Mr Depp was able to mobilize his fans and the so-called ‘camps’ to his advantage, and many seemed to be enjoying Mrs Hurd’s humiliation.