What with twittering and video sharing and the paparazzi culture symbolized by massive telephoto lenses, fame and celebrity have turned into something altogether different than what it was two decades ago.
It’s becoming harder each day to believe in the magic and sparkle of being a celebrity. The boundaries between the public personae and the private lives have intertwined. It’s more and more difficult to distinguish what truly makes a person famous – what makes that person admired, or in most cases, frowned upon.
The burdens of being a celebrity are doubled when you are a woman, exemplified recently through two distinctively British women.
Singer-songwriter and all-around tabloid favorite Amy Winehouse’s shocking and untimely death was the pop culture news that rocked the media last week. With only two albums to her credit in the last decade, Winehouse was a one-woman force in British music, single-handedly opening the way for contemporary female soul musicians.
