Book Report
The plot of Secrets of my Hollywood Life by Jen Calonita is intriguing because it shows the reader the inside world of the Hollywood life. It makes us understand what we do not see on screen and how the lives of famous people are not always as glamorous as we thought. This novel is based Kaitlin Burke, a seventeen-year-old Hollywood superstar who has been on the same soap opera, Family Affair for the past twelve years of her life. She never has time to rest with constant interviews, other acting roles, and trips. The constant drama with a long lasting feud with her co-star Sky, a strict publicist and a mom who is more concerned about her fame than her daughters’, her life isn’t always so easy. Exhausted from all the fame, Kaitlin realizes that there is more to life than just being a famous actor, so she comes up with a plan to take a break from her Hollywood life, even if it could mean career suicide. She changes her name to Rachel Rogers and attends the same high school with her best friend Liz. She adjusts herself to a normal teenage life and ends up meeting a boy Austin who she ends up falling in love with. Just as her fantasy life as a normal teenager is starting to settle she’s faced with problems as rumors start to hit the tabloids and Kaitlin is forced to make a decision, either stay with her true friends and live a normal life or peruse her acting career in Hollywood.
Kaitlin Burke has been in the movie business since she’s been little and not only does she have great acting skills, but is also known for her beauty, which is why her career is lasting. With her natural, wavy honey colored hair that ends at her mid-back, her bright green eyes and her petite figure, she often makes it on the “Most Beautiful List...
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...sn’t happy living this famous life and that’d she be happier out of spotlight and living in as she would say the “real world” where she was free to be who she really is. By being a regular teenager, she knew that she would be able to make friends and feel comfortable with whom she was. She would find real friends who would actually care for her and people who she could really trust. Staying true to who you are should means living your life trying to please yourself and by becoming Rachel Rogers she was able to live effortlessly because there was no effort put trying to be someone she was not. She was able to finally be proud of who she was remember what a natural smile felt like. If she wasn’t able to stay true to herself she would of continued on living a miserable life and regretting the fact that there was a better one waiting for her outside the Hollywood world.
After reading this passage from Howard Zinn, I can agree with his beliefs to a certain extent. When he starts off saying that we shouldn’t give up but keep playing to create possibilities of changing the world, I could relate as I am a person who doesn’t like to give up on any task but to keep trying until I know I there’s nothing more I can do. Howard’s statement about this was, “I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate: life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.” (Zinn pg. 784). Another note to add is how much I enjoy Howard saying “life is a gamble”, because it is. We all make decisions every day that determine certain outcomes that we would like to benefit from, whether good or bad. If we don’t feel beneficial from these decisions, we sure do learn from them and that puts us in a better situation than to just give up. After, Howard goes on to talk about how Hollywood doesn’t show society certain stories or perspectives on events that occurred in our U.S. history. One example of an historic
Silver believes that Rachel will grow up just like any other child, but she will be “special.” Until the day that reproductive cloning is accepted in society, Rachel will be known for being “special.” Genetically, Jennifer isn’t Rachel’s mother. Jennifer is, in fact, Rachel’s twin sister. Rachel’s grandparents not only have the title of grandparents, but of Rachel’s genetic parents as well.
Among the many reasons Jennifer Lawrence is such a unique actress is the fact that she remains true to herself. Unlike so many actors, she doesn’t let Hollywood change her. She lets hate roll off her back, she’s completely honest in her interviews as though she’s having a casual conversation with a friend, and she’s comfortable with who she is. These are three things that many teens struggle with, ignoring the hate, being honest, and feeling comfortable in their own skin.
The pressure of trying to look like celebrities can cause someone to do drastic, unnecessary things to themselves just to please the social critics. In the story, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” the main character, Philadelphia Burke, was what society considered ugly. After a failed suicide attempt she becomes a candidate to become a celebrity. Philadelphia wanted to finally be what society thought as perfect. To become a celebrity Philadelphia must go through several modifications and electronic implants. Nobody really want to have these things done to them bu...
This anonymous girl is a normal fifteen year old teenager who just wants to be popular and fit in. In this book, she goes through many different so-called friends, or people who she thinks she likes. Many of her friends at first, were just plain ordinary kind of dorky kids and she wanted something new. She discovered a new crowd who she thought she could be popular with, but they only lead her to make the wrong decisions and to ditch the good friends that she had before. They brought her into the seductive world of drugs. She kept all of her secrets in her diary and she never thought to tell anyone. Not only did she hide it from her good friends, but also she hid it from her parents, who...
The United States of America has one of the oldest and largest (in terms of revenue) film industries. Hollywood is the main location of the United States film industry. However, four of the six largest film studios in the U.S. are owned by the companies that are located on the East Coast. Only The Walt Disney Company - which owns six other film-making companies (Walt Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm Limited, the Pixar Animation Studios, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Marvel Studios) is located and fully based in Hollywood, California. Sony Pictures Entertainment also has headquarters in Culver City, California, although its parent company, the Sony Corporation, has main headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.
The star text of a celebrity can help to decipher their image and transitions they may undergo. In order to better understand these transitions, one must know the definition of a star text. A star text is the sum of everything we affiliate with celebrities, which includes their body of work, promotion, publicity, and audience participation (Jackson, 08/09/16). One must note that “celebrity doesn 't happen because someone has extraordinary qualities – it is discursively constructed by the way in which the person is publicised and meanings about them circulate” (O 'Shaughnessy and Stadler 424). Destiny Hope Cyrus, “an American singer and actress, became a sensation in the television series
“Trying to merge into mainstream society and cover her brown skin with makeup, of having no sense that she had her right to her own opinion”(Shierly) The journey to finding yourself is approached in many different aspects, which varies from person to person. As a child children we see a blurred image of ourselves not knowing exactly who we are, however as we grow older the blur becomes more apparent to us and eventually a reflection of who we truly are, is revealed. This is evidentially shown in the novel Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson, where Lisamarie discovers her new identity as an empowered and strong woman through the positive motivation from her family, role models to whom she looks up to and her acceptance to her own culture.
L.A. Confidential is a movie of cops that are more corrupt than the criminals they arrest. Throughout the movie Bud White is portrayed to have a personal hatred for women abusers despite becoming enraged and hitting Lynn Bracken. At the beginning of the movie, Bud and two other officers are seen sitting in a car, observing a man beating his wife. Officer White gets out of the car, approaches the house, and then pulls the family’s Christmas decorations from the roof. When the man comes outside to see what is making all the noise is about, Bud White immediately begins to beat him. Afterwards, Bud handcuffs the man to a rail.
Society always wants to keep an eye on their favorite celebrities’ life. It is fundamental. Every little detail the public wants to follow like what and where they are eating, whom they will marry, or what they are doing all day –such a vicious cycle.
Stints as a child model and commercial actress brought Lohan into the spotlight at the age of three. As she transitioned from childhood to adulthood, it was becoming much more difficult to make such an appearance in the media that she had as a child. “The mass-media sets the public agenda; they are the ones who, as a result of their social event selection and focusing system, assign the priority of the discussion topics on the agenda” (Pachef, 2010). Thus, everything she had done in her personal life the media had documented, making sure the public masses were aware of Lohan. From her drug abuse to her nightlife stories, the media had it. When she even knew she had enough, the media couldn’t let go because they had absorbed so much popularity and power from the public masses from all the stories behind Lohan. Instead of focusing on her recovery, she wanted to feed the media through her actions because it was her only choice to steal the spotlight. The media as well had distorted the image of Lohan on and off the screen, whether it was shooting a new film to having lunch with her parents, by making her look like this “Scarlet A” individual whom society dislikes. The mass media establishes the topics that are worth being acknowledged, and the public is interested in the topics that circulate in the mass media.
The Golden age of Hollywood marked a time in American films history in which films were produced and distributed at rate never seen before or since. During this period, the film market in America was basically entirely run by 8 major companies. This period would also be known as the American studio years. Within these 8 companies there were two categories of power that each major studio system fell into. The big 5 consisted of studios that functioned as vertical integrated which meant that they produce film, distribute films, and they own theater chains. The 5 studios in this category were Paramount, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, and RKO. Then we have the big little 3, which was composed of Columbia, Universal, and United Artist. They were called the big little 3 because these companies either distributed or made films but they did not on movie theaters, so they had a lot less power. The studio era was not only largely controlled big studio companies, but also by various amounts of expectations and assumptions about hoe movies should be made, what kinds of stars should be on different kinds of films, and a need to acknowledge the ordinary conventions of society
Hollywood is known to be the home of many celebrities, ranging from musicians, actors to models. The celebrity life is something everyone wishes to live. Driving big cars, living in mansions and having attendants to attend to various needs all seem to be something to make life easy and comfortable. Despite all the love that is shown to the celebrities, the celebrities live a life of intense scrutiny. The common people, who are their fans, keep track of every single detail of their life. Each short coming is noticed and put on the limelight with the help of the media who are the main information givers on every move celebrities make. “The paparazzi, in turn, have become watch dogs who never let them out of our sight, staking out their gyms,
Cassidy, Sarah. "Teenagers Beguiled by False Dreams of Instant Fame on Reality TV." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 13 Jan. 2006. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.
It seems as if sppome people just can’t get enough of the exploratory tabloids of their favorite celebrities, some people still take an interest in celebrities that aren't even around anymore . Throughout Americas Hollywood History the views of women actresses has changed drastically, two very good examples are Elizabeth Taylor and Lindsay Lohan.The contrast between these two women show a difference in class,culture and time. By researching actresses Elizabeth Taylor and Lindsay Lohan one would discover the tragic and destructive toll Hollywood glamor that would eventually come to overrun their lives.