First Comes Love: Power Couples, Celebrity Kinship and Cultural Politics
New celebrity studies book now available from Bloomsbury Academic (discount code below):
First Comes Love: Power Couples, Celebrity Kinship and Cultural Politics, eds. Shelley Cobb (Southampton) and Neil Ewen (Winchester)
With the prominence of one-name couples (Brangelina, Kimye) and famous families (the Smiths, the Beckhams), it is becoming increasingly clear that celebrity is no longer an individual pursuit-if it ever was. Accordingly, First Comes Love explores celebrity kinship and the phenomenon of the power couple: those relationships where two stars come together and where their individual identities as celebrities become inseparable from their status as a famous twosome.
Taken together, the chapters in this volume interrogate the ways these alliances are bound up in wider cultural debates about marriage, love, intimacy, family, parenthood, sexuality, and gender, in their particular historical contexts, from the 1920s to the present day. Interdisciplinary in scope, First Comes Love seeks to establish how celebrity relationships play particular roles in dramatizing, disrupting, and reconciling often contradictory ideas about coupledom and kinship formations.
The hardback and paperback versions are on sale with 10% off on the Bloomsbury Academic UK site: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
At checkout enter GLR DB7 for an additional 20% off!
Table of Contents:
Introduction Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
I. Golden Couples
Introduction – Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
‘Gilbo-Garbage’ or ‘The Champion Lovemakers of Two Nations’: Uncoupling Greta Garbo and John Gilbert – Michael Williams, University of Southampton, UK
‘The Most Envied Couple in America in 1921’: Making the Social Register in the Scrapbooks of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald – Sarah Churchwell, University of East Anglia, UK
‘Good Fellowship’: Carole Lombard and Clark Gable – Michael Hammond, University of Southampton, UK
II. Kinships
Introduction – Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
Filial Coupling, the Incest Narrative, and the O’Neals – Maria Pramaggiore, Maynooth University,Ireland
A Star is Born?: Rishi Kapoor and Dynastic Charisma in Hindi Cinema – Rachel Dwyer, SOAS, University of London, UK
Eddie Murphy’s Baby Mama Drama and Smith Family Values: The (Post-) Racial Familial Politics of Hollywood Celebrity Couples – Hannah Hamad, King’s College London, UK
Momager of the Brides: Kris Jenner’s Management of Kardashian Romance – Alice Leppert, Ursinus College, USA
III. Marriage
Introduction – Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
Diana’s Rings: Fetishizing The Royal Couple – Margaret Schwartz, Fordham University, USA
Behind Every Great Woman…?: Celebrity, Political Leadership, and the Privileging of Marriage – Anthea Taylor, University of Queensland, Australia
It’s the Thought That Counts: North Korea’s Glocalization of the Celebrity Couple and the Mediated Politics of Reform – David Zeglen, George Mason University, USA
Ellen and Portia’s Wedding: The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage and Celesbianism – Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK
Audrey Hollander and Otto Bauer: The Perfect (Pornographic) Marriage? – Beccy Collings, University of East Anglia, UK
IV. Love
Introduction – Shelley Cobb, University of Southampton, UK, and Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
The Return of Liz and Dick – Suzanne Leonard, Simmons College, USA
‘Brad & Angelina: And Now . . . Brangelina!’: A Sociocultural Analysis of Blended Celebrity Couple Names – Vanessa Diaz, University of Michigan, USA
Jane Fonda, Power Nuptials, and the Project of Aging – Linda Ruth Williams, University of Southampton, UK
The Making, Unmaking and Re-Making of ‘Robsten’ – Diane Negra, University College Dublin
The Good, the Bad, and the Broken: Forms and Functions of Neoliberal Celebrity Relationships – Neil Ewen, University of Winchester, UK
REVIEWS
“First Comes Love is one of the very finest edited collections that I have had the pleasure of reading. Its examination of celebrity couples is complex, diverse, provocative and challenging. Whether this be an examination of golden couple Brangelina, or the undressing of the gilded garments of Garbo and Gilbert, the book traverses the way celebrity couples are engaged with historically, textually, and globally. Each chapter is a critical delight, the footprints immaculately chosen, and the arguments and illustrations intricate and delicate in equal measure. Beautiful.” – Sean Redmond, Associate Professor of Media and Communication, Deakin University, Australia.
“From Lombard and Gable to Brangelina and the Kardashian clan, power couples and famous families have occupied public attention while until now mostly evading analytical scrutiny. In First Comes Love, Shelley Cobb and Neil Ewen-or, as they may soon be known, Sheneil-bring together a sharp, lively crew of scholars, whose smart takes on celebrity couples and kin, and on topics ranging from racial politics and same-sex marriage to aging and neoliberalism, open new pathways in celebrity studies.” – Joshua Gamson, Professor of Sociology, University of San Francisco, USA, and author of Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America