Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style
Anne Helen Petersen is my newest smart girl crush. Her personal website, Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style covers all of your most guilty celebrity gossip topics, but does so in the most intelligent, witty, historically-grounded, academically-sourced way.
Anne and I actually attended grad school at the same time at the University of Oregon, a fact that I didn’t know until reading her bio recently. She then went on to get her PHD from the University of Texas – Austin in media studies. Her dissertation was titled, “The Gossip Industry: Producing and Distributing Star Images, Celebrity Gossip, and Entertainment News, 1910 – 2010.” Awesome.
Anne’s own website is wonderful, but I originally found her via her “Scandals of Classic Hollywood” posts on The Hairpin. Her most recent post is about Rita Hayworth, but I also suggest reading her posts on Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner. All of the “Scandals” posts are interesting and extremely enlightening. Anne backs her star bios with the details she discovers by researching old gossip magazines and newspaper articles. I love that she pushes past the nostalgia of Old Hollywood and shows that the stars of the past were just as flawed and human as our celebrities are today. It is a good dose of reality and extremely fascinating. Definitely a more intellectual spin our culture’s obsession with celebrity gossip!
For more smart celebrity insight, follow Anne on Twitter and check out Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style Facebook page.
