Lately, we’ve been exploring identity and what really interested me was the concept between the talked-of self and the unexpressed self. One of the assignments I had to do was to explore the identity of famous people and the two celebrities that came to mind for me was Britney Spears and Billie Eilish.
When it comes to Britney Spears, we see one way that media impacts identity. She is very famous, and her life seemed so perfect and unattainable until we realized the truth- she was forced into a lot of what she did. This perfectly illustrates that tension between the talked-of self and the unexpressed self. This might be an extreme case, but Britney’s unexpressed self was also oppressed instead of just hidden away. She was at the mercy of the media and her audience.
But then we see Billie Eilish. She started out really young in the industry, so her whole life has been shaped around fame and media. She kind of tried to resist that having that tension between her talked-of self and unexpressed self with the way she dressed. She tried to make it harder for the media to talk crap about her and her body. She tried to preserve her unexpressed self for as long as she could.
These two celebrities highlight the difference between oppression of the unexpressed self and a purposeful preservation of it. And it makes me think what other celebrities are being oppressed by the spotlight of the media and of fame?