Navigating Celebrity Controversies and Public Scrutiny

I spent years of my life studying celebrity images and what makes them meaningful to us. A celebrity’s actions or words can make or deepen our connection to them — or they can really piss us off. But why? Is it just a classic case of dashed expectations? What makes, oh, Taylor Swift hanging out with Matty Healy so disappointing? For this episode, I asked celebrity feelings expert Margaret H. Willison to come answer your questions about the broad contours of celebrity-directed anger — and work through some very specific examples. I promise: you’ll leave this episode with a more textured understanding of your own celebrity feelings.

Note: This episode was taped before the conversation re: the Met Ball and celebrity silence on Gaza; you can read more about it here.

Show Notes:

• Follow Margaret on Instagram (her account is a delight) and subscribe to her newsletter, Two Bossy Dames

• Register for Margaret’s TTPD Listening Party on May 19th and the Taylor Swift pilgrimage on Cape Cod in November

• Learn more about Not Sorry Productions, and sign up for the Common Ground newsletter

• A write-up of Plan B distribution at Olivia Rodrigo’s St. Louis show (how much of this was her call now seems up for debate)

• Travis Kelce’s unearthed tweets

• Jia Tolentino on Matty Healey

• If you want to read my favorite star study of all time — on Marilyn Monroe — it’s in Richard Dyer’s Heavenly Bodies. It’s somewhat academic but also very accessible for an academic text. I could read it every day. Dyer also wrote the definitive star study of Fonda in Stars, which is out of print but lots of used copies floating around

• A bit of a tangent but if you want to read a really great academic history of the economic imperatives of the Red Scare & The Hollywood Ten, whew this is it

• I’ve been thinking about the ethics of private jets (and privacy, and labor) amidst the conversations re: the WNBA moving to chartering

• Take a look at Anna Marie Tendler’s art!!!

• Just for laughs, a TikTok imagining Taylor Swift’s PR in the Matty Healy era

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• Home renovation shows + class! (Our guest is Jonathan Menjivar, host of Classy. If you haven’t read his interview in the newsletter, it’s fantastic.)

• What’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help. Co-host is

  Virginia Sole-Smith

  , so it’s gonna be great)

• Weird TikTok trends you’re seeing on your FYP

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• Ben Affleck (specifically within the framework of Ambition)

• Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)

• The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)

• Anything you need advice or want musings on

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

For today’s discussion: What do you think celebrities owe to the general public? Who are your problematic faves, and how have you reconciled your feelings about them? Or how do you feel about the Matty Healy and the John Mulaney of it all?