The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 22. July 2026
Book
Hardback
552 pages
978-1-032-26931-3 (ISBN)
Description
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity offers the first comprehensive global study of how gender shapes celebrity culture across diverse contexts and media landscapes.
Bringing together 37 original chapters from leading and emerging scholars worldwide, this volume transforms celebrity studies by centring gender to expand cultural, geopolitical, and methodological boundaries. Through case studies spanning Turkey to Hollywood and Bangladesh to Spain, contributors explore issues such as queer stardom in Hong Kong, feminist digital activism in Pakistan, Indigenous celebrity, and China's 'traffic idols'. Employing methodologies, including discourse analysis, digital ethnography, archival research, and qualitative interviews, the Companion purposefully decentres Western perspectives, tracing localised and transnational circuits of fame while addressing historical and contemporary intersections of gender and celebrity.
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity is ideal for scholars, students, and researchers in gender studies, media and cultural studies, sociology, and related fields seeking fresh insights into global celebrity cultures and their political and social implications.
Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Bringing together 37 original chapters from leading and emerging scholars worldwide, this volume transforms celebrity studies by centring gender to expand cultural, geopolitical, and methodological boundaries. Through case studies spanning Turkey to Hollywood and Bangladesh to Spain, contributors explore issues such as queer stardom in Hong Kong, feminist digital activism in Pakistan, Indigenous celebrity, and China's 'traffic idols'. Employing methodologies, including discourse analysis, digital ethnography, archival research, and qualitative interviews, the Companion purposefully decentres Western perspectives, tracing localised and transnational circuits of fame while addressing historical and contemporary intersections of gender and celebrity.
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity is ideal for scholars, students, and researchers in gender studies, media and cultural studies, sociology, and related fields seeking fresh insights into global celebrity cultures and their political and social implications.
Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced
Illustrations
9 s/w Zeichnungen, 9 s/w Abbildungen
8 Line drawings, black and white; 8 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 246 mm
Width: 174 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-032-26931-3 (9781032269313)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Joanna McIntyre | Anthea Taylor
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity
E-Book
approx. 07/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€63.49
Not yet available
Joanna McIntyre | Anthea Taylor
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity
E-Book
approx. 07/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€63.49
Not yet available
Persons
Joanna McIntyre is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. Her research brings together celebrity, queer, and trans studies, with a
particular focus on digital media and Australian screen cultures. She is co-editor of Gender and Australian Celebrity Culture (2021) and Lead Chief Investigator on multiple funded projects, with work regularly appearing in journals including Celebrity Studies and European Journal of Cultural Studies.
Anthea Taylor is an Associate Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. She has published widely in feminist celebrity studies, including the first monograph on celebrity feminism, Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster (2016), and most recently Germaine Greer, Celebrity Feminism and the Archive (2025).
particular focus on digital media and Australian screen cultures. She is co-editor of Gender and Australian Celebrity Culture (2021) and Lead Chief Investigator on multiple funded projects, with work regularly appearing in journals including Celebrity Studies and European Journal of Cultural Studies.
Anthea Taylor is an Associate Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. She has published widely in feminist celebrity studies, including the first monograph on celebrity feminism, Celebrity and the Feminist Blockbuster (2016), and most recently Germaine Greer, Celebrity Feminism and the Archive (2025).
Content
Introduction: Gender and celebrity studies in a post-#MeToo world. Part 1: Historicising Celebrity 1. Unseemly affects: gender, celebrity, and the policing of fame hunger; 2. Queens of song: opera divas and women's celebrity in Australia; 3. Posthumous celebrity feminism: collective memory, "legacy", and the obituaries of Betty Friedan and Helen Gurley Brown; 4. Queer genius: Alison Bechdel's long-term celebrity; 5. Before "the transgender tipping point": Miriam Rivera, Nadia Almada, reality TV, and the beginnings of celebrified transnormativity. Part 2: Manufacturing Celebrity 6. "Reality reckoning"?: feminised cultural labour and the 'grey zones' of reality television work; 7. On (not) becoming the "fairy goddess": gendered cruel optimism and the affective archive of Chinese (micro)celebrity Li Ziqi; 8. Symbolic interest, and the construction and gatekeeping of celebrity narratives on the awards circuit; 9. Marilyn Monroe (TM): authorisation and the problematic politics of star narrative, sex aids, biopics, and borrowed dresses; 10. A celebrity's resistance against the "civil" social imaginary: the 2021 Pori Moni saga and competing gendered media discourses in Bangladesh; 11. Anyone can be Filmmaker Barbie, but especially Margot Robbie: a constellation of women producer/director stars and collective celebrity field migration in post-#MeToo Hollywood. Part 3: Representing Celebrity 12. (Re)framing Britney Spears: the celebrity bimbo in the #MeToo era; 13. The coming-of-age of Amandla Stenberg: navigating bi-racial girl child stardom, Hollywood, and US society; 14. Rendering the Indigenous body legible: Temuera Morrison, celebrity, and Maori masculinities; 15. We need to talk about Kevin: coming out as reputation management in the era of #MeToo; 16. From mother to monarch: RuPaul, US universalism, and the rise of a global drag empire. Part 4: Embodying Celebrity 17. "Gray Pride": feminism, age, embodiment, and the semiotic circuits of celebrity; 18. The child actress in old age: the enduring intertextual influence of The Bad Seed on child star Patty McCormack's silvering celebrity; 19. Celebrity and fatness: crafting an authentic persona between idolisation and marginalisation; 20. Jamie Dornan: negotiating masculine beauty, actorly craft, and regional authenticity; 21. China's "traffic idol" celebrities and mediated gender online: embodying gender norms while traversing platform fragmentation. Part 5: Politicising Celebrity 22. Epistemology of a glass closet: Anson Lo's queer stardom and the politics of ambiguity in the post-ELAB Hong Kong; 23. "Hollywood's Mr Politics": George Clooney, film stardom, and liberal masculinity in post-9/11 USA; 24. Emerging celebrity feminisms in Spain: the case of Leticia Dolera; 25. The intellectual celebrity of Jordan Peterson: performing authority, emotions, and masculinity; 26. Digital celebrity feminist activism in Pakistan: analysing Qandeel Baloch and Meesha Shafi. Part 6: Dis/Empowering Celebrity 27. Yass, camp is political! Randy Rainbow's queer microcelebrity and "sass-veillance"; 28. "A real sharp learning curve": experiences of going viral and becoming an accidental celebrity feminist; 29. Nymphia Wind, imperial drag, and queer Sinophone celebrity crossovers; 30. "I'm so gay": Kristen Stewart's adapted tomboyism and feminist reclaiming of visibility; 31. Michelle Yeoh and the ageing discourse of Asian women celebrities; 32. Gender and the cultural politics of the celebrity selfie. Part 7: Researching Celebrity 33. Anna Ford, "Women in Media", and celebrity/feminism in UK second-wave feminism; 34. "She was never pretty anyway": women celebrities and visibilities of ageing; 35. "Cry only if you're famous": celebrity vulnerability and "ordinary" producers on Instagram; 36. Interviewing queer television celebrities: methodological and practical reflections; 37. #EnginAkyuerek: a Turkish actor's global celebrity and women's fan labour.