| Abstract: | My aim in this paper is to think through a number of issues concerning the relationship between postfeminist/neoliberal brand culture, celebrity femininity and commodified authenticity. Using the case study of British glamour model and media mogul Katie Price, I suggest that the affective and commercial appeal of postfeminist celebrity culture depends on the commodification and gendering of authenticity whereby the currency of “realness” in the current media economy is harnessed to neoliberal and postfeminist expressions of (self-)branding, entrepreneurship and feminine agency. I argue that the “Katie Price” brand makes use of a series of authenticating strategies to involve consumers in the construction and assessment of postfeminist celebrity subjectivity. In particular, I focus on three tropes that occur in conjunction with this type of authenticity in consumption: personal narrativization, class groundedness, and entrepreneurial/plastic femininity. |
