Music/image and the cusp-persona: the child/adult public persona of child celebrities
One of the prevailing tropes of the child stars in popular entertainment is their precociousness. This chapter develops the public/popular construction of coming of age. It looks at how popular culture constructs the movement from child to adult which begins with precocious public presentation of ch...
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30094136 https://figshare.com/articles/chapter/Music_image_and_the_cusp-persona_the_child_adult_public_persona_of_child_celebrities/20853139 |
| Summary: | One of the prevailing tropes of the child stars in popular entertainment is their precociousness. This chapter develops the public/popular construction of coming of age. It looks at how popular culture constructs the movement from child to adult which begins with precocious public presentation of children with adult-like abilities to their adolescent public transformations. From studies of early child stars of the twentieth century, mid-century popular music adolescent stars, recent boy bands and the investigation of two generations of Disney child stars, the chapter explores the way that music has been critical in establishing a cusp-like personality, one that allows the expression of childhood but challenges that identity by sexualizing the performer’s identity so that it is simultaneously child and adult. |
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