2022 is the year of Julia Fox. Not necessarily in terms of art or anything especially important to her job. It’s April as I’m writing this, and the only career-based update she seems to have made is that a book is happening. But in terms of coverage, she’s everywhere.
I don’t know if we’ve had a trashy media darling like her in a minute. The Kardashian/Jenners have been everywhere forever, but that’s background noise. Iggy Azaelia calls the paps on herself semi-regularly, but nobody really cares. But Julia Fox? She’s this weird, unhinged force of nature. This woman is the only person in the Kardashian-West divorce to walk away not just unscathed, but better than before. Everyone knows her name, she’s managed to create some memorable iconography, and she got a Birkin.
I’ve titled this “Julia Fox and starfuckery”, not as a judgement, but more as a suggestion of this specific type of genius. There is a way people with no connections become famous, and a huge part of that is to be obsessed with fame. Not necessarily becoming famous, that’s too inward. But fame, celebrity, and reputation as constructs. They’re topics deserving of attention and now we have another student.
Lady Gaga’s The Fame and The Fame Monster is a dual project written, in large part, from the perspective of someone who wants to become famous. Songs like Starstruck, So Happy I Could Die, Paparazzi and Bad Romance detail the obsession and willingness to suffer abuse for attention of the subject, in this case a random Italian girl from New York that Lana Del Rey allegedly bullied.
The reason I bring up this album is that I think Julia Fox is operating on a similar obsession and has been for quite some time, and it has made me really aware of how celebrity has changed in the past decade. Gaga and Fox are similarly aged, from similar backgrounds, with obviously similar interests with celebrity. Fox is clearly pulling from Gaga aesthetically for her weirder looks, or at least from similar places. They feel connected.
But part of Gaga’s obsession with fame, and the price all celebrities must pay, is the loss of humanity. Not just privacy, but the instinctual respect and empathy that should exist person to person. The Fame Monster is named as such because it’s a terrifying beast. For every person who walks out seemingly unscathed, there’s more than one example of trauma and destruction.
Now anyone that knows me would think I’m about to bring up Britney Spears. But plot twist, we’re going to Marie Antoinette.
Fame didn’t kill this Austrian born French Queen. The leaders of a revolution at the head of a legion of starving French masses seeking revenge did that. But if one thing destroyed the French royal family, it wasn’t politics. It was publicity.
The role of a royal consort as part of a monarchy is to act as a public relations figurehead. They’re the living embodiment of what the government represents. For Marie Antoinette, this meant stepping into an oddly conceived concept of femininity and womanhood, even for the era, and acting as a living doll and breeding machine. Now mind you, this was never the extent of the Queen’s role in the French royal court. Queens of France were often allowed significant political power and held the Regency often during their husband’s absences. Anne of Austria, Catherine de Medici and Isabeau of Bavaria all ruled during times of crisis. But Marie Antoinette stepped into an odd position. There was a crucial piece missing.
The role of Queen was sacred, and that divinity (the royals were “chosen by god”) needed a counterbalance in the form of a mistress. While the mistress is seen as a largely personal matter, in European monarchies, her function was essentially a lightning rod to absorb critique of the monarchy. She’s glamour and brilliance that draws attention away from issues of policy and corruption. Sometimes she’s a part of those problems, but even when not, she’s said to be.
Even when a mistress was largely liked, ala the Madame de Maintenon (Louis XIV of France’s secret second wife), she was meant to be who the population looked at as the reason why their government failed them. Since Louis XVI of France had no official mistress, and Marie Antoinette was so famously fashionable, she took on that role. There was no measured Queen and frivolous mistress, just a royal family spending extravagant amounts of money. No amount of personal charity from the Queen could counterbalance that. Her reputation was ruined, the way famous people’s often are, by the tabloids. Homophobic pamphlets depicting her with her close friends in lesbian relationships were circulated, drawings of her riding penis-birds were passed around, and one woman became the face of a hapless government.
Now we talk about Britney Spears.
I think culturally, we often pick a random celebrity to treat in a similar way to monarchical mistresses. Spears is probably the ultimate example in recent years. Beauty and reckless youth combined into a woman who became the face of 2000s excess. Despite her own reputation for kindness and public pleading for empathy, she became a lightning rod of Bush era misogyny. When she finally buckled from the pressure and lashed out, she was punished. That narrative, the star fallen, has been repeated in film and television for centuries now. It’s Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Star (1952), Country Strong (2010), over and over again. But we still remain attracted to the glitz.
Unlike Marie Antoinette and Britney Spears, Julia Fox hasn’t entered celebrity as a child. Nor has she entered without the foundations that will hopefully allow her to weather the backlash that is inevitable. Like Gaga, it’s clear she loves fame not just as an experience, but as an activity. Some celebrities are famous despite themselves (looking at you Fiona Apple) but Fox is famous on purpose. She clearly enjoys the minutiae of being known.
Celebrity is a disease that is killing everyone who develops it, but it’s a disease that a lot of people want. Which makes this metaphor messy and lame? We need a better one. But the ultimate truth is, constant vigilance of oneself is unhealthy and unavoidable when you’re in the public eye.
Stream Uncut Gems.