Grappling with Celebrity Status: Women, Theatre, and the Mechanisms of Celebrity in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the late eighteenth century, the emergence of popular and print culture facilitated the rise of celebrity and created an environment in which women’s bodies were consistently sexualized and materialized. Women increasingly became the targets of public scrutiny as printed texts and images proliferated. This paper traces this distinct kind of celebrity and its relationship with gendered discourses of the period. Utilizing Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) and Mary Robinson (1757–1800) as case studies, this paper examines how they accumulated celebrity, investigates the social and cultural aspects of celebrity culture, and explores the intersections of celebrity and femininity at that time. This paper argues for the significance of celebrity actresses and their roles in the shifting development of a celebrity in the late 1700s, illustrating how a modern kind of celebrity discourse emerged, and helping us understand celebrity culture in its current form.