Abstract
In her fascinating but frustrating new book, <em>Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit</em>, American sociologist, Ashley Mears (2020) offers both academic and mainstream readers a titillating, cross-over tour around the “cool” nightclub and party scene of the “global elite.” It is perhaps not so much global, however, as American, in the sense of the heteropatriarchal, middle-aged, male, working rich of America (or more precisely of its financial capital New York), jetting into their traditional party hotspots of Miami, Saint-Tropez, or the French Riviera, to party with young women who are (indirectly) paid (in-kind) to pose with them. Whether intentional or unintentional, along the way Mears also offers a dark mirror to the fears and fantasies of a rather lost millennial generation, raised in a new media, image age, which has coupled fast and furious performative excess to old fashioned sexual objectification, in the guise of fun and empowerment for the beautiful people.
Highlights
If you were raised by television, as part of the generation or demographic group widely known as “X,” you might think you know something already about the glamourous “global party circuit,” as you grew up, after all, watching postmodern television programs like Miami Vice or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
You might be revealing how old you are, but how ordinary, working‐class, and unattractive you would be, seen through the male gaze of the new “global elite” of rich men and young women documented in Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global
This is where we get to a core, commercial selling point and point of difference of this book, as well as the powerful weapon of its academic research methodology; the author Ashley Mears is a successful academic, but a former fashion model who is invited into the inner workings of the murky, man’s world of nightlife impresarios and can provide an “insider” perspective on this closed, youthculture
Summary
If you were raised by television (not the internet), as part of the generation or demographic group widely known as “X,” you might think you know something already about the glamourous “global party circuit,” as you grew up, after all, watching postmodern television programs like Miami Vice or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. 247) herself points out, she uses her own “bodily capital” to solve the research access problem known as “studying up.” To put it Ashley is already “up” in the eyes of the male nightlife power brokers and wealthy whales because she is able to “pass” as a fashion model and can study her subjects at close range in the clubs, while simultaneously tapping sociological observations and field notes into her smart‐ phone. Immersed is Mears at times in this culture, so understanding and sympa‐ thetic the portrayals of its male players, you do wonder at times if she has drunk the Cristal Kool‐Aid. the book would have benefited from more critical and feminist informed analysis of how these moonlighting female fashion model “elites” might be empowered and entrapped at the same time—especially in the context of this #MeToo historical moment and in light of recent rev‐ elations of sexual misconduct and ritual humiliation of models in the fashion industry. It would have been inter‐ esting to explore more the risks of betting on beauty cap‐ ital in the culture industries—especially in light of how predatory and abusive these industries can apparently be for some
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