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Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s
by Sarah Ditum
A scathing reexamination of the lives of nine female celebrities in the 2000s, and the sexist, exploitative culture that took them down
Welcome to celebrity culture in the early aughts: the reign of Perez Hilton, celebrity sex tapes, and dueling tabloids fed by paparazzi who were willing to do anything to get the shot. It was a time when the Internet was still the Wild West, and when slut-shaming, fat-shaming, and revenge porn were all considered perfectly legitimate. Celebrity was seen as a commodity to be consumed, and for the famous women of this era, they were never as popular—or as vulnerable—as when they were in crisis.
Toxic tells the stories of nine women who defined the hell of celebrity in the 2000s and explores how they were devoured by fame, how they attempted to control their own narratives, and how they succeeded or (more often) failed. These women come from all walks of fame—pop music, acting, reality TV, and WWE wrestling. Some of them you think you know already, and others will be less familiar, but Toxic reveals these women neither as pure victims nor as conniving strategists, but as complex individuals trying to navigate celebrity while under attack from a vicious and fast-changing media. Their portrayal has shaped the way that all women—famous or otherwise—are viewed today, and their experiences preempted the now-universal condition, especially thanks to social media, of living under the public gaze.
In this book, Ditum brings readers back to a time before second chances and redemption arcs, and traces the ripple effects that came in the wake of spending a decade vilifying our idols. We'll see how these women's stories intersect with the birth of YouTube, the rise of Internet pornography, and the emergence of Donald Trump as a political force. It's time to come to terms with how those cultural events shaped the way we see ourselves, our bodies, our relationships, our aspirations, and our presence in the wider world. We are all products of the toxic decade.
"Top-notch pop-culture commentary—a smart and entertaining look at female celebrity during a decade of immense change." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Readers will rethink what they thought they knew about some of the most publicized celebrity stories of the early 2000s." ―Publishers Weekly
"This meticulously researched title devotes all of its attention to the sleazy ways in which women celebrities have been treated throughout contemporary history. It's meticulously researched." —Library Journal
This information about Toxic was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sarah Ditum is a freelance writer and literary reviewer who contributes to the Times, the Guardian, the Observer, the Spectator, Mail on Sunday, and Unherd. She writes a monthly column on pop music for Critic magazine and is also a contributor to Graydon Carter's Airmail. Ditum is featured regularly on radio and TV as a commenter, with appearances on Woman's Hour, The Today Programme, and Newsnight, among others. She has recently completed extensive broadcast interviews on Britney Spears's conservatorship and written for the Sunday Times on Spears's rise and fall. She lives in London.
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