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43
The Spin Crowd and PoweR Girls also perpetuate the idea of the PR party girl that
hops parties as suggested in Frohlich and Peters’ work. In a special 30-minute pilot of
The Spin Crowd (which was called The Spindustry at the time), one of the employees
Alex (who was not in The Spin Crowd’s actual series), states that she had a “party girl
past” with two DUIs and an incident where she woke up with both of her front teeth
knocked out after a night of too much partying. One character on PoweR Girls, Kelly,
prides herself on being a party girl. In the opening paragraph of her biography on MTV,
she writes:
I graduated from the prestigious school of California State University Chico in
northern California. Prestigious for what you ask? It was rated the number one
party school in Playboy magazine for years except the year after I graduated (I
think that's because I was not there)… (MTV, 2011).
Much like the principle shown that looks are the most important element in the field,
these characters display the idea that the women in public relations are more focused on
having a good time than being a responsible working adult. With Alex, this clip was the
first screen shot that showed her, and in Kelly’s online biography, this was in the first
paragraph. Likewise, these images therefore create a first impression with the audience.
The Masculine “Bitch”
Women are typically shown in film as “love goddesses, mothers, martyrs,
spinsters, broads, virgins, vamps, prudes, adventuresses, she-devils, and sex kittens,”
(Haskelly, 1999, p. 291) which is illustrated to a point with PoweR Girls and The Spin
Crowd. Alternatively in Kell on Earth, Kelly Cutrone and her business partners Emily
Object Description
| Title | Power party girls, good looking crowds and one hellish boss: The portrayal of the female entertainment publicist on reality television |
| Author | Hashem, Camille Renée |
| Author email | chashem@usc.edu; chashem87@gmail.com |
| Degree | Master of Arts |
| Document type | Thesis |
| Degree program | Public Relations |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2011-04-01 |
| Date submitted | 2011 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2011-05-03 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Thorson, Kjerstin |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Floto, Jennifer Saltzman, Joseph |
| Abstract | This thesis is an examination of the portrayal of the female entertainment publicist shown in reality television. With the large success rate of Samantha Jones from Sex and the City in the 1990s, female interest in public relations has increased, and good or bad, Jones has served as one of the predominate images of the publicist in the entertainment industry. Those who have performed critical analysis of the image of the public relations practitioner have deemed these representations as showing negative characteristics of those in the profession. While there has been previous research on the image of public relations in media, analysis of the female entertainment publicist in reality television has been left untapped.; The project consisted of a content analysis as well as interviews with various women in entertainment public relations. Three reality television shows featuring female entertainment publicists were watched: MTV's PoweR Girls (2005), Bravo's Kell on Earth (2010) and E! Network's The Spin Crowd. After conducting this analysis, the author found that the female publicist is put in one of two gender categories, the masculine bitch or the overtly sexy "PR Bunny." Other findings inferred that the dominant images within each series suggested that public relations is overall an easy field to enter, with little or no experience or professionalism needed. Finally, although the three series had some subtle differences, public relations is still shown as a glamorous job.; Interviewee responses showed that the negative representations of entertainment publicists on reality television are not indicative of the real life job itself, but that media's representation of it has led others to believe false or skewed images of the profession. Since these three shows' target demographics include young women about make a career decision, the impact they may have on this demographic, and how it may affect the future of public relations and the expectations of those about the enter the industry, is also discussed. |
| Keyword | communication; entertainment; media; public relations; reality television |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA |
| Coverage date | 1990/2010 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m3875 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Hashem, Camille Renée |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Hashem-4503 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume26/etd-Hashem-4503.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 43 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 43 The Spin Crowd and PoweR Girls also perpetuate the idea of the PR party girl that hops parties as suggested in Frohlich and Peters’ work. In a special 30-minute pilot of The Spin Crowd (which was called The Spindustry at the time), one of the employees Alex (who was not in The Spin Crowd’s actual series), states that she had a “party girl past” with two DUIs and an incident where she woke up with both of her front teeth knocked out after a night of too much partying. One character on PoweR Girls, Kelly, prides herself on being a party girl. In the opening paragraph of her biography on MTV, she writes: I graduated from the prestigious school of California State University Chico in northern California. Prestigious for what you ask? It was rated the number one party school in Playboy magazine for years except the year after I graduated (I think that's because I was not there)… (MTV, 2011). Much like the principle shown that looks are the most important element in the field, these characters display the idea that the women in public relations are more focused on having a good time than being a responsible working adult. With Alex, this clip was the first screen shot that showed her, and in Kelly’s online biography, this was in the first paragraph. Likewise, these images therefore create a first impression with the audience. The Masculine “Bitch” Women are typically shown in film as “love goddesses, mothers, martyrs, spinsters, broads, virgins, vamps, prudes, adventuresses, she-devils, and sex kittens,” (Haskelly, 1999, p. 291) which is illustrated to a point with PoweR Girls and The Spin Crowd. Alternatively in Kell on Earth, Kelly Cutrone and her business partners Emily |
