Starsuckers
Starsuckers is a feature documentary about the celebrity obsessed media, that uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it.
Made completely independently over 2 years in secret, the film journeys through the dark underbelly of the modern media. Using a combination of never before seen footage, undercover reporting, stunts and animation, the film reveals the toxic effect the media is having on us all and especially our children.
Chris Atkins presents Starsuckers as a series of five lessons on fame in the modern world: how children are persuaded that fame is something they want, how television and the media reinforces the importance of celebrity and the efforts to attain it, how the mind and body reinforces our need to follow the activities of well-known people and strive to join their number, how the press became addicted to celebrity coverage, and how the art of promoting fame has led to celebrities and their handlers controlling the press instead of the press having say.
Along the way, Atkins demonstrates how celebrity news with no basis in fact gets into print, why newspapers will run press releases almost verbatim, how parents will eagerly sign away the image rights to their kids, how certain mass scale charity events end up helping the performers far more than the causes they designed to support, and how publicists keep accurate but unflattering stories out of the news.
Confirms everything I knew about humanity and gave me a few new media manipulation tactics to employ! 10/10
Sick world.
I came here today, because the media covered "brangelina" (barfing from that ridiculously stupid name) over a man shot to death and riots in Charlotte. This is the world I, and we, live in. It is pathetic. I don't know if it is just mainly America, but it makes me disgraced of my country, and especially the mindless drones considered people in it. These m*rons idolize these celebrities with enough money to buy them and all their assets with a mere hundred-thousandth of what the celebrities have, yet they are only feeding these people more.
This is absolutely terrifying. We are all prisoners.
Okay, I've officially lost faith in humanity.
all i have to say is that i'm glad that Johnny Depp was nowhere to be found in this documentary. i'm a big fan of him, why? i can relate to his personality and i support his view on the world. and because in his interviews he always talks really down to earth and honest. most of his movies have a good message and are mainly not box-office. and yes, his style is amazing. i think that there's nothing wrong with admiring someone as long as you keep thinking clearly. what i mean by that is that you don't blindly buy everything that has the slightest connection with this person just for the sake of being like them or wanting to know everything about them. I've never read a magazine in my life and i never watch tv anymore. i get the info about johnny depp from interviews and i download his movies for free. i don't want to support any (media) corporation/business. i like the idea of how Johnny dresses himself, he never wears clothes that exposes a brand name and in his early years he only bought 2nd hand. that's what i do now. and most of all, he isn't an attention whore at all.
Depp become famous (21 jump street) hated it, turned to non-box-office stuff, lost his bad-boy labels and did movies for 20 years, then pirates of the Caribbean come out and he became famous/rich again.
It's funny how i am posting a whole page about how i love a celebrity in a comment section of a documentary that just made me hate the whole idea of fame and media (well, i already hated it, but this got me pretty pissed off)
The point i'm trying to make here is that the reasons why people like celebrities are f--king mindless. people also admire scientist, but because of their work and view. and that's different. and that's why i like johnny depp.
to clear it up: i only watch youtube videos of interviews and stuff with johnny depp, and his movies (which i download for free) then i try to style myself like him by going to 2nd hand shops. and i love his personality, he's shy, down to earth, real, humble and an oddball.
Teaching a course in popular culture. Our last two units are on celebrity and social media. SO glad I found this. An excellent intro and eye opener at the same time.
Excellent coverage of a key issue of our time. Should be shown to kids as young as they could take it in - like an antidote to all the tv crap they are fed. If anything the narration should be creepier but gets the point across that we are all being played.
What a eye opener. It's sad that I have grown up in this culture. It's just so hard to escape it. This doco should be shown in all high schools.
I liked this documentary very much. Well told and good background information. And no, I didn't have any problem with the narration voice. Anyways. So, these questions remain: How can we protect ourselves, if even possible? Or is it already too late? How can we strike back?
Wesley Autry - household name?!?! Huh, What?
I swear, i've NEVER heard of this guy until i started watching this documentary here.
i wrote the satire song "I don't like Geldof" after doing some research into his commercial background and discovering, quite easily, that he has been doing PR work for UBS, The Israeli Government, The MOD, for various Big Pharma, Bankers, Industrialists etc etc.....
Im sick of being in the minority of people who realise we are all being sold lies by the media (politics, major companies) every day. Its like some of us are awake from the "matrix" so to speak and see this for what it is! But it seems we are too few to do anything. Fact is our fellow human does'nt give a s*** as long as they've got their tv and dinner.
YEESH will somebody PLEASE SHOOT THE NARRATOR? Using Mr. Propaganda Voice to do your voice overs in a flick about propaganda is RIDICULOUS. How about just presenting the Facts and letting me make up my own mind, OK. Honestly, I'd love to watch this, but the CONDESCENDING presumptions throughout, i.e. anyone who disagrees with us kills kittens and hates rainbows, is DRIVING ME NUTS!!!! STOP USING THE SAME TOOLS YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE CONDEMNING!!!!!
This was one of the most AMAZING, POWERFUL documentaries I have ever seen. The media and lives of the rich and famous completely rule and dominate our culture, it's quite sickening. Everyone should watch this documentary and spread it to your friends and family. Stop oversubscribing to a fake culture of riches, fame, and illusion!
This documentary is very revealing, there should be more like it, but of course while the media is controlled by the people that control it, and remains the circus of the profane and the ridiculous that it is today, such documentaries would only and can only be few and far in between.
The whole bit about the 5 (6?) year old boy who thought he was "the star" (the quotation marks are there on purpose) was terrifying, unsettling and very hard to watch. It really makes me wander, is this what our kids are becoming today? Is this really their future, and by association, ours? If yes, than we are living in a sad time and a dark reality indeed.
I think his parents should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging him. Because what they are in essence telling him by giving him all the encouragement that he is getting form them on a daily basis, is that it's ok to be extremely vain and self-centered, and to think that being or becoming famous (and reach, he said that when he "makes it" he will buy his mother a big house, shows you his priorities in life, doesn't it? and he's only 5 (6?)) is more important than doing his homework and doing other things which might be more important for his development and his life in the future. And because they are doing this for their own (monetary)
gain.
The captivating of young children and teens and addicting them to, or rather making them the devoted disciples of the "cult of celebrity" is to me a crime against innocents. It should not be allowed under any circumstances. I was lucky to grow up in a world free of advertising til the age of 10. Then I was suddenly exposed to a media blitz because I move with my family to a country where advertising was everywhere. I was mesmerized! Spent whole days infront of the glowing box in the living room, instead of making friends and having fun. It took a lot of time to realize what I got myself into and get myself out again. Now at 31, I am free of this "bewichment", I no longer buy into anything that any ad or Telly programming tries to sell me and let nothing stand in the way of my own decision making and individualism. A sheep no more.
The Band Aid/Live Aid/Live 8 thing was creepy to say the lest. The blatant lies perpetuated by its organizers, Mainly "Bob" Geldof was heart rending and shattering. Not to mention that instead of bringing aid he made things much worse by watering down, celebritising and de-valuing an important and vital issue and undermining other (real and actually useful) campaigns such as "Make Poverty History" (MPH). And to call something a success when it failed miserably... and use profanities and fist banging on tables while ordering people to stay at a donation venue (which though not mentioned in the doc it self, was part of Geldof's "technique" of getting people to donate money) is appalling and morally repugnant. (For more information on Geldof and his so called "aid campaign" look him up on wikipedia (which is what I did)
Compare that to the "Music for UNISEF" which was started by the Bee Gees in 1979 (UN's Year of the Child) with the participation of many top musical composers,musicians and performers from around the world. Which resulted in the creation of the collective album "Music For UNISEF" the earnings from the sale all went to UNISEF, generating tens of millions of dollars in aid money, and Barry, Robin and Maurice (unlike Geldof) went around the world and made sure that the money was indeed used as it was supposed to, to help the children, to find out if they are indeed being helped. This concept is alive and well today and continues to generate tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for children around the world.
The narration from the point of view of the media industry was a nice touch also, a bit like they were confessing their sins. If only they would... But that's a completely different story, perhaps in the next century..."Tomorrow never knows" (as said by Ringo Starr)
that show "teenage wives" which it refers to at 0:13:19 looked creepy. i tried googling it but couldn't find any info about the show
Hilarious! Sadly a majority of society is oblivious; the rest of us are just slightly less oblivious.
Hilarious! Sadly a majority of society is oblivious; the rest of us are just slightly less oblivious.
I hate Vlatko for making me stay up late at night when i have to go to work in the morning. Damn you and your documentaries!
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I can't wait to see this!!! Later tonight I watch....Yesss! All your comments and reviews have made me salivate! Haha my Pavlovian response to the truth, and such a rare thing it is. I have watched two films on this theme recently on Top Documentary Films that I would like to recommend to all of you.
I just watched an interesting film called PSYWAR on this fabulous site. A fascinating journey into the phycology of Government Intelligence Operations and how they execute influence, opinion, misinformation (polite word for lies), scientifically inflicting policy propaganda on unsuspecting nations and the people of the world really.
Another film to watch is EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, which also deals with the pursuits of celebrity and fame...and what that really is. God this film is funny, dangerous, and well done. Genius film really, can't recommend it enough.
This site, Top Documentary Films, is quickly turning into my favorite site on the Internet.
A really amazing piece of work. I have no clue how the filmakers got most of the clips here, quite staggering. I know that the same thing happens in the USA. "Jon Stewart's Daily Show" has exposed countless examples of FOX News following stories that they started. They simply make up 'facts' about issues, then report on the stories that they start, like it is some other source for the story. This has happened way too many times to count, and by the time people start to notice, they already have another dramatic story to follow to distract the masses.
Rather spooky.
Good thing i gave up on tv and news papers. i live in the uk and its full of fake media, too much adverts and reality tv shows, it drives me nuts! I now use the internet to filter all that rubish off by choosing what i think is rationally right for me. i only hope that the internet does not get hijacked by our government, whom inturn would most certainly try to take away the freedom of use and control the internet.
thanks Vlad for this documentary it was an eye opener, and it also reinforces what i have always believed to be happening within the media industry... "lies"
Not everybody is oblivious.