“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” The Crack Up
The focus of this paper is the early celebrity of F.S Fitzgerald and to a lesser extent, Hemingway and their relationship to big magazines. Fitzgerald’s stories reveal him as a writer and man. In their letters to each other, Fitzgerald and Hemingway joke about being exposed, or ‘prostituted’ by these major magazines. The authors use magazines to promote their work, yet they also feel, according to their letters, emasculated, as if they are ‘prostituting’ themselves to the public for consumption. Secondly, the 1920’s saw the rise of the writer celebrity where film stars were also highly mythologized. Scandals revolved around Fatty Arbuckle and Jean Harlow that captivate the masses. The disparity of wealth contribute to public fascination with members of the “gilded age”. Big magazines are a vehicle for F.S Fitzgerald to fashion, create and control his public image. He uses his burgeoning success, his wife and his Irish good looks to create a myth of a rich boy beleaguered by morality in a vacuous, greedy increasing squalid world of wealth to captivate his audience (Rena). His fashion influences include Brook Brothers, Paris and Italian designers and this influences young American college men. In 1926 he becomes wealthy overnight by selling cinema and books rights. The culmination of image (magazines and cinema) and text (stories and articles) create a writer celebrity who was also an intellectual and spokesperson for the time period.
About the presenterGloria Anne Monaghan
Gloria Monaghan is a Professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston where she teaches arts and humanities. She has published two books of poetry, Flawed (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and The Garden (Flutter Press, 2018). Her research interests include, cybernetics, gender and poetry.