Construction of a Celebrity: Writing Assignment Prompt #2

Construction of a Celebrity:
Amanda Bynes and the Internet

With all the attention Amanda Bynes has been receiving on the internet lately, it’s all too fitting to really analyze how this once all American girl has turned down a path much less emotionally stable. Relating Ms. Bynes’ social image with her career and media choices is very copasetic. As a young child Amanda’s hit show, “The Amanda Show,” depicted Ms. Bynes as a young comedienne and promised her a bright career. After numerous roles sparked from her hit Nickelodeon show, Amanda grew into a promising adult both through her films and in her own life. In her last film “Easy A,” Ms. Bynes’ is depicted as a devout Christian and wealthy high school girl. Her main reprise is to tease Emma Stone’s character about going to Hell for being the school “sleep around.” After the film’s release in 2009, Amanda Bynes’ fell off of the radar, doing what looked to be like working on her clothing line Dear. Recently however, she has immerged into the Twitter spectrum with a ranging variety of mood swing altered messages as well as making news headlines for narcotic possession and her alleged tossing of a bong out of her New York apartment.

Amanda Bynes’ biography on IMDB claims that Amanda first started acting at the age of three by saying her sister’s lines for school plays. However, her break out role would come much later in 1997 when Bynes takes the panelist seat on the hit Nickelodeon game show, “Figure it Out.” The young demographic of Nickelodeon received their first glance of Amanda Bynes. At the age of 11, she was one of them. She resonated with the audience with her quirky attitude and her young age. Soon after her launch on “Figure it Out,” she found her way into “All That” a Nickelodeon sketch comedy show. The show played off of Amanda’s skills as a young rising comedienne. Amanda quickly became a role model to the teenage public. Smart, witty, and charming Amanda Bynes was the all American girl and signifier of the young American dream.

As Bynes grew older so did her parts in films. Launched by her public acceptance in her young roles, Bynes found herself in quirky film roles, but more often as a supporting actor. In “Big Fat Liar” she acts alongside Frankie Muniz, another child star, gaining his popularity from the hit show, “Malcolm in the Middle.” In this film Amanda plays Muniz’s friend Kaylee, as they join forces to prove Jason (Muniz’s character) was the actual author of the essay “Big Fat Liar” and not Paul Giamatti. Once again Bynes is playing a role that up sells her role as an all American girl. She is adventurous, analytical and smart as she helps Muniz devise plans to oust Giamatti’s plagiarism. In the eyes of America, Bynes was growing up just fine and her roles corresponded with her daily appearances.  After the films release, Bynes appeared on numerous talk shows including Ellen and the Wayne Brady Show. The world was impressed with her success and her young age.

Bynes went on to have a pretty rounded acting career. She starred in roles that brought forth her quirky personality the most. Roles like “She’s the Man” allowed her to dress as a boy and join a soccer team, “Hairspray” gave her a musical debut, and her last film to date “Easy A” let her be a spoiled teenage bully using Christ as her anchor. However, 2010 took a turn for Bynes. She was found guilty in the hit and run of two cars in LA, as well as the hitting of a police vehicle while under the influence of drugs that landed her a $5,000-bail charge. More recently she was reported to have thrown a bong out of her New York apartment window.

The past three years of Bynes’ escapades with the police have been well documented and reported via the Internet and social media avenues like Facebook and Twitter. Recently via twitter, Bynes’ announced her retirement from acting. Her twitter account has also fallen to a large number of picture posts of the star’s ever changing appearance from wigs to plastic surgery. Bynes’ twitter posts hint towards a sense of bad self-image claiming she hates the press for posting “ugly” pictures of herself pre-reconstructive nose surgery.

Social media has played a huge part in the construction of Bynes’ recent celebrity status. Going from a very successful pre-teen only being seen on talk shows and magazine covers, to an “Internet sensation” in the last three years can be attributed to her recent increase in usage of social media. Bynes bares all in many of her uploaded photos and her promiscuous clothing and alluring tweets show the 27 year old starting to rebel to social standards. Amanda Bynes can suitably be compared to Lindsey Lohan as a child star turned drug addict. While Lohan’s drugs were more severe than Bynes marijuana and alcohol dependence, Bynes is still experiencing an adult hood that has direct results from her lack of typical childhood.

Social media has inflated Bynes’ celebrity hood by giving her an outlet to speak “truths” to her fans, post inappropriate images of her self, and the entire Internet community is seeing the whole charade. It is hard to not see some type of news swirling around Bynes’ name when surfing the web or scrolling through social media websites. The real question is; is the attention Bynes’ is receiving from these outlets adding to her obvious emotional instability by rocketing her back into the mainstream celebrity based on criminal activity rather than childhood stardom? I’m not sure if Bynes would still be in the celebrity scene without Twitter. I mean, there were those few years when everyone was wondering what had happened to Amanda Bynes before she resurfaced with the drug and alcohol charges.

Through the media we have seen Bynes rise to stardom, disappear from stardom, and then rise to a different kind of stardom, a stardom that feels kind of dirty and grimy, a kind of stardom that ruins your image. Bynes went from an American childhood star full of promise and ambition to an Internet star with a pornographic picture history and a lot of drug charges in a matter of just 14 years.

References:

Ablow, Keith. "Inside the Mind of Amanda Bynes." Fox News. FOX News Network, 05

June 2013. Web. 06 June 2013.

"Amanda Bynes." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 06 June 2013.