Accidental Celebrity? Constructing of Fame in Post-War Croatia

Abstract

Aim of this paper is to show different type of production of celebrity. Case

of popular singer Marko Perković Thompson shows that unlike

popularity in the west that is produced through the news about private

life of popular persona, in Croatia avoiding of private life can lead to

popularity. Reasons for such difference can be traced in symbolic split in

the society presented in the oppositions such as: foreign/home, left/right,

folk/elite, traditional/modern. To publicly stand for one of the parts

always include some kind of transgression. Thompson as public sign

constantly provokes such transgression and gains public appearance

without effort of PR experts. In that way he became a sign around which

different social discourses collide. As long as his private persona is

hidden more interpretation is publicly produced.

Keywords: celebrity, nationalism, victimhood, transgression, tradition

After the war in the Balkans one musician appeared who, at the first

glance, could hardly be labeled as celebrity. Although his CDs are sold

even outside of Croatia and he is the only singer in Croatia who can

attract more then 20000 fans at the biggest soccer stadiums for concert,

he is not conceived of as media product. His name is Marko Perković

Thompson. Contrary to celebrities that use media attention in order to

keep popularity, Thompson is in constant opposition to media. Media

avoids his private life, paparazzi are not following him and we don't know

any juicy detail from his private life. Most of the time Thompson even

accuses mainstreams media for avoiding his music in spite of his extreme

popularity. If we employ definition and structure of celebrity as proposed

by Turner (2004), Rojek (2004), or Cashmore (2006), we would be

tempted to understand Thompson as remnant of the old media

production from late '60es or early '70es. And it would go well with the

popular understanding of postsocialist world as transitional that slowly

discover the media world of the advanced capitalist countries. But, of

course, this would be wrong understanding of Thompson. If we just take a

look at the media products that survived on the market in Croatia we

would easily find out that magazines and television shows that follow life

of famous individuals have no financial problems and their number is

even rising. Moreover in Croatian language appeared a term "posvuduša"

or in rough translation "everywherella"1 depicting a female person that

attends public events in constant pursuit for media attention; exactly

covered by definition of Boorstin (2012) ("well known for well

knowness"). So even when there is a considerable knowledge and

technology for celebrity production the most popular person in show

business in Croatia avoids it. Does it means that Croatian audience is

different from other and that they, apart of all theories about popular

culture, have some genuine taste?

If we look at the music style Thompson produces we are faced with

mixture of folk and power metal, and that kind of music is certainly not

the most popular one, although ethnic rhythms and Balkan oriental

sounds are popular in hybrid style called turbo-folk. But there are no

similarities between folk metal and turbo folk, even fans of metal music

found themselves on the opposite side of life style and ideology from

those enjoying turbo folk. Definitely Thompson's fans are not attracted to

him because of his music or talent but because of something outside of

Thompson himself. And this unknown material is the same as the one we

find in contemporary celebrity: we cannot grasp the direct reason for her/his

popularity; we are just attracted to celebrity’s presence. In this text I will try to

examine this elusive material in order to further understand not just Thompson

but contemporary fascination with the celebrities.

Foundational myth

1 I coined the term by bonding together words 'everywhere' and 'Cinderella', because such girls are not just interesting in being popular but also in finding wealthy husband. It may be inappropriate to restrict complex meaning of Cinderella in the fairy tale just to the character who desperately wants to be married but at least that is how she was represented in Disney movies and gain global recognition.

We have to begin with the story how Thompson became what he is today. He

was a soldier in the last Balkan war in one small village Čavoglave where he,

together with his friends, established a small military formation that

defended village from attacks of JNA (Jugoslavenska narodna armija -

Yugoslav People’s Army) and armed volunteers. Before the war he was a

waiter and amateur singer and songwriter, but he never performed on the

stage. In 1991 during his days on the front line he composed a song

Čavoglave Battalion and sang it together with his comrades. It is still

unknown how song came to radio station in Split but it instantly became a hit

and soon Thompson was in Split together with his comrades recording the

song in the studio and shooting a video spot. According to one story

Thompson by himself brought the recording to radio but, according to other,

recording just spread across soldiers and then started to be part of music

repertoire in the pubs and bars in and around the town of Split. Then

someone from radio Split heard it in one pub and decided to broadcast it. The

second version is Thompson's and his fans believe it is a true version.

Through his version of "foundational myth" he appeared as person who is

not in the race for glory and fame, just ordinary guy like any other but who is

able to transform the feelings and opinions of the majority into music.

Both stories can be understood, in accordance with the previous researches

of celebrity, as product of specific management of two identities that every

popular person has, no matter if she/he is television, movie or music star

(Turner 2004; Marshall 1997; Cashmore 2006). One is represented in the

media, and another is private one. And it is the second one that pops up as

focus of the public interest. As all mentioned researchers agrees, one of the

main task of celebrity industry is management of private persona. Privacy of

the celebrity is organized media product aiming to assure constant presence

of celebrity in the media attention. But those two stories of Thompson’s

beginning already shows that his management of media attention will not

focus on his private life. His “official” version of the story will try to erase

interest for his private realm thorough aligning his private with public

appearance. Thompson represents himself as accidental celebrity.

Thus his fans do not perceive him as product of media power or force of the

production business, but of people genuine voice. It is significant that the

story of Thompson’s beginning became known and focus of the public

interest in 2003 after Thompson already went through substantial music and

personal transformation. Before 2002 Thompson was just another singer. He

recorded four albums and experimented with different kind of music styles.

At the beginning he used styles already established in Croatian pop-music

known for importing and blending Greek rhythms, Mexican music and Italian

popular music. As he did not make much of success, he experimented further

with ethno styles and rock. One song The Wind from Dinara combining ethno

music with nostalgic lyrics was a success, but not enough to enable him to

have 50000 funs ready to attend the show. His experiments with public

representation did not harm his appearance afterwards. It could be even said

that today his fans understand those times as product of Thompson’s youth

and submission to producers’ advices and music industry.. Thus he appeared

after changes as even more genuine and as a winner over the forces of

celebrity industry. But it would be wrong to think that it is possible to attract

constant attention just through social media (Facebook, Twitter and

Youtube). Marshall (but Turner as well) points out that one of the key points

of producing celebrity status is transgression. In movie industry

transgression is necessary: “screen personality must be denaturalized into

code of acting.” (Marshall 1997,106) In other words to open up to new

possibilities and roles in the movies, stars expose and regulate their personal

life in media as different from the one audience get to used to in the cinema.

Mechanism works in two different steps. One is to excavate something about

the private life of the star as an extraordinary event out of norm and the

other step is to normalize the effect. Turner for example will emphasize this

procedure as a way by which celebrity makes a connection with ordinary

people. Through transgression she/he opens possibility for audience to

restore social values and norms. They serve as object of gossip through

which in everyday life people reassure their belonging to community, test

their interpretation of normality and renegotiate them. In book Fantastic

Creatures of Istria and Kvarner Boris Perić (2008) and I identified same

function of the fantastic creatures invented in folklore. They served as sign of

realm that exist outside of the symbolic order or as contingency of life that

constantly threat “normal” existence. Stories about them serve as a way to

patch inconsistencies of practices in everyday life.

One way of normalization of transgression would be denial of the event or

giving new explanation to them (which is more often in the movie industry

due to mentioned autonomous self ready to take a different acting role from

the previous one). Another way is to enhance the quality of performance by

the logic that personal problems (addiction, divorce) do not affect

professionalism of the performer and, what will be of importance later in the

text, give a sort of aura of authenticity of the performing act, and produce

new meaning of the music and the lyrics for the audience. Third way of

normalization is that of television host celebrity. Marshall points that there is

no clear cut between television celebrity public and private persona.

Normalization is produced by debating private events of television star in the

media itself as part of the public narrative. All mentioned mechanisms are at

work in case of Thompson but what is different is his version of

transgression. It is not that private Marko Perković transgress anything, it is

celebrity sign, Thompson, who does. And his transgression is of specific

political sort. There are three key events that prepared place for Thompson’s

new appearance.

Transgression and normalization through victimhood

Most important event was rising of Socialist Democrats back to power after

dead of Franjo Tuđman first Croatian president and the leader of Croatian

Democratic Union in 2001. Although Socialists came to power through

democratic election lot of people interpreted this event as restoration of

communism. Second was his performance during protest of the war veterans

two years after mentioned elections. Veterans gathered in Split to demand

protection for the generals who were accused for war crimes, arrested and

transferred to ICTY in The Hague. And the last one was his singing of fascist's

song Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara on the concert in the town of Osijek. He

sang extremely disgusting song supporting Ustaša's genocide of Serbs in

concentration camp Jasenovac during World War the II. At first he declined

accusation claiming it was computer manipulated set up, but later he

admitted it. Because of this song all mainstream media avoided him, he is still

not part of any important national television show and his music is rarely

broadcasted in the mainstream public media.

By publicly supporting Ustaša movement, fascism and death camps he just

emphasized controversies that were already circulating about his public

appearance and his concert audience. News article on portal Index.hr that

discovered his public singing of the song Jasenovac and Gradiška Stara was

thus entitled: Thompson patriot or fascist? But instead of just abandoning him

as a marginal singer suddenly the whole media space started to produce

more and more talk shows, exclusive media coverage and expertise about the

history of fascism in Croatia. Whole public debate was organized around

topic that was, and still is, traumatic for the Croatian society. Part of Croatian

society opposed communism through alignment to nationalism. For them

communism was just another name for Serbian expansionism. Thus period

between 1941 and 1945 they understand as last historical fight against

threats to Croatian independence and democracy and Ustašas’ crimes against

humanity from those times should be forgotten or waived. Another part of

society in the same manner defends fragments of socialist heritage (fight

against fascism, social security, industrialization) and is equally unprepared

to admit atrocities and democratic deficiency that occurred in socialist time.

Split between those two groups reflects in range of different social spaces.

Thompson, although all the time one of the key examples in those public

debates, never took part in them, he communicated to public only through

occasional letters to his audience and press releases. Instead of giving

explanation for his deeds, Thompson left others to debate about them.

Consistently portraying himself as naïve anti-celebrity, without media

presentation skills, he even starts concerts obviously nervous, as if he is not

used to stage. Only later he relax, but still not completely.

In 2002 he published album entitled Alas My People where he completely

abandoned any love lyrics or experiments with the music styles. He

remained heavily focused on the sound of ethno music especially from his

region but dressed up in heavy metal. That kind of hybrid style existed on his

former albums but not as a trademark. From that point on as Catherine

Baker (2010) reasonably points he completely repressed his former career

and invent Thompson, as we know today. In those days appeared mentioned

"foundational myth" that was a product of the specific position Thompson

get in the public space, as a individual in constant struggle with the "forces of

the evil" that are infiltrated in the institutions, media and politics. His way of

normalizing transgression was to represent himself as a victim. And he used

all mentioned models. Marshall’s explained that television star inscribe

problems from private life to media in order to familiarize with audience.

Thompson used same token to represent his celebrity sign as sign for

everybody that feels restrained by the mainstream media discourse. Nobody

knew anything about his private opinions and values2. The main song from

the album might serve as a good explanation. In song he gave a picture of

himself as just another victim in the history:

From the time of Christ

New faces, same scene

Devil’s forces put an effort

To diminish us

Antichrists and Freemasons

Communists, and others

Spreading their satanic chants

To defat us

Alas my people

To be a victim is one of the strongest components of identification in the

Balkans. Recent ethnographic account of Michaela Schauble describe such

collective identification in the area of Sinj, small town in Dalmatia hinterland

(not very far from the Čavoglave, birth village of Thompson.) In her book she

describes ritual held by the pit (jama) where some of the Ustaša soldiers

2 More precisely he stopped mentioning his private life, upbringing, personal memories or political background. Before 2002 he used to talk how his grandfather was Ustaša and his family fight against communism. He started to speak only about Croatian unity and heroism of war veterans.

were killed by the communist government immediately after the 2nd world

war in 1945 without any prosecution. By adopting the interpretation of Jeffry

Alexander in which he claims that facing own trauma often resulting in the

refusing to recognize the trauma of the other she concludes that: “Such or

similar dynamics of denial are to be found on various levels of private and

public discourse in all parts of the former Yugoslavia” (Schauble 2014,152)

This specific voluntary self-victimization is not invented recently. This kind

of discourse appeared in 16th century and then was employed during the 19th

century after Balkan get liberated from the Ottoman rule. Newly liberated

societies represented themselves as antemurali christianitatis as border

lands that for centuries fought against Turks. Self portrayed as victims of the

war that lasted for centuries they expected something in return. During

socialist time, although official international politics of Yugoslavia was

focused on Non-Aligned Movement all nationalist from member states of

SFRJ (Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia) have understood

themselves as fighters against communism and for the democracy. Thus in

Croatia still exist numerous public figures, historians, writers and scientists3

in constant effort to interpret fascist Ustaša movement from the Second

World War as at least partly democratic movement and not as founders of

fascist totalitarian state that actively participated in Holocaust, had racist

legislation, and established death camps (see more in Rajković 2011). In case

of the song Alas My People Thompson situated himself as the fighter for

democracy and patriot, not a fascist by strong invocation of the antemurali

christianitatis myth. But to be completely successful he introduced

interpretation that media and politics are still controlled by communists and

liberals who are against Croatian independency, tradition and Christianity.

War veterans, became in his songs people who were betrayed by the politics

and media. Instead of getting as much symbolical recognition as they

supposedly deserve they faced lack of public interest and attention for their

3 Due to public debate considering Thompson two editors, one mathematician and another journalist published a book under the title Thompson In The Eyes of Croatian Intellectuals in 2009. Book is collection of interviews; essays and short articles from newspapers written in order to defend Thompson.

achievements4. And state administrative assistance in transferring them to

ICTY served as a main proof of betrayal. In world that Thompson try to build

in his songs such actions would be unimaginable. In that universe soldiers

are victorious in defending their own country and due to that fact they

cannot be guilty of anything.

Not just that he successfully familiarized with the audience, he also succeed

in transferring his celebrity sign in different media and genres, such as

political talk shows and news that normally has nothing to do with the pop

and rock singers. According to Driessens (2012) celebritization works

through three different processes democratization, diversification and

migration. Taking his private life out of the picture Thompson as celebrity

sign successfully migrated to different social fields, especially politics and

religion. Around that sign different social forces established and gain

possibility for articulation no matter weather they support or criticize

Thompson. As celebrity he works as a form of sign through which any

individual in society can represent herself/himself as member of the specific

group that share common worldview.

Another important gain for Thompson is de-contextualization of his sign. He

cut off dependency with political issues. Although in 2003 Socialists lost

election and right wing Croatian Democratic Union raised back to power his

position didn't change, war generals were still in The Hague, war veterans

felt insecure and abandoned, and war itself was more and more distant past.

New government was preparing Croatia for the European Union and, instead

of remembering and celebrating the war, official discourse was focused on

reconciliation, regional cooperation and human rights issues. In 2006

Thompson organized huge concert in his village Čavoglave as counter-

celebration of war operation Storm to official one held in Knin (officially

called Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and Day of Croatian

Defenders). Čavoglave celebration attracted about 50000 people and next

year even 100000. His celebration in Čavoglave became a tradition.

Thompson today likes to call it folk party, as genuine voice of the people

4 There are of course as with war veterans around the world same problems of reintegration back to society. Specific issue are those handicapped. But in this text I will not go further to this issue, I will address the war veterans as specific subjectivity structure produced by Thompson.

instead of voice of the politician and media who are restrained by different

interests. Čavoglave celebration is focused just on victory and remembering

of killed soldiers, unlike those official in Knin that partly shows remorse and

sorrow for the civilian victims of the military operation.

In case of Čavoglave “folk party” we can identify one more myth that

surprisingly originated in its most popular form in Serbia. It was called anti-

bureaucratic revolution. Milošević invented it in order to homogenize

Serbian people and mobilized them for the war. Renata Salecel interprets one

important part of Serbian nationalism and anti-bureaucratic revolution as

mythical difference: “between real men – workers, men of people – and

bureaucrats. In this mythology the bureaucrat is portrayed as a middle-class

feudal master, a kid-gloved capitalist with a top hat and tie, ‘clean outside

and dirty within’, in real contrast to the worker, the man of the nation, ‘dirty

on the outside, but pure within’… Bureaucrats are not men because of their

alienation from tradition and their betrayal of the heroic Serbian people”

(Salecl 1994,23) Betrayal is one of the key words used by Thompson and war

veteran activists. Political and media elites are portrayed as Yugoslav

communists who hate Croatian independence or have some selfish interests.

Of course for tradition to be operative it is inevitably important that tradition

is obsolete or lost, otherwise it is not a tradition. To be faithful to tradition

thus always presuppose Other who took it away and constantly threating to

completely diminish even the last traces of it. Žižek described this process in

Eastern Europe as specific reflection of Lacanian notion of “enjoyment”: “We

always impute to ‘other’ an excessive enjoyment: he wants to steal our

enjoyment (by ruining our way of life) and/or he has access to some secret,

perverse enjoyment.” (Žižek 1997,202) In Croatia after the war the original

Other (Serbs) did not represent any threat for national enjoyment Thompson

provided narrative to identify new threat for national identity – liberal

values and secularism.

As supportive evidence may serve protest of the war veterans that started in

winter 2014 (and still going on) in front of the Ministry of veterans. They

invented a slogan "In 1991 against Yugoslavia, in 2014 against Yugoslavs!"

Veterans are demanding different kind of treatment of war and their role in

it, or in one word they are demanding the truth of the war. Veterans perceive

treatment of the war in the schools and media as insufficient and against the

Croatian people. Those who publicly confronted them were accused as the

one deceived by media or as members of the secret service of the former

socialist Yugoslavia (UDBA). For them UDBA never cease to exit and still

operate against Croatian interests in some illegal and hidden realms where

every important decision is made.

Normalizing of Thompson’s transgression thus introduced new

interpretation of the society populated with invented new (but basically

disguised century old) enemies. Simultaneously that transgression gave

possibility to his audience for transgression of norms and values at least

during the concert.

Audience response

But there is still a mystery why exactly Thompson and not some other singer

of patriotic and nationalistic songs (and there were dozens of them), more

attuned to more popular styles then folk metal, became so popular? To

answer this question we must take two different path of argumentation. One

is to take under examination the way in which turbo folk became so popular

in Croatia and another to analyze Thompson from the point of subject of

enunciation as was proposed by French linguist Oswald Ducrot. Presented

short story about Thompson then could be read in different light.

We have to employ turbo folk because it is, like Thompson, strange that

music understood as Serbian product and completely (like Thompson in that

sense) evicted from the media in the first days of war, never to return, find a

way to become one of the popular genres. This kind of music was listened in

Croatia during and after the war. Popular Serbian performers of turbo-folk

just few years after war ended started to tour around Croatia and their

concerts were crowded. Unlike Thompson whose media popularity can be

assigned to social media such as Facebook, Internet portals and YouTube,

turbo-folk stars were imported to Croatia through pirate recordings and

later through TV channels from Bosnia and Herzegovina which signals

reached Croatia. One aspect of consuming the turbo-folk in Croatia is

important although it is of course much more complex issue. It was not easy

to publicly listen to the turbo folk as it was labeled as enemy music, and

enemies' way of enjoyment. Those who could publicly listen to turbo folk in

Croatia during the war were individuals to whom no one had courage to

confront. Such individuals were more or less people with war experience,

warlords, local smugglers and mobsters, essentially people who used war for

their financial profit. Turbo-folk appeared as a soundtrack of transgression,

as symbolic space for expressing power. Those who listened to it were

untouchables and attending the pubs with such kind of music gave certain

people possibility to be identified as wealthy, powerful and dangerous

individuals. Because of this in public imaginary for a long time turbo-folk

bars were connected to crime and night shooting what was not really the

case as Pavlovsky (2014) presented in his recent book about turbo-folk in

Croatia. Nevertheless it was music that opened possibility for individual to

become subject in different discourse then those proposed by the official

cultural politics and to play with her/his identity: "Discovering, imagining and

discarding identities is something that can be accomplished precisely without

penalty through the practice of culture consumption." (Turner 2009, 102) But

as Zižek points using case of identifying in computer games such consumption is

not innocent: ''The mystification operative in the perverse 'just playing' of

cyberspace is therefore double: not only are the games we are playing in it more

serious than we tend to assume (is it not that, in the guise of a fiction, of 'it is just

a game', a subject can articulate and stage features of his symbolic identity -

sadistic, 'perverse', and so on - which he would never be able to admit in

his 'real' intersubjective contacts?), but the opposite also holds, that is, the

much celebrated playing with multiple, shifting (freely constructed identities)

tends to obfuscate (and thus falsely liberated us from) the constraints of social

space in which our existence is trapped." (Žižek 2000,103). Thompson

through his appearance offered such space for transgression similar to those

linked with turbo folk. By attending his concerts people could express

themselves in a ways that would be otherwise inappropriate. Moreover this

misconduct was even shrouded by lyrics of the song. There is nothing offensive

or problematic in the lyrics itself (except already mentioned salutation) but

through Thompson's evocation of the Ustaša regime those lyrics were often

interpreted, at least by the part of his fans, as a hidden code that has to be

deciphered. Even his early songs were thus reinvented again such as chorus of

his early love songs: “Greek girl you has to know/ It is all over now/ Go away

and never come back”, that lot of his fans sing on the concert today as “Serbia

you have to know” giving new meaning to song (lot of them would say

original one) in order to symbolically legitimize Thompson’s change. Reality

is thus not situated in the performance, music or lyrics but in the silence behind

it. The silence I am referring here is what Oswald Ducrot defined as later

discourse. Instead of giving the ideal picture of the subject later discourse

provides symbolic space that subject can fill in with own material. Thompson's

symbolic universe is constructed around constant battle between forces of good

and evil that never ends. Of course Croats devoted to national unity and

traditional values are good while those who accept modernity are treacheries

and Satan adepts. It is easy for his fans to fill content of their particular everyday

reality in such image. One of the fans wrote a letter to Thompson that he proudly

presents at his web site under the title: “It is not Thompson that gathers us here.

We are here due to our love for family and homeland.” The letter is on the web

site because professor of music Eva Kirchmayer Bilić wrote it, giving academic

musical legitimization to Thompson. Even Thompson himself used the same

mechanism in his last hit that is a love song "Only love is the secret of the two

worlds" in which subject as fighter for love can gain victory over death

presenting his quasi-personal experience as heroic act. But to turn back on the

Žižek it gives false idea that concert and performance is the place where exist

liberation from the constraints of social space and some other reality is present.

Contrary to expectation people gathered at the concert after the show go home

in silence and small groups as if the whole event is already forgotten. This fact

supports the conclusion that Baker presented in answering weather Thompson

is really fascist. Namely, she points that fascism is considered in Croatia as

“foreign” ideology and as such not easily adopted among nationalists. Audience

on his concerts and fans sometime used symbols of fascism as a way to express

individual and group discomfort but (as elections shows) they are not ready to

support any fascist public policy. On the other hand it should not be forgotten

that place where is possible to transgress social norms might be not as innocent.

In case of Thompson due to his way of using media space there is always

possibility for contamination of everyday reality with fantasy construction. It is

not therefore hard to imagine possible violence directed toward people that

publicly show discomfort with Thompson’s interpretation of reality.

Conclusion

Thompson through his transgression simply modeled his songs and

appearance to fit media discourse. Thus instead of become part of the

celebrity and music news and shows, he became object of interest of all kind

of news. He celebrified something that critics would still calls serious part of

media sphere. So, he is media product after all, but in inverse fashion that

those that we know from more common cases. Through myth that he

produced about himself as an ordinary guy who just appeared to have some

talent he is not very far from the celebrity from the talent show, but instead

of formally institutional form of talent shows that we can watch on different

channels, he used last Balkan war and history as a reality show. And war was

among other things a giant media product. By different media representation

and coverage of the war a lot has been lost or remain unacknowledged.

Therefore war veterans, especially those who remain disabled, felt like war

almost didn't happen and that what is publicly known about the war is more

or less lie. That is the reason why they demand "truth" about the war every

time they protest. What Thompson provides them trough such peculiar

celebrity position is that "truth", but not as a some real thing but more as a

empty place ready to be filled with their emotions and memories. The name

for this empty space of reality and truth is one of Lacanian object of the drive

- gaze. It is a part of the visible area that has to be repressed in order to

produce meaningful picture (like the light itself, or the backstage of the

theatric play, or stuff and technology used for shooting at movie set). The

problem is of course that when this backstage is revealed it starts to conceal

new object. Idea that there is a real gaze, and obsessive pursuit for it, can

produce paranoid behavior such as believe in strong evil forces that forbid

seeing the whole truth as in case of Thompson or as constant waiting for

appearance of the true self of the inhabitance in the Big Brother house.

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