Fame: The Hijacking of Reality

By Justine Bateman

"Wholly riveting."
--New York Times Book Review

"Justine Bateman was famous before selfies replaced autographs, and bags of fan mail gave way to Twitter shitstorms. And here's the good news: she took notes along the way. Justine steps through the looking glass of her own celebrity, shatters it, and pieces together, beyond the shards and splinters, a reflection of her true self. The transformation is breathtaking. Revelatory and raucous, fascinating and frightening, Fame is a hell of a ride."
--Michael J. Fox, actor, author of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future

"In a new book, Fame: The Hijacking of Reality, the two-time Emmy nominee takes a raw look at the culture of celebrity, reflecting on her stardom at its dizzying peak--and the 'disconcerting' feeling as it began to fade."
--People Magazine

A Book Soup (Los Angeles, CA) best seller, October 15–21, 2018

"As the title Fame: The Hijacking of Reality more than implies, this is a book about the complicated aspects of all things fame."
--Vanity Fair

"Bateman digs into the out-of-control nature of being famous, its psychological aftermath and why we all can't get enough of it."
--New York Post

"The Family Ties alum has written the rawest, bleakest book on fame you're ever likely to read. Bateman's close-up of the celeb experience features vivid encounters with misogyny, painful meditations on aging in Hollywood, and no shortage of theses on social media's wrath."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Bateman addresses the reader directly, pouring out her thoughts in a rapid-fire, conversational style. (Hunter S. Thompson is saluted in the acknowledgments.)...But her jittery delivery suits the material--the manic sugar high of celebrity and its inevitable crash. Bateman takes the reader through her entire fame cycle, from TV megastar, whose first movie role was alongside Julia Roberts, to her quieter life today as a filmmaker. She is as relentless with herself as she is with others."
--Washington Post

"While Bateman's new book Fame: The Hijacking of Reality (out now) touches on the former teen starlet's experience in the public eye, it's not a memoir. Far from it, in fact--it's instead an intense meditation on the nature of fame, and a glimpse into the repercussions it has on both the individual experiencing it and the society that keeps the concept alive."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Bateman takes an unsentimental look at the nature of celebrity worship in her first book, Fame: The Hijacking of Reality."
--LA Weekly

Entertainment shows, magazines, websites, and other channels continuously report the latest sightings, heartbreaks, and triumphs of the famous to a seemingly insatiable public. Millions of people go to enormous lengths to achieve Fame. Fame is woven into our lives in ways that may have been unimaginable in years past.

And yet, is Fame even real? Contrary to tangible realities, Fame is one of those "realities" that we, as a society, have made. Why is that and what is it about Fame that drives us to spend so much time, money, and focus to create the framework that maintains its health?

Mining decades of experience, writer, director, producer, and actress Justine Bateman writes a visceral, intimate look at the experience of Fame. Combining the internal reality-shift of the famous, theories on the public's behavior at each stage of a famous person's career, and the experiences of other famous performers, Bateman takes the reader inside and outside the emotions of Fame. The book includes twenty-four color photographs to highlight her analysis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Release date: Oct 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781617756955

Justine Bateman

Writer, producer, director, and actress Justine Bateman has an impressive resume in entertainment that includes the eighties hit Family Ties, Satisfaction, Men Behaving Badly, The TV Set, Desperate Housewives, Californication, and many more. Her work has earned her two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe nomination. In the fall of 2007, Bateman helped produce the very successful Speechless campaign online in support of the WGA strike as well as directing an episode in the series. She created the production company FM78.tv before forming her current production company, Section 5. Since then she has been sought after as an authority in the space and has spoken on various conference panels including the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Digital Hollywood, NATPE, LATV Fest, ITV Fest, the Branded Content Summit, SXSW, and the PGA's "Produced By" Conference. Bateman has been involved creatively in a multitude of digital projects. She acted in John August's (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) web series Remnants, Illeana Douglas's (Cape Fear, Good Fellas) web series Easy to Assemble, and Anthony Zuiker's (CSI creator) digi-novel series Level 26: Dark Prophecy. Bateman also coproduced and costarred with fashion maven Kelly Cutrone in their Internet talk show, Wake Up and Get Real. Bateman cowrote the adaptation of The Clique for Warner Bros. and produced a Jared Drake film short, Z. Five Minutes, the film short she wrote, directed, and produced, premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival. Bateman recently completed her second short, Push, in which she also stars. Her first feature film, Violet, is in preproduction and her "layered film" productions are currently being developed. Her writing has been published by Dame Magazine, Salon, and McSweeney's. An advocate for Net Neutrality, Bateman has testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on its behalf in Washington, DC, and served as an advisor to FreePress.com.

Reviews for Fame

[davidwineberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So what’s it like to be famous? We hear and see the horror stories, the lengths stars go to avoid exposure to the public, and at the same time, their absurd efforts to keep their fame going. Justine Bateman aims to analyze it for us from her own experience in Fame. Since her own greatest fame occurred between ages 17 and 24, that makes up most of the book.Fame is that most desirable state, except for all the people that come with it. Celebrities need to deal with it rationally, but the media are filled with stories of assaults, bar fights, internet trolling and stalking. Bateman tries to distill it all from her personal experience. That makes this a valuable document. There are some interesting insights. When in public, keep moving. If you stop, people will surround you and you are toast. On the red carpet, keep moving. As soon as the camera-clicking audibly begins to slow, move off. Above all, try not to say what you really want to. Just be polite, despite everything. Despite them grabbing your arm, stroking your hair, inviting you home, or telling you their fantasies about you.In North America, you’re only as famous as your last hit. In Europe, you can be famous for one accomplishment all the rest of your life. She is, inevitably, conflicted. On the one hand she treasures her fame. She is jealous of up and comers who have more of it. On the other hand, she detests fame and all the irrationals criticism of her body, her face, and of her declining fame itself. She googles her name and becomes infuriated at trolls. She takes it seriously and personally. On the other hand, she thinks she has become a much more interesting person since fame has become less of a factor in her life. She has a pilot’s license, a diver’s license, an undergrad degree, and has been in films, plays and has directed – all since her fame began to decline. What really galls her is being treated like a potential troll/stalker by other celebrities, since she is no longer one of them, and they don’t recognize her for who she used to be.Bateman’s writing style is somewhat bothersome. She loves to repeat the same sentences. Repeat the same sentences. It quickly becomes annoying. She loves capitalizing phrases and whole sentences: “I planned to COME HERE TO TELL YOU a thing or two.” Pointless emphasis at best, head-scratching most of the time. She swears continually, adding nothing of interest. The book would be a quarter shorter without all the repetition and the four letter words.Bateman misses the privilege now, but she’s a fuller person without it, and recommends everyone steer clear of Fame as a goal in itself. Just pursue what you love or do best.David Wineberg

[bleached_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fame. It's such an alluring idea. The great goal that many of us secretly dream of achieving. We even start to base our value and success on this idea of fame.How many likes do you have? How many followers? Viewers? We base our self-esteem on other people's perceptions of us. I am just as guilty of this as anyone. I look at my Instagram and wonder how other bookstagramers have hundreds of followers in a matter of weeks, and feel like a failure.In Fame: The Hijacking of Reality, Justine Bateman talks about how the various stages of fame affected her life. But first, what is fame anyway? According to Bateman, it is something that society has created. (Like money. And gender.) Basically, it's all in our head. It doesn't really exist. The jittery, ecstatic feeling you get in the pit in your stomach when you catch sight of someone you've happened to see on TV heading into a Starbucks is only because you and society put more value on them than the pediatric orthopedic surgeon also ordering their morning coffee at said Starbucks.Bateman uses personal experiences to discuss the awkward, scary, and humiliating descent into non-fame, while giving glimpses of what it was like in the glory days and how fame has changed over the years. What fascinated me was how she witnessed the shift in our culture to the celebrity-obsessed, social media frenzy it is today. When she was on TV in the 1980s, paparazzi didn't wait to ambush you taking your garbage out in your pajamas and messy hairdo and then claim that you are in a major depression due to a bad breakup that never happened. Or how social media gives instant access to celebrities in a way that used to involve postage and too much effort to let someone know that you think they look like a cow who contracted smallpox and hope they die.As you may have noticed, this subject was absolutely fascinating to me and Bateman had me hooked from the first page. It was gritty and raw at times, with a lot of obvious passion. Her style of writing felt as though I wasn't reading her book, but rather she was sitting across from me relaying stories complete with inflections and gesticulations. Sometimes I felt that the F-bombs were a tad over-dropped, and some of the stories were introduced and dismissed too quickly, but the point was always made with a swift punch.Overall, Bateman's blatant, unapologetic commentary was on point. It reiterated what I already knew about our society being totally messed up, as well as made me examine some of my own ideologies of celebrities. It is a good read, especially if you have the desire to one day reach the status of FAMOUS in big, sparkly letters.

[tina0822-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Justine Bateman has some anger issues! I was hoping to get an insiders view of fame and I did, somewhat, along with a lot of 'F' bombs and angry rants. Justine did touch on some interesting points on how fame has changed over the decades, how Americans put more importance on fame, and she walks us through the steps of losing fame but her ranting conversational style of writing was off putting. Overall the book was a quick read and made me look at fame in a whole new light.

[audramelissa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Justine Bateman insists this is not a memoir early on in the book. And it isn't, not really. But it's also impossible for her not to insert her own experiences into her exploration of the life cycle of fame and theories on why people react they way they do to the famous. I don't think this takes away from the work, but rather helps the reader get to know Bateman as the human she is not just as one of the famous or once very famous. Her stream of consciousness and conversational writing style also helps as she addresses the reader directly. I thought this was a really honest work and useful in examining how reality TV, the internet and social media have changed what it means (and what it takes to be famous).

[Sheri Ferrell · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I had to stop reading it. I understand this is her account of fame, but it’s really just a lot of ranting. It’s not written well, it’s very fractured. I don’t mind cussing, but it’s seems to over take everything. And as she reads it’s she is very breathless and angry. A lot of repetitious sentences and parts of sentences. It’s too bad, because I really wanted to like it

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fame: The Hijacking of Reality from Justine Bateman both was and was not what I was expecting. I knew it was not simply a tell-all memoir, every blurb made that clear. Yet there were plenty of memoir-ish elements to give it a bit of a memoir feel. I was expecting a fairly straightforward discussion of what fame is and, as the sub-title implies, how it hijacks reality for both the famous and those caught up in worshiping fame from the outside. I did get some of that but it was supplemented by the specifics of how fame affected Bateman. The book took some getting used to and while it could easily have been just a couple hour read I spread it out over a couple days to give it a chance to sink in. Reading a book quickly, especially one that is nonfiction and thus is not simply a story to be gotten through, is not always a positive.My impression of the book is far more positive than negative. I took her profanity and expressions of how things felt for her to be a glimpse into the personal side of the more negative aspects of fame. During the part of the book where she expressed her emotions openly she generally followed it with how a theorist has or might view the dynamic she had just described. Once I began to look at it within that structure I started to get more from the book. Because of how I think I would have liked a little more theorizing (either her own or others, or both) but I would not have eliminated the open expression of what it felt, and sometimes still feels, like. The combination showed the dynamic between the imposed fame and those affected by it, from fans and acquaintances to those being sprayed with the fame. Were there rants? I don't know that I would call them that, rants usually imply venting with no discernible purpose beyond the pressure relief of venting. Whether the style worked for you or not it did have and served a purpose, so as commonly understood no, I don't consider them rants.Toward the end of the book there are fewer of the more forceful emotional discussions because in the flow of the overall book we had moved past the chaotic aspect of full blown fame and were dealing with perceiving the differences between fame and accomplishment, between putting the fame away (which is significantly different from having fame taken away, putting it away is more like finishing a book and putting it back on the shelf with only some recollection of what you liked or disliked about it) and dealing with it being constantly measured and reflected back. I did tend to prefer this part of the book but I also think it is because she made the pain and confusion of the chaos of fame so personal that I was happy to be out of the chaos myself.I would recommend this to readers who are curious about fame beyond just the gossip and headlines. Fame and the culture of fame does not just affect those who are considered famous. Bateman touches on what it does to and says about society as a whole, though the focus is largely on the part with which she is intimately familiar, namely the sudden and all-encompassing fame. While fans of her work will likely enjoy the book I think some may be disappointed that it isn't an actual memoir.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[oregonreader · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Bateman insists that this book is not a memoir. The word I would use to describe it is a rant. Her pain is very understandable. She clearly harbors a great deal of anger and resentment of how fame and it's decline caused her life and personality to change in a negative way. I am sure many other famous people feel the same. But this is not a thoughtful account of the process. She doesn't seem to have any real understanding of what fame is, only the results. She doesn't explain how the good and bad parts of fame unfold. She writes as though this transformation happened overnight. Part of the problem is with her writing style. It is conversational and reads like a young girl spilling all to her girlfriends with endless repetitions, swearing, and rambling. She needed a good editor.

[dlong810 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I quit reading this book after 100 pages. Instead of an insightful analysis of the consequences of "fame" to me it was a childish rant. The anger flew off of the pages and examples of insults, slights, etc. just didn't measure up to Bateman's tirade. People who become obsessed with celebrities such as the Kardashians might learn something from reading this book but as I have a real life this topic was not one that I could relate to at all.

[jreynolds1959 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While Justine Bateman says this is not a memoir, it kind of is. There is a definite attempt to define what FAME is and all the down and up sides to it, but the book is full of circumstances about things that happened to her, with the FAME and then without it. Personally, FAME doesn't sound like anything I would want or any of the downfall after FAME has gone. Like she states, be who you are and do what you want, be good at what you do.