“Vanessa Díaz pulls back the curtain on Hollywood and the people who photograph and write about the movie stars of today and tomorrow. Manufacturing Celebrity is a must-read for anyone desiring keenly observed insights into the struggles of immigrants and women trying to catch some of the stardust in Hollywood’s dream factory. Their stories reveal a Hollywood undergoing change that is often resisted as it grapples with the contemporary demographic reality of the United States.”
LEO R. CHAVEZ
author of The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation
About the Author
Dr. Vanessa Díaz is a multimedia ethnographer and journalist whose work focuses on issues of race, gender, and labor in popular culture across the Americas. Grounded in her experience as a red carpet reporter for People magazine, Díaz’s first book Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood focuses on hierarchies of labor as well as racial and gender politics in the production of celebrity-focused media. Díaz is a co-author of UCLA’s 2017 Hollywood Diversity Report, director of the film Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio, and the media editor for Transforming Anthropology. Her research has been profiled in such outlets as the Atlantic and the Los Angeles Times. Díaz is an assistant professor in the Department of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University.