"Is This The Real Life?": Life Writing of Freddie Mercury Across Media

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dc.contributor.advisorKersten, D.
dc.contributor.advisorMunteán, L.
dc.contributor.authorMeeuwis, F.E.H.M.
dc.date.issued2017-07-11
dc.description.abstractLife writing—which is defined as all forms of autobiographical and biographical text that attempt to record or capture the life of a real person—is strongly based in written, literary, and print media. Yet, in recent years, more and more scholars recognise that the telling of life narratives occurs in a variety of ways, across genres and media. In the case of life writing about celebrities, such acts of life writing need to deal not only with the life itself, but also with pre-existing images, ideas, and myths surrounding the celebrity, as celebrities and their images are represented and circulated through a range of media. The celebrity figure is shaped by these intermedial forces. Therefore, life writing of celebrities should be analysed against the background of the intermedial context of the celebrity. This thesis will take Freddie Mercury, frontman of the British rock band Queen, as a focal point and will explore life writings of Freddie Mercury across media. The aim of this research is to analyse several forms of life writing, in different media, about Freddie Mercury in order to explore how representation is constructed and how the medium shapes the cultural afterlife. How does the interaction between different life narratives across media shape the cultural afterlife of Freddie Mercury? For this purpose, this thesis analyses three case objects: Lesley-Ann Jones’ biography Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (2012), Tribute: Freddie Mercury (2015) written by Mike Lynch and illustrated by Manuel Díaz, and BBC documentary film Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender (2012) directed by Rhys Thomas. The case objects thus comprise a written text, a comic book, and a documentary film. It discusses these three texts in terms of mediality, modality and intermediality in order to determine how these shape the representation and cultural afterlife of Freddie Mercury. In doing so it will reveal the relevance of discussing life writing within a (inter)medial context.en_US
dc.embargo.lift2117-07-11
dc.identifier.urihttp://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/4629
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.thesis.facultyFaculteit der Letterenen_US
dc.thesis.specialisationCreative Industriesen_US
dc.thesis.studyprogrammeMaster Kunst- en Cultuurwetenschappenen_US
dc.thesis.typeMasteren_US
dc.title"Is This The Real Life?": Life Writing of Freddie Mercury Across Mediaen_US
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