This week I decided to do a news comment about the feature I found on a celebrity since we talked about it in class. This feature talks about Patti LuPone (shocker I know). It focuses on her current run in War Paint, her rise to fame, and her “famous” feud with Andrew Lloyd Weber.

This story frames her as having a “painful” life. It talks about all her onstage injuries, her career slump after Evita, how she couldn’t be type cast but also played a lot of *gasp* “secondary characters.” It was a very odd angle to take with her career. She is legendary for what she does and this kind of makes her sound whiney.

It also definitely takes the “she is just like the rest of us” angle as well. It talks early on about how she attended the interview in pajamas, how she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, and how she is “vanity-free.” She didn’t want to play herself on TV because she is just a working actor. She has a kid and a husband and isn’t that so relatable, guys!

Overall I think the frame of this is a little confused. Maybe the writer was trying to take a chance and be creative with the framing to dispute the “diva bitch” image but to me it just made LuPone sound whiney.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/patti-lupone-on-her-painful-rise-to-broadway-stardom-i-was-my-biggest-enemy/2017/04/06/413c7c5a-13c3-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.0b34afd211b0