Jim Carrey does not exist. A celebrity quasi-autoethnography for the end of the world

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2299-7458.13.12

Keywords:

celebrities, Jim Carrey, autoethnography, auto-fiction, autobiography

Abstract

Jim Carrey is a literal illustration of the fulfillment of the American Dream: his story begins with economic disadvantage and a large family as well as the Canadian stand-up scene, and ends with becoming a multimillionaire Hollywood celebrity. Best known for his blockbusters of the 1990s, including comedies rather than dramas, Carrey has for decades been created and perceived as the financial and pop culture embodiment of celebrity. Approaching sixty, he is releasing a quasi-autobiography, which genre-wise, author-wise and meaning-wise separates him from classic celebrity biographies and creates a completely unique cultural guerrilla based on years of deconstructing his own image. Memoirs and Misinformation forms a palimpsest of themes and gestures of self-discovery and self-destruction; disenchanting simulacrums of a celebrity persona and environment, wealth, popularity, corporeality and loneliness. Finally, they create webs of connections between fiction and reality, the biblical Apocalypse and the one caused by UFOs: all to prove that Jim Carrey does not exist.

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Author Biography

  • Klaudia Węgrzyn, Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach

    Klaudia Węgrzyn – główne nurty zainteresowań: autobiografizm, cielesność, trauma, neuroróżnorodność, queer, miasto. Najważniejsze publikacje: Pamięć (za)chowana w ciele. Prześnione powroty w „Pogrzebie kartofla”, “The Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture. New Series” 2021, nr 14(2); Archeologia antyfotografii. Wywoływanie zdjęć i widm z Sanoka w pracach Jerzego Lewczyńskiego oraz Zdzisława Beksińskiego, [w:] Pamięć, obraz, projekcja, red. A. Ścibior, 2020; Inna strona. Wizualność i wizualizacja obcości w filmach Jana Jakuba Kolskiego, [w:] Inność? Obcość? Norma?, red. K. Zakrzewska, Warszawa 2018.

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Published

2024-12-31

How to Cite

Węgrzyn, Klaudia. 2024. “Jim Carrey Does Not Exist. A Celebrity Quasi-Autoethnography for the End of the World”. Czytanie Literatury. Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze, no. 13 (December): 213-26. https://doi.org/10.18778/2299-7458.13.12.