The social-historical context in which Nicole Kidman is situated offers me clues to anticipating (hypothesise) how she will most likely be represented in the three chosen texts/articles. Having a successful (showbiz) performance history during the last decade in Australia and Hollywood, Kidman deserves access to the media and the reverse is also true. Additionally, Kidman’s social identities as a female and an actress and her effort and care to her two children, have provided mass media an opportunity to create celebrity new stories about a “female hero”. In constructing such a character and in order for the media to report the changes in Kidman’s life as a more newsworthy topic within the celebrity industry, I hypothesise that media representations will first victimise Kidman in the divorce matter, and then, by contrast, portray her as an adaptable, responsible, strong and successful woman. In the rest of this essay, I will test the hypothesis by examining the linguistic performance and overall organisation of the three chosen texts. Due to limited space here, I will only raise a few examples from each text for discussion.
Text 1 appeared in Woman’s Day six months after Kidman and Cruise’s divorce. The only way for ‘ordinary’ people to access to Nicole Kidman’s personal life is through the mass media. Media representations (television programs, newspaper articles, magazines, etc), which are made up by journalists, are the only source of this information. Hence, the way in which journalists organise and present the text, and how language is used in the text have significant influence on readers’ interpretation on the issue addressed. The ‘truth’ of how Nicole Kidman feels about the divorce, how she actually cope with the situation and her actual personality are not important and are beyond the scope of my analysis. Instead, I am interested in how Kidman is being represented by the ‘linguistic features’ in the three chosen magazine articles. In text 1, Kidman is victimised. This is observed to be done by word choice and nominalisation. For example in the header of Text 1:
“Nicole Kidman talks candidly about Tom’s betrayal, finding inner strength and new love.”
The separation of Kidman and Cruise is portrayed by “Tom’s betrayal”. This negative other-presentation (of Cruise) victimises Kidman. Also, nominalisation of the verb betray has an effect of gaining readers’ acceptance on the ‘fact’ of “Tom’s betrayal”. Readers are more easily to challenge assuming if the header is written like this, “After Tom betrayed Nicole, Nicole finds her inner strength and new love”. The sentence Tom betrays Nicole is more argumentative than the noun phrase Tom’s betrayal since the noun form hides the sharpness and sensitivity of the action betray. Another example of linguistic feature that victimise Kidman in text 1 are as follow:
“But upsetting Tom is the small-time compared with the trauma Nicole now admits he made her endure.
The part of the sentence “the trauma Nicole now admits he made her endure” has its effects to again victimise Kidman and to also portray her as virtuous. Here, instead of using moderate words such as unhappiness and experience, the writer uses the words trauma and endure to symbolised their marriage. And the full burden or responsibility of ‘creating’ and ‘imposing’ this trauma onto Kidman is shifted to Cruise as “Nicole now admits he made her endure”. The performative verb “admit” raises the authenticity of what Cruise ‘had done to’ Kidman since one can not admit to something while that something remains a fact. In other words, if the sentence is rewritten as “…compared with the trauma Nicole says he made her endure”, readers are more likely to doubt the believability of the same issue since one can tell lies. Finally, insertion of the word “now” in front of “admits” simply but subtly constructs a virtuous Kidman by implying that she has been keeping the ‘suffering’ secret to herself until the very last moment – divorcement.
The overall organisation of text 1 is symbolised by frequent quotes directly from what Kidman says. Direct quotations not only make text 1 more pitchy and colourful, also, make readers more easily to be convinced. Tuchman (1978, as cited in Bell) suggests that a direct quote is valued as a particularly incontrovertible fact because it is the newsmaker’s own words. It is true that direct quotations have such a power as described by Tuchman, I further observe that such a power can be maximised when writers carefully locate and frame the direct quotations in their texts. In text 1, direct quotations from Kidman are mixed with comments as a form of conjunction paragraph written by the writer, to form a smooth story line. By doing this, writer can arrange ‘suitable’ quotations that fit the story line to be appeared in certain spot of the text. And there is also a possibility for the writer to leave out ‘unwanted’ information provided by the newsmaker(s). Text 2 is a good example of a guided coverage in constructing a successful, responsible and adaptable Nicole Kidman.
Text 2 appeared in Woman’s Day almost one year after Kidman and Cruise’s divorce. The overall organisation of text 2 is in a question-and-answer format like an actual interview between the columnist, Liz and Kidman. All information provided by Kidman is appeared as the form of direct quotations. I have already gone through direct quotation in terms of its functions and power. In analysing text 2, I will focus on the interaction format and how quotations are arranged and managed by the writer. Media discourse and the discourse of interview privileges journalists to access to the personal life of, say, a celebrity by asking questions. The power relationship between Kidman and Liz in an interview underlies Liz’s right and ability to choose the topics and manage the interaction. In text 2, Liz has asked Kidman 30 questions. Half of these questions are related to her children and family, and the rest are mostly related to her business success, remarriage and perspective on life. All these topics help construct a successful, responsible and adaptable Nicole Kidman. For example, discussion of Kidman’s excellent relationship with her sister and parents earns Kidman a filial, good daughter image. Discussion of her effort on the two children earns Kidman a good mother image. These images ideologically set up the prerequisites of a successful woman. It is not important for me to investigate whether or not Kidman is a good daughter or mother in reality, but it is important for journalists to maintain Kidman’s successful image in order to keep up her ‘newsworthiness’ and remain her as a subject in the celebrity industry. A reason why Nicole Kidman has significant media exposure within the celebrity industry among woman’s magazine is because of her social identities and her divorce experience with Tom Cruise. Kidman is a successful actress (business woman), a mother of two children, a good sister, a good daughter, a beauty and a divorced woman. All these criteria satisfy a variety of women magazine readers’ curiosity. Therefore, journalists are more likely to focusing on these ‘qualities’ possessed by Kidman when interviewing her, like the one done in text 2 by celebrity columnist, Liz.
Another magazine article (text 3) appeared in Who Weekly recently this year represents Kidman as a beautiful and confident woman in terms of her “new look” and her career success. Although Kidman had already been separated from Cruise for a long period of time (more than one year) when text 3 is published, the writer borrows the victimised role of Kidman that is constructed in earlier texts to magnify her career success and personal qualities. Since ‘victim’ represents weaknesses, earlier texts that victimised Kidman as a result of the divorce have done an ideological job preparing later texts to be able to magnify Kidman’s successes. This is because reporting a person’s changes from ‘weak’ to ‘successful’ is more remarkable and newsworthier than reporting changes from ‘normal’ to ‘successful’. The ideological work of victimising Kidman during the early stage in the aftermath of the divorcement has extended the lifespan of her discourse of celebrity.
In text 3, the writer has provided a linkage between the reported success of Kidman and the victimised role of Kidman as constructed in earlier texts. This linkage is important since it implies the extra effort that Kidman needs to struggle in achieving the level of success. It is this connection that makes Kidman’s success more successful and her beauty more beautiful. In interpreting text 3, readers are frequently reminded with the “trauma” that Kidman has “endured” in a number of ways. For example in the following:
“She chooses her spirit to live,” says Rouge Sante director Baz Luhrmann, a first-hand witness to Kidman’s emotional healing. “You can’t side-coach someone to do something like that.”
The labelling of “a first-hand witness to Kidman’s emotional healing” to the director, has reminded the readers with the victim of divorce – the then Nicole Kidman.
While having equipped the readers’ ability to compare past weaknesses and current success of Kidman, the writer includes many direct quotations from showbiz professionals, such as stylists, hairdressers and directors, to gain readers’ approval on Kidman’s “new look”. All these professional comments, quoted by the writer, are positive. There is not a single comment showing disapproval of Kidman’s “new” style and appearance. As I have mentioned earlier in the discussion of text 1, here, direct quotations containing all positive professional comments influence readers to agree on Kidman’s physical beautifulness and attractiveness. Also, the writer uses numerical figure to attain similar effect, as in:
“In a 400 strong crowd…, it was Kidman’s dramatic new look that turned heads.”
To the readers, how many people are included in the “strong crowd” is actually not important. The use of numerical figure to specify the number of people of the crowd is to provide an intelligence of accuracy and authenticity of the reported matter: Kidman is beautiful and attractive.
To conclude, the three chosen texts within the media discourse have all take advantage on the divorce matter of Kidman to create a contrast between her past ‘weaknesses’ and current successes. Again, language is always contextualised. Thus, discussion of my discourse analysis on the three texts is structured in an order of their publish time, from old to new. Interpretation of a text is based on discourses and one’s existing ideology, our contact with everyday texts is a discursive practice that equips us with different ideologies. For example, ‘victimisation’ of Kidman in her divorce matter in text 1 is a discursive practice of forming ideology that influence writers and readers in the future creation and interpretation of text 2 and text 3, as I have discussed. Discourse analysis of the three texts suggests that language will not be used the same way on other occasions.
Reference:
Adams, Elizabeth. “Then and Wow.” Who Weekly 17 June, 2002: 24-27,
Smith, Liz. “I’m wiser and kinder now.” Woman’s Day Australian 3 December, 2001: 8-11.
Eisenberg, Arianna. “I still believe in love.” Woman’s Day Australian 27 August, 2001: 8-9.
Bell, H. The Language of News Media Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.