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«Look Who's Gone!» Chester Bennington as a Media Hero of Our Time

Received: 23 July 2019     Accepted: 29 October 2019     Published: 30 January 2020
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Abstract

The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding American rock musician, singer, poet, charity man, frontman of Linkin Park – Chester Charles Bennington. The text is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon of creativity and personality of Bennington as a media hero on a global scale, aesthetically, mentally and ethically influenced on the mental health of several generations in the first two decades of the new century. Using the fragments from the huge stream of comments in the Network for the musician's departure, the author analyzes some semantic blocks of these messages, revealing in them functional and typological coincidences with the heroes from traditional myths. In particular, the analysis of some semantic blocks of intertext on the death of Chester Bennington, suggests that similar to the heroes of traditional myths, Chester as a media hero performed paternalistic and soteriological functions, acted as an object of adoration (idol), was a role model, his departure marked for millions of fans keen sense of the passage of time. Also in the article, an attempt was made identify the specific features of the media hero, which are due to the special sphere of its existence, namely, media reality. Short, full of incredible turns, hard work, harmful tragic passions, love and compassion, the fate of Chester Bennington during his life began to acquire legendary features.

Published in History Research (Volume 8, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.history.20200801.12
Page(s) 12-18
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Chester Bennington, A Media Hero, Myth, Function of Adoration, Soteriological Function, Similar Function, Quasicult, Rock-culture, Ascendes/Discendes Hero, People's Religiosity

References
[1] Eno, Brian. Intro – from Anton Corbijn`s book “Star trak”. Schirmer/ Mosel, 1996, 144 p.
[2] Lasch, Christofer. “The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations”. N. Y., 1978; p. 250.
[3] Baudrillard, Jean. “La Transparence du Mal”. Galilée, 1990, p. 179; Quoting from Бодрийяр Ж. «Прозрачность зла». М., 2000, с. 33-34.
[4] Allusion to the title of one of J. Baudrillard's early works – “Le system des objets”, Paris, Gallimard, 1968, p. 288.
[5] Valery Savchuk. The inevitability of media philosophy. Electronic resource, access mode: http://mediaphilosophy.ru/biblioteca/articles/savchuk_inevitability/ date accessed: 16.06.2018.
[6] Ibid. http://mediaphilosophy.ru/biblioteca/articles/savchuk_inevitability/ date accessed: 16.06.2018.
[7] Heidegger, Martin. “Works and reflections of different years”. – M.: Gnosis - 1993, 317 p.
[8] By analogy with the period that took place in the history of art and philosophy of culture, called "la Belle Epoque" - "Beautiful era", denoting some idealized idea of the time between 1820 and 1890 of the XIX century – a period of intense progressive development of all aspects of society, accompanied by impressive artistic achievements.
[9] Plato. Feast. // Electronic resource, access mode: http|//lib.ru/POEEAST/PLATO/pir.txt/ accessed 25.05.2018.
[10] Interestingly, in the Gothic era, these concepts came closer. Thus, the knight with delight and a sense of worship treated the object of his love, dedicating the lady "feats", and the Holy virgin was called "Our Lady" (Notre Dame) and often she acted as the object of love experiences. Many stories of this kind leads a poet, a compiler, and Church figure of the XIII century Gautier de Quincy (Gautier de Coinci) in the book "the Life and miracles of the virgin" (La vie et Les Miracles de Notre Dame), compiled by the monastery's prior, in the mid-thirteenth century.
[11] “Revelations”. Ed. R. Hollway. Transl. from English. V. Bolotnikova /M.: "Ad Marginem Press", 2009, P. 170.
[12] Ibid., p. p. 170-176.
[13] Ibid., p. p. 278, 284.
[14] The terms proposed by the author of this text - F. Foortai. For the first time this terminology appeared in the article: Foortai, Francisca. «“Virility” as a way to immortality: to the problem of visualize archetype of courage in ancient Greek classical sculpture»//International Journal of Cultural Research. «Tanatos and Culture», p. 179-188, №1 (22), 2016. Access mode: http//www.culturalresearch.ru.
[15] Pliny The Elder. “Natural history”. Vol. 34 IX, 17, p. p. С. 54, 78//Pliny the Elder. Science: About art./Transl. G. A. Taronyan. (Series “Ancient classics”) M: Ladomir, 1994, 942 p.
[16] Lasch, Christopher. “Revolt of elites and betrayal of democracy”. M.: “Logos-Progress” 2002, P. 220.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Francisca Foortai. (2020). «Look Who's Gone!» Chester Bennington as a Media Hero of Our Time. History Research, 8(1), 12-18. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.history.20200801.12

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    ACS Style

    Francisca Foortai. «Look Who's Gone!» Chester Bennington as a Media Hero of Our Time. Hist. Res. 2020, 8(1), 12-18. doi: 10.11648/j.history.20200801.12

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    AMA Style

    Francisca Foortai. «Look Who's Gone!» Chester Bennington as a Media Hero of Our Time. Hist Res. 2020;8(1):12-18. doi: 10.11648/j.history.20200801.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.history.20200801.12,
      author = {Francisca Foortai},
      title = {«Look Who's Gone!» Chester Bennington as a Media Hero of Our Time},
      journal = {History Research},
      volume = {8},
      number = {1},
      pages = {12-18},
      doi = {10.11648/j.history.20200801.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.history.20200801.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.history.20200801.12},
      abstract = {The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding American rock musician, singer, poet, charity man, frontman of Linkin Park – Chester Charles Bennington. The text is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon of creativity and personality of Bennington as a media hero on a global scale, aesthetically, mentally and ethically influenced on the mental health of several generations in the first two decades of the new century. Using the fragments from the huge stream of comments in the Network for the musician's departure, the author analyzes some semantic blocks of these messages, revealing in them functional and typological coincidences with the heroes from traditional myths. In particular, the analysis of some semantic blocks of intertext on the death of Chester Bennington, suggests that similar to the heroes of traditional myths, Chester as a media hero performed paternalistic and soteriological functions, acted as an object of adoration (idol), was a role model, his departure marked for millions of fans keen sense of the passage of time. Also in the article, an attempt was made identify the specific features of the media hero, which are due to the special sphere of its existence, namely, media reality. Short, full of incredible turns, hard work, harmful tragic passions, love and compassion, the fate of Chester Bennington during his life began to acquire legendary features.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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    AB  - The article is devoted to the memory of the outstanding American rock musician, singer, poet, charity man, frontman of Linkin Park – Chester Charles Bennington. The text is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon of creativity and personality of Bennington as a media hero on a global scale, aesthetically, mentally and ethically influenced on the mental health of several generations in the first two decades of the new century. Using the fragments from the huge stream of comments in the Network for the musician's departure, the author analyzes some semantic blocks of these messages, revealing in them functional and typological coincidences with the heroes from traditional myths. In particular, the analysis of some semantic blocks of intertext on the death of Chester Bennington, suggests that similar to the heroes of traditional myths, Chester as a media hero performed paternalistic and soteriological functions, acted as an object of adoration (idol), was a role model, his departure marked for millions of fans keen sense of the passage of time. Also in the article, an attempt was made identify the specific features of the media hero, which are due to the special sphere of its existence, namely, media reality. Short, full of incredible turns, hard work, harmful tragic passions, love and compassion, the fate of Chester Bennington during his life began to acquire legendary features.
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Author Information
  • Faculty of Philosophy, Culturology and Art, Leningrad state University N. A. A. S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg, Russia

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