The family unit has become important currency. YouTube and TikTok — video sharing platforms — are groaning under the weight of so-called family influencers. In Ireland, the Saccone-Jolys rose to fame by documenting the banalities of daily life, replete with clips of their children, monetising the basic facts of their existence. They are among thousands of families who do much the same. It seems this process of cultural transformation is complete: where the boundaries between private life and marketisable stardom have been blurred.
This phenomenon is not bound solely by the confines of the internet. In fact, since the noughties, celebrities have pioneered the trend of the tell-all, the confessional, the peek behind curtain.
The latest incarnation is a four-part documentary series — on Netflix made with Beckham’s own production company and, of course, his full co-operation — supposedly offering the viewer access into the inner sanctum of the Beckham family. The first episodes chart David Beckham’s early days as an emerging superstar, his soured relationship with Alex Ferguson, the arrival of Victoria Beckham — nee Posh Spice — into his life in 1997, and his alleged affair during his time playing for Real Madrid.
Based on my viewing of the first two episodes, it is endearingly gossipy, and packed with a cast of heavy-weight interviewees. Football fans will be delighted to watch Roy Keane and Gary Neville talk about the man, though they might find Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s appearance surprising.
As the documentaries make clear, Beckham has long been aware of how lucrative it can be to turn over his private life for public consumption. As a football star, he was an early adopter of the celebrity endorsement. But more than a money-spinner, this series is a masterstroke in brand management, a means to control the story.
A simple question lingers: Were we ever supposed to have access to the internal lives of those beyond our immediate circles?
Taylor Swift did something similar in her 2019 documentary Miss Americana — supposedly an inside look into the superstar’s transformation into a political activist, but one that reads far more like hagiographic reputation laundering. This, just like Beckham’s documentary, is the Kardashianification of media.
The Kardashian family’s talent for turning their lives — internecine sibling drama, affairs, petty squabbles — into ready-to-consume media has made them some of the wealthiest celebrities on the planet. Their reality TV show, first aired in 2007, cemented their position in the public imagination.
But now the five sisters and matriarch own several businesses between them, boast some of the largest social media followings in the world and have managed to use their seemingly shallow empire as a key into the upper echelons of society. Kim Kardashian, for one, glides seamlessly between the front row at Paris fashion week and advocating for criminal justice reform in the White House.
In 2019 Amy Chozick posed the question in the New York Times: are the Kardashian sisters “America’s savviest CEOs? … Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of their show, chances are that you’ve bought a Kardashian-fronted or backed something.”
The Beckham’s adoption of the Kardashian playbook speaks to this cultural shift, started in the 1990s when the full thrust of tabloid culture began to melt the boundary between private and public. Posh and Becks, who were dogged by paparazzi ever since their late ‘90s debut as a couple, know this arena all too well.
But since the Levenson inquiry, the proliferation of the family influencer, and the reams of documentaries just like Beckham’s, it’s clear this is not a phenomenon we should be quick to celebrate. Because a simple question lingers: were we ever supposed to have access to the internal lives of those beyond our immediate circles? Should we be able to name every Kardashian offspring and every Taylor Swift boyfriend? Is David Beckham’s supposed sexual impropriety really any of our business?
The documentary alludes to the overweening influence of the tabloids in their life — it hums in the background of the story as is customary for any celebrity charting their 21st-century rise to fame. But when it comes to the specifics, like Beckham’s alleged affair, the couple are somewhat aloof.
Privacy has long been a virtue enshrined in law. That so many are ready to give it up for cash — and that the rest of us lap it up with fervour — suggests we have lost something valuable. It will not be easy to recapture.