Some people fascinate. Some people have “It.” But what is It?

Yale theater professor Joseph Roach explores this question in his wide-ranging cultural history, entitled simply It (University of Michigan, 2007).

Turns out, It is like porn - you know it when you see it, but you can’t quite define it. It’s like porn too in that It has something to do with sex. But It is more than and different from sexiness. As Roach says, It has been described in various ways - as “ethos” by Quintillian, as “sprezzatura” by Castiglione, as “charisma” by Christians and Max Weber, as “magnetism” and “attraction.” But those descriptions only change the terms; what is it about It that produces what Roach calls the It-effect?

A central feature of It is the contradictory reality of “public intimacy.” Of Clara Bow, the film actress dubbed the original “It Girl” by romance novelist Elinor Glyn, Roach writes that It “meant the ability to stand as if naked in the middle of a crowded room as if alone.” He sees It in Uma Thurman as she gazes at him from the cover of an issue of GQ at the barber’s: “Thurman’s image fascinates, not merely because she looks to be nearly naked, but also because she looks to be completely alone. Even as her eyes meet mine as seductively as they must in order to do their work, her countenance somehow keeps a modicum of privacy where none seems possible, a discreet veil of solitude in a world brought into illusory fullness of being by the general congregation of unaverted stares.” This “effortless look of public intimacy” is “but one part, albeit an important one, of the multifaceted genius of It.”

Citing Glyn, who figures prominently in Roach’s book, he notes that It includes an element of animal power: “To have ‘It,’” Glyn wrote, “the fortunate possessor must have that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes. He or she must be entirely unselfconscious and full of self-confidence, indifferent to the effect he or she is producing, and uninfluenced by others. There must be physical attraction, but beauty is unnecessary. Conceit or self-consciousness destroys ‘It’ immediately. In the animal world ‘It’ demonstrates [itself] in tigers and cats - both animals being fascinating and mysterious, and quite unbiddable.” That “unbiddability” is a key to It.

In his admittedly Anglo-centric account, Roach looks back to Restoration drama and royal ceremony for the historical roots of It. And he sees the cult of celebrity in contemporary life as something of a restoration of royal majesty - a “reenchantment” of the world.

Roach is alert to the religious dimensions of It: “Sociologist Chris Rojek aptly summarizes this theology of pop culture in Celebrity (2001) . . . ‘There are many striking parallels between religious belief and practice and celebrity culture,’ Rojek writes, citing the fan reception of film idols and rock stars. Indeed, these oft-noted parallels, which include reliquaries, death rites, ceremonies of ascent and descent, shamanic interventions, eucharistic offerings, confessions, resurrections and promises of everlasting redemption, tend to ‘reinforce the hypothesis that considerable partial convergence between religion and celebrity has occurred.”

I kept wondering if Roach started his history too late; the two-bodies theory to which he appeals was medieval in origin, and his discussion regularly bumps up against some of the features of the courtly love tradition. You gotta start somewhere, of course, and Roach’s book adds considerable historical depth to our understanding of the contemporary culture of celebrity.