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Creativity Quote by George Michael

"With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition"

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Fame, in George Michael's telling, is less applause than annexation. Pop stars and film stars don’t just get watched; they get used. They become raw material for other people’s identity work, a kind of public mirror where fans try on attitudes, confidence, rebellion, glamour. “Self-definition” is the clean, sociological phrase for something intensely personal: the way a teenager borrows a singer’s swagger to survive high school, or an adult pins their longing for reinvention onto someone impossibly polished.

Then he sharpens it: “sexual definition.” That’s not just about being found attractive. It’s about how celebrity turns into a safe testing ground for desire, especially in cultures that police it. You can want a star before you can name what you want in real life. You can project onto a famous body without consequence, without rejection, without having to risk intimacy. The star becomes a proxy for orientation, fantasy, permission.

Michael knew the bargain intimately. He spent years being marketed as a heterosexual heartthrob while privately navigating queerness in an era when the closet was still an industry standard. So the line carries a quiet accusation: the public doesn’t merely consume music or movies; it consumes a person as a tool for its own narratives. The subtext is fatigue and clarity. When a celebrity is drafted into everyone else’s coming-of-age, the individual underneath is denied the right to be merely human, or even merely complicated.

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TopicMusic
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Michael, George. (2026, January 17). With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-pop-stars-or-film-stars-we-become-the-object-54038/

Chicago Style
Michael, George. "With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-pop-stars-or-film-stars-we-become-the-object-54038/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/with-pop-stars-or-film-stars-we-become-the-object-54038/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.

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George Michael (June 25, 1963 - December 25, 2016) was a Musician from United Kingdom.

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