G.M. Lanuza 1 HUMANITIES DILIMAN (JANUARY-JUNE 2017) 14:1, 1-45 ISSN 1655-1532 Print / ISSN 2012-0788 Online Making and Selling the “Rock Star Pope”: The Celebritization of Pope Francis during His Five-Day Visit to the Philippines Gerry M. Lanuza University of the Philippines Diliman ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt to provide an analysis of the celebritization and celebrification of Pope Francis when he visited the Philippines from January 15 to 19, 2015. Employing the analytic concept of “culture industry” developed by the members of the Frankfurt School, and combining it with the current analyses in existing celebrity study under late capitalism, this paper will show how the local giant media corporations, namely, GMA and ABS-CBN, staged a grand “media event” that nationally mediatized and publicly magnified the celebrity status of the so-called “rock star Pope.” The current study contributes to the growing literature on celebrity study by focusing on the popular and charismatic religious leader of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide. Toward the end of this paper, consistent with the critical slant of the Frankfurt School’s critique of mass deception, it is argued that the celebrity culture that created the “spectacle” of Pope Francis must be distinguished from his prophetic message. And this must be explored in future studies. Keywords: Culture of Celebrity, Pope Francis, celebrity, spectacle, celebritization We live in a celebrity society (Lawler, Driessens, Furedi, Marshall) or what some historians call as “fame-intensive culture” (Garland 484). Pramod Nayar is right when he claims, “We live in a culture of celebrity. From P3Ps to endorsements, from movie stars to television personalities, from comic book celebrities to notorious scamsters. Celebrities, one might say, are everywhere.” Interestingly, with what Graeme Turner (2006) dubs as the “demotic turn,” or the creation of celebrities out of ordinary individuals through reality TV and Internet, anyone can be a celebrity as long as there is a market and demand for them. And this celebritization of life does not exempt religious leaders. The short-list includes Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Jimmy Swaggart, Billy Graham, Sun Myong Moon, and others. These religious personalities have achieved the status of global icons with religious cult followings. They have become household names. They are products of the culture industry.