Judd’s house-warming like ‘the Kardashians Down Under’
Bec and Chris Judd may be a golden couple, but throwing a lavish party to celebrate their new $7.3 million property doesn’t sit right for many.
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As Australians grapple with a slowing economy, stagnant wage growth, plummeting interest rates, catastrophic bushfires and housing unaffordability, Chris and Rebecca Judd, along with their many Insta famous friends, were busy celebrating their wealth and privilege by throwing one of the most over the top house-warming parties of all time.
Inspired by famous US festivals Burning Man and Coachella, the Judds went all out celebrating the newly finished renovations on their $7.3 million Brighton mansion – which includes a butler’s pantry, laundry with four washing machines, marble staircase and a tennis court. First, there was a week of daily ‘room reveals’. Then on the weekend, there was Juddchella.
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The party was a carnival of glitter, glitzy costumes, inflatable pool toys, and even a live sax player. Nothing (aside from a ferris wheel, but not for lack of trying) was left out.
Social media users and media outlets alike lapped it up. But why? How is it that we are so enamoured with the lives of the rich and famous?
“They seem accessible and attainable,” says Dr Michal Carrington, a marketing lecturer at the University of Melbourne who studies celebrity culture.
“With Bec Judd, they see a busy mum with four kids who is also an amazing businesswoman and an entrepreneur. They may not wish to literally be her, but they can be like her.”
Over the years, the Judds have cultivated a relatable Aussie identity despite their wealth by sharing the kind of “everyday” content, like going shopping or taking the kids to sports practice that most of us can still relate to.
“It makes us think, ‘oh, they’re not so different’,” Dr Carrington says.
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Kick-started by the Kardashians — whose use of spectacle and conspicuous consumption as a tool for self-promotion has elevated the family to billionaire status — the use of social media as a space to experiment with one’s personal brand and online identity has become commonplace.
Yet for those who don’t necessarily share the enthusiasm, the Judds’ ostentatious show of wealth cannot help but feel jarring.
“They’re playing to the Kardashian effect. The thing about the Judds is that they are beautiful people in that kind of Kardashian way, and they are, with this event, playing on a surface notion of value. A renovation itself is surface-level, because it represents a surface notion of what is important in life,” says Professor David Marshall, a new media, communication and cultural studies professor at Deakin University in Melbourne.
RELATED: Bec Judd gives sneak peek inside her renovated $7.3 million ‘forever home’
Looking beyond their “AFL, model, mum and family” brand, Prof Marshall says Juddchella was an experiment created to “transform their celebrity personality”.
“What they’re trying to say is, ‘we can do a Kardashian-level stunt, and we have enough appeal to expand that out’. They’re revealing some other, new aspect of themselves, but it may not suit the Australian psyche,” he says.
“That said, it may not go badly for them. Now that Judd is no longer playing football, being visible is currency if you don’t have an obvious talent.”
For some, pulling a huge PR stunt steeped in frivolity during a time like the present looks questionable. For others, it’s nothing new.
Social media and the internet has changed the game forever and effectively eroded the barriers between regular people and those living “the high life”.
RELATED: Bec Judd sings praises for WAG sisterhood
We expect celebrities to open their lives up to us, and in return, we will reward them with likes, comments and follows they can then leverage for their own career gains.
“It used to be the case that entertainment news was relegated to one page or one column in the Sunday paper. Now, this content is no longer compartmentalised,” Marshall says, explaining the shift has forever altered “the construction of news and when it is reported”.
Perhaps even more simply, though, Dr Carrington points out that “a lot of millennial women admire Bec Judd. She may not have immense talent, but she’s seen as a killer businesswoman, a savvy self-promoter who knows how to make money.”
“Also sometimes, we just like to see some frivolity to escape all the seriousness that is life,” he adds.
Caroline Zielinski is a Melbourne-based writer.