Instant Biopic. Il racconto biografico nelle piattaforme di streaming

This dissertation explores the emergence of the instant biopic (Sheehan, 2013), a contemporary form of biographical narration that has developed within the ecosystem of streaming platforms. By focusing on living subjects and “lives in progress,” the instant biopic redefines the relationship between biography, the instantaneous temporality of social media, and the cultural experience of the present. Combining genre theory as a cultural category (Mittell, 2004) with production studies (Caldwell, 2006), this research examines how streaming platforms transform biographical narratives into strategic tools for interrogating the contradictions of the present, while also functioning as instruments of self-promotion and exposure for contemporary celebrities. Through a corpus of international and Italian titles produced between 2009 and 2024, the study establishes a taxonomy that includes sports biopics, new media celebrity portraits - or celetoids - and music documentaries. Ultimately, it argues that the instant biopic embodies the logic of presentification that defines digital culture, converting the immediacy of mediated visibility into both narrative material and a living archive of the now.