Star Image and Power

The French film industry was the first to recognise the method of using stars to generate audience interest. After the radical reduction in power of the French film industry due to World War 1 the star system really developed in Hollywood in 1919. Mary Pickford became the first star. Charlie Chaplin soon followed. Not only could stars make money for the studios they could make big money as well provided they generated big profits for the studios. After the coming of sound there was a shift in the way that Male stars were represented whilst the position of female stars remained largely the same. Vamps / Virgins or Sex Goddesses. In this way they tended to function as objects of beauty and desire. By comparison male characters started to become more complex. They could not only be heroes but rebels or even anti-heroes. Stars contributed to the successful growth of Hollywood and its increasingly dominant position over other countries. This meant that could export their stars into the exhibition system of other countries. It also meant that Hollywood could attract the most popular European stars by outbidding any opposition. Great Garbo is a good example from the silent era.


By the end of the 1950s the star system was weakened with the collapse of the Hollywood studio system after anti-monopoly regulation and the growth of TV caused a consolidation and restructuring of the industry.
Stars were still being manufactured but there were far fewer of them. There was still fierce in country rivalry as Britain and Europe tried to create sex goddesses such as Diana Dors, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot to compete with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.


Sophia Loren "At Home"

The creation of celebrity through different parts of the media was a crucial part of gaining and maintaining star status. The scandal potential and events coming back to haunt you cross over into star as deviant (see below). This is a recent image from the National Enquirer. Was a certain young woman really the daughter of the famous film star Sophia Loren? (Does anybody really care?)
Stars have far more than a direct capital value. Their ability to attract audiences has the ability to attract money. Getting a popular leading and fashionable star lined up for a script considerably increases the chances of getting financial backing. Films are both vehicles for stars but also genres become associated with particular stars. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were iconic for the musical which was an American genre.
Star as Construct
We can understand stars as primarily constructed by the film industry, but stars are also agents in their own right and they play some part in creating the myths which float around them. Stars are also authenticated by other parts of the media but they also use these channels to help construct their chosen myths. If Marlene Dietrich was sexually charged we can see Catherine Denueve as an 'ice-maiden'.

Of course this is open to question and research. Exactly how much spectators do accept these constructions is exactly one of the realms of research which can be undertaken through qualitative research from sixth form projects on women and film to far higher academic levels.
Christine Gledhill argues that stars reach their spectators primarily through their bodies in other words their appearance. Female stars have historically bemoaned the fact that there have been few serious roles for older and more mature women. On the whole the audience dislikes the audience to age:
Curiously, the process of aging matters when it is a woman star - it recalls our own age, ageing is too real - not the 'real' we want to see. (ibid)
But is that necessarily the case? Certainly the Oscars of 2007 offer a challenge to this perception. Are things changing since Hayward first wrote this? The photograph of Helen Mirren gaining her Oscar for her leading role in Stephen Frears' The Queen signifies possible change. Below is the list of nominees from the BBC website

Best actress
Penelope Cruz, Volker
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children


Three out of the five are highly regarded as actors and are clearly in the 'mature woman' category. Does this finally mean that there is the recognition of an audience who are also more mature mentally?


Does this begin to break down the traditional delineation of the star as construct with three basic parameters which Gledhill identifies?
• Star as real person
• Star as 'reel' person (on-screen character)
• Star 'persona' (combination of the above two categories)

For Richard Dyer the star image has four key components:

• What the industry releases promotionally
• What the various media critics say
• What the star says and does
• What those who make up the audiences say and do. (Lookalikes etc at one extreme). Different audiences will probably make up different meanings to the point of reading the star 'against the grain'.
Stars can become intertextual as the image gets picked up and used by others in advertising for example. A star can be seen as a constellation of meanings rather than any one single meaning.

Star as Deviant
In general the star colludes readily in the construction of them as a star led by the studio. Where there are exceptions, such as with Meryl Streep and Robert de Niro, then this resistance becomes incorporated in the essence of their stardom.
On the whole stars comply with and wish to be represented as 'normal'. There are 'lavender' weddings for example to cover up homosexuality. Star performance for gays then becomes a double masquerade.

Being a star is about excess. Excess - being larger than life- is what is specifically according to a 'star'. Without an excessive lifestyle how can they be a star? Provided this 'excess' is well managed then it is of positive value to a studio. If it becomes genuinely excessive then the 'norms of excess' are transgressed and a star can start to take on a negative value for a studion. Excess is usually in the realms of consumption (drugs alcohol) and / or sex. This threatens to expose the masquerade of stardom.

Star as Cultural Value: sign & fetish
Stars can function as signs of changing cultural value. In the 1950s American teenagers quickly took on board the look of James Dean or Marlon Brando. In Europe teenage girls mimicked Brigitte Bardot. Stars then act within wider society to precipitate new mores.

Stars can be mediators within the society as a whole. Hayward traces the changing representations of female sexuality in Hollywood to clarify the point:
• 1930s / 40s: 2 types of female eroticism - independent as good as the boys Bette Davis & Katherine Hepburn / weak vulnerable type (Vivien Leigh)
• 1950s: The independent type replaced by dutiful supporting wife as US society needed to absorb excess labour after the war or a self-parodying brunette who 'settles down' (Doris Day & Jane Russell)/ the weak vulnerable type is replaced by the 'dumb blonde' (Marilyn Monroe)
• 1960s late in the decade the more self assertive radical-liberal feminist eroticism (Jane Fonda)
These changes relate to a combination of changes in the social / political / economic conditions in society as a whole.
Star-Gazing & Performance
Audiences come with expectations of certain stars. There are basically two different

modes of acting:
• Personification
• Impersonation


Personification
Here a star plays roles in line with his or her perceived personality. They know what to expect of say the taciturn gunman Clint Eastwood, or grinning machismo bravura with Jack Nicholson.


Impersonation
These actors are far fewer in number. Meryl Streep is a good example. For those who come to see stars rather than good acting this can cause a problem. For the person concerned with impersonating a role then a sign of their excellence is the ability to 'disappear' as a star. Hayward remarks that this is the case with Meryl Streep and suggests that this is why she has usually received very mixed reactions to her performances.