Film Studies: week 3 -STARDOM
The study of stars "as texts", as the academics would put it, only started in the 1980s. They were ignored for a long time - early movie studies came from literature studies, so while authors and genres were easily identified, it took them somewhat longer to notice the role stars played beyond that of portraying the character. The mark of "quality acting" has changed so much over time, yet we still revere our Brandos and Deans even though their performances are no longer in line with our cinematic values. Not to mention that star appeal is completely intangible - I mean, to be honest, Tim Roth isn't even remotely good looking . So why do I fancy the pants off him?
So the study of stardom ignores the oft-asked womens-magazine question "who is the real star?" by focusing on "why is this all so complex?" - engaging with the layers of meaning, and lies, and lies which become meaning lumped on these poor actors by their studios, audiences, press and often themselves. Apparently, the study is spearheaded by Richard Dyer who taught us about zooms and montage last term. Which then begs the question, why isn't he teaching us this module? Couldn't they have brought him in, just for this lecture, as it's not just his area of expertise - it's so cutting edge that his entire 16 page introduction in his leading study Heavenly Bodies contains not a single footnote.
Like all of film studies, it's also an area where the sheer bullshittery of academia really shines through. According to Dyer, stars are "extensive, multimedia and intertextual". Even ignoring the fact the word "multimedia" cannot be used adjectivally, what is that actually meant to mean? Isn't there a simpler way of putting it, which sounds less pretentious but actually means something. How about, "stars are defined than more than just their movies - such as their publicity, place in culture as an image and public persona". That covers multimedia and intertextual, but I still have no idea about extensive, especially with the size-0 pressure placed on actresses these days.
Stars are much more than their films. They are their pin ups, their "private interviews", what people say about them and the way the image is used in other contexts. "On a morning from a Bogart movie", in Year of the Cat, is adding to the Bogart image. The system is aware of this, and Hollywood manipulates it as far as possible - especially in the past, controlling who was allowed to interview them and releasing carefully manipulated glamour portraits. Yet the audience too is involved in creating the image - while we can't drag an interpretation out of the blue, we can choose from the spread stars present. Is Judy Garland America, tragic innocence lost or an icon to the "friends of Dorothy" community? In the stars we choose to consume, we're saying something about gender, race, sexuality, social conditions et al. Marlene Dietrich, for example, was foreign. It didn't particularly matter that she was German - the point was, she was non-American. This allowed her to play seductresses and temptresses which more home grown heroines couldn't get away with - she's foreign, and therefore exotic in the manner of innocent 1930s racism. You can extend this too to sexuality - Marlene Dietrich sprung to fame with a risque duet with a female costar, and that along with Morocco's scene of her singing in a tux and kissing a female extra demonstrate her as, again, not strictly American and therefore there are boundaries she can break. Not to mention gaining her a fanbase in the LGBT community - I doubt her character was meant to be a lesbian in that film, yet modern audiences have reinterpreted the performance in their own image. I mean, the tux full stop is her breaking gender rules entirely, not to mention social ones - trousers for women was only just being accepted, and a proper man's suit still meant real gentlemanly distinction.
Stars aren't just the property of individuals - they are part of society, or as another academic puts it, "a cluster of signs that produces meaning in specific cultural contexts". Marilyn Monroe was sex - she was the contemporary image of attractiveness, just as our modern stars embody modern values. In the modern world, Marilyn Monroe is Andy Warhol, 50s glamour, JFK and ugly canvas paintings in second hand shops.
Although Dietrich's fame traded on this exotic allure, she reinvented herself as American in the war - entertaining Allied troops at the front, starring in Westerns, and advertising war bonds. They exist in our desire to identify with people - our natural, human sense of community. It's hard not to read Heath Leger's death into the Joker - papers at the time were claiming it was him getting twisted inside from playing the part which caused him to kill himself. Outdated theory, but it demonstrates well the invidious way that stars and their roles get all mixed up. Look into his eyes in the Dark Knight - you can see he knows he hasn't got long to go, just as sure as if he'd already flicked through the script of his life to see what happens at the end. We put our own meanings on stars.
There's a strong economic bent to all this. Dyer explains it in purely pecunary terms - they are an asset on which money can be raised for a film; they are part of the film's expense, and part of the way it is sold, and all by turning themselves into commodoties. This is further manipulated by the films themselves, rigorously producing John Wayne Westerns, and the star's personal appearance/personality - which is just as easily manipulated. "Everyone wishes they were Cary Grant. Sometimes, even I wish I were Cary Grant" mused the man himself, whose smooth talking and good looks were a gift of Hollywood screenwriters and costumers. In the classic studio days, long contracts meant they could truly spend time building up an image. Despite their privilege, actors have very little power - unlike stage actors, even the performances on screen are not their own. They are manipulated by lighting and editing.
To sum up? We're studying Marlene Dietrich, which is why I'm suddenly an expert on her career having only ever seen one film, The Devil is a Woman, and that only last night. It's a film which makes you proud to be female - she jigs, she ambles, she nicknames God's creatures, she has one face and she makes herself another. In this one, she's a Spanish temptress - remember what I said about her being "just foreign"? I know men are pathetic when it comes to falling in love, more pathetic than women I think - but this film takes it too far. She spends the whole thing mincing and batting her eyelids, and driving the men crazy even after she has betrayed them with each other several times over. As a whole, it is bizzarely pointless - Marlene flirts and double crosses these cardboard cutouts throughout, and the most exciting narrative event is the fact she changes her outfit every time she enters a room. For star studies, it's perfect - because she IS the film. Her costumes, her expressions, and a cast of men who perform as her co-stars. There's no narrative drive, no real logic either - but she looks stunning. And perhaps that is all that matters.
The study of stars "as texts", as the academics would put it, only started in the 1980s. They were ignored for a long time - early movie studies came from literature studies, so while authors and genres were easily identified, it took them somewhat longer to notice the role stars played beyond that of portraying the character. The mark of "quality acting" has changed so much over time, yet we still revere our Brandos and Deans even though their performances are no longer in line with our cinematic values. Not to mention that star appeal is completely intangible - I mean, to be honest, Tim Roth isn't even remotely good looking . So why do I fancy the pants off him?
So the study of stardom ignores the oft-asked womens-magazine question "who is the real star?" by focusing on "why is this all so complex?" - engaging with the layers of meaning, and lies, and lies which become meaning lumped on these poor actors by their studios, audiences, press and often themselves. Apparently, the study is spearheaded by Richard Dyer who taught us about zooms and montage last term. Which then begs the question, why isn't he teaching us this module? Couldn't they have brought him in, just for this lecture, as it's not just his area of expertise - it's so cutting edge that his entire 16 page introduction in his leading study Heavenly Bodies contains not a single footnote.
Like all of film studies, it's also an area where the sheer bullshittery of academia really shines through. According to Dyer, stars are "extensive, multimedia and intertextual". Even ignoring the fact the word "multimedia" cannot be used adjectivally, what is that actually meant to mean? Isn't there a simpler way of putting it, which sounds less pretentious but actually means something. How about, "stars are defined than more than just their movies - such as their publicity, place in culture as an image and public persona". That covers multimedia and intertextual, but I still have no idea about extensive, especially with the size-0 pressure placed on actresses these days.
Stars are much more than their films. They are their pin ups, their "private interviews", what people say about them and the way the image is used in other contexts. "On a morning from a Bogart movie", in Year of the Cat, is adding to the Bogart image. The system is aware of this, and Hollywood manipulates it as far as possible - especially in the past, controlling who was allowed to interview them and releasing carefully manipulated glamour portraits. Yet the audience too is involved in creating the image - while we can't drag an interpretation out of the blue, we can choose from the spread stars present. Is Judy Garland America, tragic innocence lost or an icon to the "friends of Dorothy" community? In the stars we choose to consume, we're saying something about gender, race, sexuality, social conditions et al. Marlene Dietrich, for example, was foreign. It didn't particularly matter that she was German - the point was, she was non-American. This allowed her to play seductresses and temptresses which more home grown heroines couldn't get away with - she's foreign, and therefore exotic in the manner of innocent 1930s racism. You can extend this too to sexuality - Marlene Dietrich sprung to fame with a risque duet with a female costar, and that along with Morocco's scene of her singing in a tux and kissing a female extra demonstrate her as, again, not strictly American and therefore there are boundaries she can break. Not to mention gaining her a fanbase in the LGBT community - I doubt her character was meant to be a lesbian in that film, yet modern audiences have reinterpreted the performance in their own image. I mean, the tux full stop is her breaking gender rules entirely, not to mention social ones - trousers for women was only just being accepted, and a proper man's suit still meant real gentlemanly distinction.
Stars aren't just the property of individuals - they are part of society, or as another academic puts it, "a cluster of signs that produces meaning in specific cultural contexts". Marilyn Monroe was sex - she was the contemporary image of attractiveness, just as our modern stars embody modern values. In the modern world, Marilyn Monroe is Andy Warhol, 50s glamour, JFK and ugly canvas paintings in second hand shops.
Although Dietrich's fame traded on this exotic allure, she reinvented herself as American in the war - entertaining Allied troops at the front, starring in Westerns, and advertising war bonds. They exist in our desire to identify with people - our natural, human sense of community. It's hard not to read Heath Leger's death into the Joker - papers at the time were claiming it was him getting twisted inside from playing the part which caused him to kill himself. Outdated theory, but it demonstrates well the invidious way that stars and their roles get all mixed up. Look into his eyes in the Dark Knight - you can see he knows he hasn't got long to go, just as sure as if he'd already flicked through the script of his life to see what happens at the end. We put our own meanings on stars.
There's a strong economic bent to all this. Dyer explains it in purely pecunary terms - they are an asset on which money can be raised for a film; they are part of the film's expense, and part of the way it is sold, and all by turning themselves into commodoties. This is further manipulated by the films themselves, rigorously producing John Wayne Westerns, and the star's personal appearance/personality - which is just as easily manipulated. "Everyone wishes they were Cary Grant. Sometimes, even I wish I were Cary Grant" mused the man himself, whose smooth talking and good looks were a gift of Hollywood screenwriters and costumers. In the classic studio days, long contracts meant they could truly spend time building up an image. Despite their privilege, actors have very little power - unlike stage actors, even the performances on screen are not their own. They are manipulated by lighting and editing.
To sum up? We're studying Marlene Dietrich, which is why I'm suddenly an expert on her career having only ever seen one film, The Devil is a Woman, and that only last night. It's a film which makes you proud to be female - she jigs, she ambles, she nicknames God's creatures, she has one face and she makes herself another. In this one, she's a Spanish temptress - remember what I said about her being "just foreign"? I know men are pathetic when it comes to falling in love, more pathetic than women I think - but this film takes it too far. She spends the whole thing mincing and batting her eyelids, and driving the men crazy even after she has betrayed them with each other several times over. As a whole, it is bizzarely pointless - Marlene flirts and double crosses these cardboard cutouts throughout, and the most exciting narrative event is the fact she changes her outfit every time she enters a room. For star studies, it's perfect - because she IS the film. Her costumes, her expressions, and a cast of men who perform as her co-stars. There's no narrative drive, no real logic either - but she looks stunning. And perhaps that is all that matters.
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