Things to say about stars. You've already read my previous post on stardom, maybe my Cinecism post on Julia Roberts and stardom, so this is just going to be a quick recap of stuff we all already know, drawn from the great Dyer essay:

INTRO: 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. 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.

1. Stars are extensive, multimedia and intertextual.
Still no idea what that means, it just continues to make me lol.

2. The concept of star is everything available to us

• obviously films, but also pin-ups, interviews, tell-alls, their religious music side-projects, the merchandise, public appearances, fan clubs, promotion, what critics say, what academics write, popular culture, imitation, pastiche and parody. "On a morning from a Bogart movie," from Year of the Cat is part of Bogart's stardom.
• Russell Crowe is notorious for causing fights off screen, he also gets roles based on this audience perception – Romper Stomper, L.A. Confidential and Gladiator are all affected by this tough-guy image. Marlene Dietrich's off-screen liasons were legion and legend, which fitted the erotic roles she always got landed with.
• It occurs to me that Fleur de Lys in L.A. Confidential has some very interesting things to say about stardom. It's an escort agency, where all the girls have been made to look like movie stars. Weak link, but any excuse to watch it is an excuse.

3. Stars are produced by media industries

• Hollywood is responsible for manufacturing the person we see.
• In the classic studio days, long contracts meant they could truly spend time building up an image.
• when Bette Davis refused to appear in God’s Country and the Woman, Warner Bros. took away her leading role in Gone with the Wind, and served a successful injunction against her when she attempted to make two films in Britain.
• 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.
• Rock Hudson is a walking gift to star studies - his whole life was stage-managed to keep his homosexuality out of the press. His company even arranged a marriage for him to shut the rumours up. L.A. Confidential is on the brain, and I've just discovered the real "Confidential" magazine (surely the inspiration for Hush Hush?) threatened to publish an expose, which was kept out in exchange for disclosing information about other stars.
• Marlene Dietrich's films ARE Marlene Dietrich. The Devil is a Woman is about 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.

4. Stars are created by everyone

• "audiences cannot make them anything they want to be, but they can select from the complexity of the image"
• Halle Berry can be a heroine for black audiences, an image of a strong female in Hollywood, or simply a great pair of tits depending on who views her. The media expresses all of these things, we just understand our own part. Robert Redford is a gorgeous matinee idol - he's also a passionate enviromentalist and worker for political change.
• But sometimes, audiences can get the upperhand outside of media control
• An example is the reclamation of Judy Garland, Bette Davis or Montgomery Clift by gay audiences.
• 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.

4b Star relationships are symbiotic

• The film changes the perception of the star’s image, which changes the perception of the film.
• When George Clooney stars in lots of hearthrob movies, he is adding to that aspect of his stardom. In return, Hollywood offers him more hearthrob movies.
• Here goes my favourite stardom story of all time. You ready for this? Tis genius:
  The basic premise of paranoid thriller Memento is that as Lenny has a five minute memory, he can’t ever really trust anyone fully. A few minutes in, we meet Teddy, who claims to be a friend. The cleverness is in the casting – Joey Pantalionio (pardon for spelling this wrong, not time to check imdb) has played a lot of baddies, and the moment we see him, we immediately distrust him. ‘Cos naturally, he’s gonna be a bad guy again, right? I wouldn't dream of explaining Teddy's true alliegance, but the point is his star reputation is deliberately exploited by the film. I can't think of any spoiler-free examples, but I'm sure youy an think of your favourite shock-reversal when "oh my goodness, so and so turns out to be the bad guy! But it's so and so! He can't be!"

4c Stars are about who you are

• 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. Yet later, during the war, she was American, and advertised war bonds just like Superman did.
• 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.
• By wearing a man's suit, and in particular a top hat in Morocco (and looking damn fine, might I add), she is usurping the class system and gender system at a time when women could just about get away with trousers.

5. Stars are made for profit

• They are an asset on which money can be raised for a film; they are large part of the film's expense, and part of the way it is sold, and all by turning themselves into commodoties.
• In the earliest days of the studio system, actors were never credited for films – only production companies. As audiences became familiar with faces, their names began to be used to sell films. Mary Pickford, named “Little Mary” by fans, was an popular early star.
• Star images are also used to sell things outside of film - for example, Nicole Kidman and Chanel, Monica Belluci and Dior

Offhand thought, doubtless triggered by my film studies coursework: has anyone ever studied Superman or Mickey Mous as stars? They are no less unreal than Marilyn Monroe, and just as significant. I could make every point on this list for Superman certainly.

6. Stars are examples of the way people live in relation to production in a capitalist society

• Mr Dyer's essay is discussing Roebson, Monroe and Garland, and makes the point that each in their own way revolted against being a cog in the great machine - one by getting out of the industry, one by fighting for better roles, the other by revealing how badly she had it at MGM. He contrasts that with other stars who were happy, praising the job security of being able to make the same film twice a year for a whole career.
• I'm not sure I buy this point as universal, nevertheless the same contrast exists between the Hugh Grants and the Robin Williams. Hugh Grant has never reinvented himself - he's done period dramas Maurice and Sense and Sensibility, but neither required him to be far from the English romantic. He was a baddie in Bridget Jones' Diary, but it was still a rom com. Robin Williams, on the other hand, has protested against Flubber and Aladdin by going to some dark places in Insomnia and notably 24 Hour Photo.

7. We enjoy stars for being stars

• Arch, unnaturalistic, whatever - we go to see Hugh Grant for that adorable, foppish Englishness. Does it matter the bearing on reality it has? For us, that fiction is the appeal.
• He describes this as the "presentation of surface as surface". I rather like that.

He then goes on a tangent about the nature of the individual. It's core to the idea of stars, I suppose: we believe in "individuals", so when we see a star we expect them to have the same inner consistancy we know people to. Except with a star, we are attempting to understand all the complex ideas discussed above as a single entity. He draws on the idea of "behind the scenes, beneath the surface, the real star" to discuss the private/public divide stars embody. He rather smartly identifies that most stars seem to live in the private world - Monroe is about sexuality, male action heroes are about nature or small towns, not huge cities, Judy Garland also represents small-town innocence. We get the feeling we are seeing the real them, which is ironic as it is so far from the truth. Nevertheless, we feel we know them. If I were to ask you, "Who would you rather have as your bodyguard - Samuel L. Jackson or Hugh Grant?", it wouldn't take you very long.

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.

He also asks whether we are asking for sincerity from many actors. I think so - it's why we value method acting so highly, or coo that actors have done their own stunts - because in the process of becoming closer to the character, they approach what I'd call ideal. "Everyone wishes they were Cary Grant. Sometimes, even I wish I were Cary Grant", mused the man himself. The point is, as the audience we want him to be Cary Grant.

In fact, if I was to criticise his essay, there is an absence of fiction. He talks about stars in relationship to society, but doesn't touch that aspect which (for me) makes stars so interesting. Take the universal crush held by young females for Edward Cullen of the Twilight books. Then put poor Robert Pattison in the way. It doesn't matter who the star, and who the character, but a few nights ago I had a dream. The kind of dream only I would have, nevertheless I think the point made is very real and valid about the appeal of stars.

The dream existed only of a moment, so you must construct your own backstory - but the situation was a romantic one, and the star had just offered to live the rest of his life as the character with me.

Sick and twisted dream, everybody laugh. I hope I said no. All very Misery. I'm simply relieved it was neither an actor nor character on whom I have an actual crush. But it does get to the core of the issue of stars. Oooh, I feel a doctorate coming on.

(PS, I just rediscovered my Heist Movie analysis on Cinecism, from that year-long period when I had a serious weakness for the genre. It's spoiler central, but everything vital is blacked out so simply highlight if you want to read. It attempts to qualify which are the most sucessful movie capers, and what cinema has taught us about getting away with it: "A few months back I commented there were two sorts of heist films - ones where you cheer at the end when it all goes right, and ones where you cheer in the middle just before it all goes wrong.")