Film Studies Seven: Stars

This week in class I studied the stars in film, how they come to have meaning throughout the public and how their personalities reflect through the lifestyles they live.

Johnny Depp was a main talking point throughout the class, the characters he plays and how audiences throughout the world manage to easily identify with this star.  Studying Pirates Of The Caribbean and Edward Scissorhands shows there is definitely an on-going theme with the characters he plays, besides the rogue pirates or strange/unique individuals there is a child-like, fun loving nature about his personality which shines through his character traits.  There is also a cross-gender admiration for him even in a non-attractive way, which evolves his performance fluidity.  An unstoppable joy seems to be a key feature in Johnny’s character no matter what situation his character seems to be in.

Mila Kunis is an actress who has risen to stardom and to a celebrity status within the past few years.  She had been in a number of films during the start of her career, some major roles as well as minor; however it is believed that her first shoot to fame was during That 70s Show.  Today, she is well known for her skills as a voice actor on Family Guy.  Kunis is a definite sex symbol across the world as she has been ranked as the “Sexiest Woman Alive” by Esquire whilst remaining in the top ten women of many other magazines.  She is seen in the public eye as an object of desire:

“Images have to be made.  Stars are produced by the media industries, film stars by Hollywood (or its equivalent in other countries) in the first instance, but then also by other agencies with which Hollywood is connected in varying ways and with varying degrees of influence.  Hollywood not only controlled the stars’ films but their promotion, their pin-ups and glamour portraits, press releases and to a larger extent the fan clubs”.

Kunis and her lifestyle are becoming more and more influenced by Hollywood and how she is expected to be viewed by the public eye.  Her appealing appearance seems have a great reliance on her star image and her success in her career.  As Hollywood and other relating franchises are creating these idols for the public to be basing themselves on it could leave one wondering if this is having any effect on these stars’ personalities and drive to continue with this sort of career/lifestyle. Three main aspects which are seen key factors or a stars’ image and how successful they are depend on their sexuality, ethnicity and their sexual identity.  

“Many critics have criticized Mulvey’s tendency to neglect the pleasure of female spectatorship.  As should be clear, she suggests that spectators are addressed as though they were male, and that, as a consequence, women are only in a position either to assume an identification with the male protagonist or else identify with the position of passive sexual object”.

As these types of figures are being constructed, the majority of the time it is solely for the consumer, it could be thought that these idols are strategically made for profit, possibly due to the clothing, cosmetics or fragrance that these types of people would flaunt to the public. The acting side to her career is viewed by two different meanings; one being the knowledge of roles she has successfully established on film and the “stage-managed” public appearances Kunis is seen in (talk shows, award shows and magazine shoots).

It is rather troublesome to relate with a stars’ personal lifestyle outside of film and behind closed doors unless you are somehow affiliated with the star in a personal level.  Many people try to establish as much knowledge as possible about a star through the characters they play in film and how they generally act, attributing to their generic personality:

“As a result, recent psychoanalytic film theory has seen a move away from the assumption that the spectator only identifies with a single narrative figure, and towards the claim that he or she engages in a more complex identification with the overall narrative.  It has developed a theory of fantasy which suggests that any narrative provides the spectator with multiple and shifting points of identification…Desire, then, is played through the progression of the narrative, with the spectator seemingly within the scene, occupying many and various associations with the stars”.

Fans who idolise and adore these film stars tend to form an obsessive and seemingly incessant relationship between them, this has indeed become more popular and is seen a lot more in recent years within the public.  More so with reality television “celebrities” as fans make it their goal to represent and act like them, which merely seems foolish.  The public form a metaphorical bond with these film stars, giving them the idea that these stars are an acquaintance to them.  This evolves their desire and attraction to them as the narrative gives a false connection between the viewer and the stars’ character.

“Fetishism also figures in the spectator’s relationship to the star.  For psychoanalysis, fetishism originates in the child’s Oedipal anxieties when it perceives the sign of sexual difference as the mother’s symbolic castration.  This situation is supposed to result in ‘splitting of belief’, the child unconsciously knows that the mother lacks the phallus, but fetishizes other objects so that they will compensate for that lack.  These objects acquire ‘magical’ qualities for the child who is then able to disavow the mother’s castrated state”.

This cinematic image and the image this creates through film also seems to function in a similar process of fetishism contradiction, as if the viewer is blocking out reality and fully believing in themselves that the portrayed character is a living being.  Knowing that these characters are completely fictional, subconsciously, they are ensuring that they are in fact, reality. 

_____________________________________________________________________

References:

Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars And Society, (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1986)

Paul McDonald, 'Star Studies', in Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich, eds., Approaches to Popular Film, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995)