Stars and Stardom

The concept of stars and star image was first developed by an academic who works at Warrick university in the 1970s called Richard Dyer. He wrote a book called stars 'the mythology of stardom'- he analysed the appeal of different stars to the audience and came up with the notion that stars are bought and consumed on the strength of their meanings.'

What they symbolically represent to the audience and what they stand for e.g. they project an image and the audience chose which bits they consume or reject.

In order to understand the relationship the music industry and its audience, it is important to consider the roles of music

The term 'star' refers to the semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audiences

An image of a star needs to develop over a period of time- in order to keep the audience interested

Some common values of music stardom.

Youthfulness
rebellion
sexual magnetism
An anti-authroitarian attitude
originality
creativity/talent
agression/anger
a disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour
conspicouus consumption, of sex, drugs and material goods
success against the odds

e.g 2Pac was youthful, he offered rebellion for his music, he always and his top off making hin have sexual magnetism. Agression and anger clearly against authority, against the odds and mum in black panther movement

Richard Dyer 

Stars depend upon a range of susidary media- magazines, tv, radio, the internet- in ordwr to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences.

The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audience

Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, that is incomplete and 'open'. Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes

Paradox 1
The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer

The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer

The star image

The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to 'complete' or to 'make sense of' of the image.

This means that fans will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image.