1. Stardom
Amy Coghlan

2. Richard Dyer's Star Theory applied to
Pop Stars
• The terms "pop performer" and "pop star" have become
interchangeable —, in media terms they are not the same
thing. The study of stars as media texts demands that the
distinction be made between those who are simply
known for performing pop music and those who are
known for being pop stars, who have an identity or
persona which is not restricted solely to their
musicianship.

3. Richard Dyer's Star Theory applied to
Pop Stars
• One of the reasons so many pop performers are
described as pop stars is that they are quickly
promoted to this status by their management.
This is easily done courtesy of a few placed
stories, a famous boyfriend/girlfriend,
attendance at premieres/parties and a feature in
HEAT magazine. It can be easy to forget about
the music in the light of the outfits or love
affairs. There are some who appear to leapfrog
the performer stage entirely, but they do have to
go through it.

4. Richard Dyer's Star Theory applied to
Pop Stars
• HOWEVER, a true pop star does have a lasting
significance, and has "brand awareness"
amongst a wider market over a period of time.
Many of the so-called pop stars populating the
top forty currently have not made a sufficient
sociological or cultural impact to be classified as
true stars if we return to Richard Dyers’
definition. They will be forgotten by all but their
most avid fans within a few years.

5. Stars as Constructions
• Stars are artificial images, even if they are represented as being "real people. It helps if their
image contains a USP — they can be copied and/or parodied because of it. Their
representation may be metonymic — Madonna's conical bra in the early 1990s, Bono's 'Fly'
sunglasses, Britney's belly, Justin Bieber's bangs. Pop stars have the advantage over film
stars in that their constructed image may be much more consistent over a period of time,
and is not dependent on the creative input of others.
Richard Dyer proposes that:
A star is an image not a real person that is constructed out of a range of materials (eg
advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music]).
• Yet that construction process is not automatic nor fully understood. Record companies
think they know about it — but witness the number of failures on their books. TV
programmes such as The X Factor show us the supposed construction process, how an
ordinary person is groomed, styled and coached into fulfilling a set of record company and
market expectations.This is not true stardom, which must happen through a combination
of factors. None of them labelled 'X'.

6. Stars as Constructions
• The Pet Shop Boys, quoted in Q, March 2002
“Cowell is a dreadful piece of crap who drags the music
business down whenever he rears his ugly head... Pop
stars today have no longevity. Rock 'n' roll is not about
singing perfect notes or being a showbiz personality. It's
about the anger and the angst. I hate what Pop Idol has
done to the business.”
• Roger Daltrey (The Who), As a record buying public, we
prefer to believe in stars who are their own and our
constructions rather than a transparent offering
designed explicitly to appeal to our blander tastebuds
served up by a record company interested only in our
wallets.

7. Industry and Audience
• Stars are produced by the music industry to make money out of audiences,
who respond to various elements of a star persona by buying records and
becoming fans. Record companies nurture and shape their stars — as the
TV talent show processes have shown us. They tend to manufacture what
they think audiences want, hence the 'photocopied' nature of many boy
bands, teen bands etc.However, there are whole markets out there who are
not convinced by the hype and don't want to spend their money on
blandness.The record industry also has a duty to provide bands/artists who
are perceived as 'real' (for 'real, maybe read 'ugly' or unpolished) for these
audiences.Stars can also be created by this route. Pop stars, whatever their
nature, are quite clearly the product of their record company — and they
must be sold.
Richard Dyer says:
Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their
meanings.

8. Stars and Audience
• The music industry is aware of the audiences it caters to, the perky pre-school hippy,
and it does its best to keep us all happy. Historically, the industry has provided us
with a range of commodities all with different appeal. One way to achieve this is by
producing new stars of different types playing constantly mutating genres of music -
there's always something and someone fresh to choose from (important for the
younger audience). Another way is to produce a star with long-lasting appeal, who,
once their brand is established, can cater to a fan audience for decades (in the way U2
or the Rolling Stones have done).
• Unfortunately, these methods are oppositional. The 'conveyor belt' approach to new
stars means that talent isn't developed, and a star's value may be very short-lived. A
star may only be significant or relevant for two years, or two albums. Too much focus
on 'golden oldies' means that younger fans can't identify with stars, whom they see as
belonging to their parents' generation. A healthy music industry develops both types
of talent, and generates a diverse range of stars, who mean different things to
different audience segments. Many pundits who say that the music industry is in the
doldrums claim it is because this range of meanings is absent, or because the
meaning of the modern star is superficial and transient.

9. Ideology and Culture
• Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a certain ideology.
Audience interest in these values enhances their 'star quality', and it is through conveying
beliefs ideas and opinions outside music that performers help create their star persona.
• A star may initiate a fashion trend, with legions of fans copying their hairstyle and
clothing. Stars initiate or benefit from cultural discourse (e.g. via their Twitter feed), and
create an ongoing critical commentary.
• Now more than ever before, social networks give pop stars the opportunity to establish
their own values outside their music. Lady Gaga tweets frequently about LGBT issues, and
expects her Little Monsters to engage with that discourse just as much as she expects them
to listen to her music.
• Stardom, and star worship in general is a cultural value in itself. Ideologies drawn upon
include materialism and sexuality. Whole sites of institutional support (eg radio & TV
shows, magazines, websites) are devoted to star scrutiny, and it seems we can never get
enough information.
• Stars also provide us with a focal point for our own cultural thinking — particularly to do
with Youth & Sexuality.

10. Character and Personality
• A star begins as a "real" human, possessing gender &
race characteristics. Stars provide audiences with a
focus for ideas of 'what people are supposed to be
like' (eg for women, thin/beautiful) - they may
support hegemony by conforming to it
(thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still
lovable).
• Much of the discussion of stars in celebrity
magazines is about how stars compare to the current
hegemonic ideal, and how we compare to the stars.

11. Character and Personality
Richard Dyer — The Stars (BFI Education 1979)
• Pop stars, on the other hand, establish their character and personality through songs and performance
and will strive for immediate star identity with a first album. They appear to have more control over their
persona in that many of them write their own songs, and that their body of work develops,
chronologically over time, along with society. Pop stars don't do aberrant costume dramas or science
fiction movies which take them out of place in time and space and confuse their audience. They produce
45-74 minutes of music which gives a clear indication of their interests, moods, appetites and lifestyle at a
particular point in time; audiences read music=person, and will base their understanding of the star's
persona on the sentiments expressed by their songs. This understanding may be very personal and
intimate, the star's music can infiltrate every corner of a fan's life. Albums are continually read and re-
read as texts think of the 100+ times you might listen to a track, whereas films tend to be watched once or
twice only.
• Because a pop star's persona is constructed on the basis of a narrow text, continually re-read and
reassessed, this may lead, in many cases, to second album syndrome, when an artist is unable to sustain
their persona over a period of time (largely because they got rich off the back of the first album and
bought all the houses cars etc they'd ever wanted) and they are unable to create a consistent account of
their character and personality in their second major release .The root spring of their persona then
disappears, or becomes confused.
• A pop star's persona, therefore, as depicted in terms of character and personality, is a fragile thing which
needs constant nurturing, and is the product of constant discourse between the star and his or her
audience.

12. RICHARD DYER SAYS ON PERSONALITY
AND CHARACTER:
“In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations
of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter
the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human
being in this society.There is a good deal at stake in such
conceptions. On the one hand, our society stresses what
makes them like others in the social group/class/gender to
which they belong. This individualising stress involves a
separation of the person's "self" from his/her social "roles",
and hence poses the individual against society. On the other
hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are
appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in
such groups would now wish to contest (eg the struggles over
representation of blacks, women and gays in recent
years).Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such
persons are promulgated.”