According to Edgar Morin in his book The Stars, the first movie stars in silent films participated in very simple movie plots which were a combination of fantasy and melodrama. The first stars resembled a kind of distant royalty. The mood of the early movies was pessimistic and tragic with the audience mostly composed of popular and juvenile audiences. After 1930, plots became more complex and realistic. There was less reliance on occult causes of events and the appeal was more psychological. After the Great Depression in the '30s, movie producers felt pressure to make movies that had happy endings. Movies lost some of their bad associations with burlesque and started to appeal more to a middle-class audience. The gap between the movie stars and the audience began to shrink as audiences wanted their star gods, but still wanted them have at least some of the same types of personal problems that they had. Stars were still viewed as considerably above audiences, but Morin now called them a "constitutional monarchy of lesser stars." The stars greatly resembled the gods and goddesses of classical Greece. They were not of a higher moral order. They had the same problems as the audience, except on a higher larger scale. The gods and goddesses had affairs and there were scenes of betrayal, war, peace, and adventure.
One interesting side effect was that the presence of movie stars on the big screen impacted the expectations the public had about their criteria for dating. As people went to movies and bought up movie magazines with touched-up pictures of the stars, boys and girls started expecting their dating partners to measure up to their movie idols, both physically and emotionally. Fans were less interested in dating people like themselves.
Four types of audience-star relationship
In his book Stars. Richard Dyer cites the work of Andrew Tudor, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York, who suggested four types of audience-star relationships:
- Emotional affinity - this is the most common and involves a loose attachment between the star, the storyline, and the personality orientation of the audience.
- Self-identification - the audience places themselves in the same situation as the star. They imagine themselves on the screen, experiencing what the stars are experiencing.
- Imitation - most common among young teenagers and takes the relationship beyond cinema, with the star acting as a life-model for the audience. Fans mimic the star's clothing, hairstyle, and leisure activities.
- Projection - "star-struck" - the public lives their life as if they were the star. The real-world and the star-world gets reversed. The fans ask themselves "what would the star do?", before swinging into action.
Idol 1: Movies, James Dean
The process by which I found out about James Dean is embarrassing. It wasn't that I had watched the movie, Rebel Without a Cause, and fell in love with him. It was a large poster-sized picture of him in a music store that caught my eye. He was looking down and brooding. I think I also saw a picture of him in a motorcycle jacket, which I think was the clincher. Years later I watched the movie and while I liked it, I couldn't identify with it. His family was upper-middle class and they lived in a big house. Dean was very inarticulate, and I couldn't understand what he wanted from his father. I was mad at my parents for sending me to a Catholic school, but I didn't feel they misunderstood me. Still the theme of rebelling against the authorities - in my case the Catholic Church - was good enough for me. When my parents saw the larger-than-life poster on the wall, they didn't like it. They may have understood what the picture meant better than I did. Naturally enough, their disapproval reassured me I was on the right track!
Why did I idolize him?
What did it mean to idolize him? For one thing, he let me know that I was not alone with my problems. Also, these problems had to do with my age. Teenagers were supposed to be unhappy. The fact that he was a movie star, plastering his unhappiness in interviews, photographs, and newsreels, let me know this was a national problem. Now I certainly had friends who were unhappy like I was, but why wasn't knowing and talking to them enough? It's because friendships required work. You had to listen to them, and many could not really appreciate my problems. With a movie star, not only did I not have to listen to him, but I could project the image of a perfect older brother, a teen-age listener who understood everything. No matter what problems I was having with my parents or teachers in school, I could always come home from school, go in my room, close the door, and James would be there, reassuring me that everything was bullshit.
Application of theories of celebrity to James Dean
In terms of theories of celebrity, James certainly had charisma, but I don't think that the function of his stardom was for social control as the Frankfurt School argues. Being a rebel against the conformity of the early '50s was cutting edge. Sure, it was about individual not social rebellion, but the social movements of the '60s were just getting started. I didn't feel Morin's theory applied either. I did not feel Dean was an expression of some pent-up dehumanized life I was leading. I'm sure that Dean would have fit into Orrin Klapp's social type as an outsider. But the problem is that if these types are always operating as Klapp claims, what were the conditions of the early '50s that made these rebel movies such hot items? After all, Marlon Brando and others were selling rebel movies as well. Klapp has no answer for this. Besides Dean's charisma, Marshall 's and Gamson's mass media self-interest was very present. It was the bombardment of Dean's image, not just in movies, but on billboards and posters that drew me in. Perhaps the biggest favor that no theory covers was the close relationship of our ages. I must have been about 16 and Dean must have been about 25, still within the range for me to identify with him. He was a perfect rebel for me because I was at an age when rebellion was starting to almost be expected.
What kind of fan attachment to Dean did I have?
Relative to the types of audience attraction, my connection to Dean was mild emotional affinity. I did not know about his personal life, let alone try to imitate it. I can say that I copied his hair and clothing that was uniquely his. Having a pompadour and wearing motorcycle jackets was a dark, but attractive side of the late 1950s culture. So it wasn't because of James Dean alone that I dressed like him.
Idol 2 Music: Jerry Lee Lewis
Musician celebrities had a much more powerful impact on me than movie stars, because listening to music is the most powerful of all the arts in altering states of consciousness for me. Jerry Lee appealed to me because of his raw rebelliousness. Whether it was Great Balls of Fire, Whole Lotta Shakin Going On or Breathless, this seemed like a guy who didn't give a f*ck. Jerry Lee was everything the Catholic Church was opposed to. Wild hair, oozing sexuality, surely on a path to Hell. Jerry even admitted that during different parts of his career that he played "the Devil's Music". What more can a 10-year-old boy want! But beyond Jerry Lee all the other musicians, whether it was rhythm and blues or rock and roll, music offered me a temporary ticket out of the life I was living. I cannot say that they opened my horizons because the music was so trite that it was hardly beyond the "Flatland" life I was leading. It was more of a hope that someday I could get away from my parents and live a life as exciting as musicians, and not at all like my parents' lives.
Application of theories of celebrity to rock and roll and rhythm and blues
It is hard to imagine a musical celebrity without charisma, so part of the attraction has to be that. Again, the Frankfurt theory about social control doesn't apply for the same reasons I gave in my section on James Dean. Even if we take the rhythm and blues scene into the sixties, with the exception of the early '60s, most rock and rhythm and blues supported the anti-war civil rights movement. It was not a distraction or an escape.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
