Page 216 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

STAR CULTURE

The object in which we make (an) investment is always provided for us
– some would say imposed on us – by the ‘machine’ of culture. This
machine involves not just the bricks and mortar of Hollywood studios
and chains of cinemas, but also certain cultural orientations and com-
petencies (shared language, for example, and shared conceptions of
time, personality, and aesthetic value) and the psychic processes where-
by we enter culture and negotiate shifting, insecure positions within it
. . . The implications of this argument are that, in investigating the
phenomenon of stardom, we are not dealing with a person or an image
with particular characteristics (talent, beauty, glamour, charisma, etc.)
but with a rather complex set of cultural processes.
(Donald 1985: 50)

Stardom has two general trajectories. First, stardom functions as part of the
production process – it is vital to representation, narrative, and marketing. Once
produced, stardom is then consumed by audiences, located in particular, but
mobile, sites of time and space. The two dimensions – production and
consumption – thus work together to generate specific meanings of stardom.
Conditions of popular culture production and its effects on stardom have
been elaborated by Alberoni (1972), who argues that stardom requires an e ffi-
cient bureaucracy, a large-scale capitalist society, and significant economic
development. King (1987) adds to the list the necessity for a commodity-
producing industry, and a strict temporal and cognitive distinction between
work and leisure into which such productions can move. Gamson (1994: 42–3)
points out that modern innovations in stardom beginning in the 1940s relied
on production-oriented practices such as scienti fic target marketing, increased
‘info-tainment’ media outlets, and ‘non-entertainment’ sectors becoming
increasingly interested in public relations. All these authors agree that stardom
requires well-financed institutions and systems of professional practices to
produce and circulate images for fans to consume.
To understand more fully how stardom is crucial to media production prac-
tices generally, we can look at how stardom emerged first in the film industry.
According to DeCordova, competing theories try to explain how stardom
developed in the cinema business, but little disagreement exists as to why (1990:
2–8). Movie stars were cultivated to draw consumers back, time and again, into
film theaters. The standard account of this historical development is that stars
were created by the small, independent film companies battling the motion
picture monopoly, while at the same time these independents took ownership
of star images (King 1986: 161). It gave the independents a chance to compete
with the big studios because stars drew repeat audiences.
Yet this is hardly the only commercial benefit reaped by the ‘production’ of
stars. Stardom also allowed the culture industries to minimize risk and enhance
predictability, which is crucial to any capitalist venture. Film stars made it pos-
sible for entertainment companies to raise capital more easily (King 1987: 149).

205