Chapter 3

Watching the Stars Come Out: Film Stars, and Why We Love Them

In This Chapter

Considering stars as commodities, actors, sex symbols and celebrities

Star-gazing in Bollywood and across Europe

Entering the scary world of the celebrity

Films tell stories, and stories are about people … or sometimes aliens … or talking dogs … but generally people. And because humans are social creatures, as a viewer you can’t help but respond in some way to the enormous figures on the cinema screen. Yes, some of your responses to movies are about the characters – their noble victories and heart-breaking tragedies – but while these events are being played out you’re basically spending two hours in the dark looking at people (which sounds creepier than it really is).

Although watching ordinary folk can be interesting for a bit, you really want to gaze at the most beautiful, charismatic and captivating people on Earth: film stars. But after a while, as I discuss in this chapter, even on-screen charisma isn’t enough and you begin to want more. You want to reach out to these unearthly creatures, to understand them, or at least to buy the products they endorse in order to become a little bit more like them. As a result film stars hold enormous economic and social power.

Surveying Stars, in All Their Extraordinary Ordinariness

If film stars were completely different to (and better than) regular human beings in every way, audiences would soon tire of them. But they’re not, and this flawed humanity is what keeps them interesting.

Just try and think of a major film star today who hasn’t been through a personal, financial or drug-related crisis at some point in their life. Even super-wholesome Julia Roberts, the archetypal girl-next-door, had a disastrous marriage to a country music singer. Stars must constantly balance their extraordinary talent or beauty against flawed ordinariness to be compelling.

In this section, I delve into the alluring but complex world of the film star.

Distinguishing stars from actors

Of course not all the people you see up on screen are bona fide film stars. Many actors make a fine living taking less high-profile roles and not drawing attention to themselves. These people are known within the industry as character actors, which is a roundabout way of saying ‘unconventional-looking’, ‘too old’ or ‘non-white’. Think Steve Buscemi, Olympia Dukakis and Danny Trejo: all very well-regarded actors, but not true movie stars.

Then there are acclaimed talents such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, who regularly played leading roles but in different types of films – often ensemble pieces or low-budget independent dramas. Hoffman’s tragic, untimely death only served to emphasise that he was not an actor who was comfortable with the celebrity trappings of his career. Or, consider unknown actors who make a big impression in their first major role, like 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Wallis may have been Oscar-nominated, but whether hers was a truly ‘star-making’ debut remains to be seen.

So what separates stars from actors? It can’t just be a question of the type of roles they receive or whether they receive top billing or appear farther down the list – and the distinction is almost certainly not based on perceived acting ability. For example, nobody thinks of casting Arnold Schwarzenegger in a role that requires a detailed, nuanced performance – or even an accent that isn’t Austrian. But that didn’t stop him from becoming a (literally) huge star.

Arnie’s selling point to begin with was obviously his extreme, muscle-bound body, exploited to spectacular effect in sci-fi thrillers such as The Terminator (1984) and Predator (1987). Arnie became a star because he offered something unique (his body) in an era when body-consciousness was prevalent in Western society. But later in his acting career he also proved reasonably adept at comedy (or at least self-parody) in Twins (1988) and Kindergarten Cop (1990). Although his physical presence is always extraordinary, his comic roles present him in ordinary family situations.

The biggest film stars often come to stand for issues that are topical within their contemporary society. Arnie’s image of indestructible masculinity also dovetailed neatly with the aggressive, hawkish politics of the Reagan administration in the US during the 1980s. Even his obvious foreignness spoke to the American dream: come to America and be rich beyond imagining.

Analysing star image

If part of stars’ lustre extends beyond their on-screen performances, you need also to consider all the other material that circulates around them, including interviews, biographies, product endorsements and public appearances at award ceremonies. When you consider what particular stars mean to their audience, you have to take all these elements into account. Richard Dyer established this approach in his book Stars (2nd edition, 2008, British Film Institute), which combines literary semiotics (the study of signs in language, see Chapter 13) with sociology and cultural studies. Stars is one of a handful of books that set out the critical approach and methods for a new field of enquiry, in this case, star studies. As a film student, it is practically required reading. Dyer sets up the idea of a star image, which combines a star’s performances on and off the screen, as an actor and as a celebrity (see ‘Separating stardom from celebrity’ later in this chapter).

Star images can work within or against the broader meanings of a film as a whole. For example, when you watch Tom Cruise battling invading aliens in War of the Worlds (2005), you’re likely to think about his widely publicised status as a Scientologist and someone with a rather different relationship to extraterrestrial forces.

Star images accumulate meanings over time and mean different things to different audience members, just like films themselves. The star image is bigger than the star and operates within societies at the level of commonly held knowledge or even myth, so film stars can become symbolic of particular debates or points of conflict. Dyer’s own example is that of Jane Fonda, an actress who combines elements of sex kitten, tomboy and political activist. Fonda’s star image is therefore complex, even contradictory, multi-layered and rich in meanings for audiences and society at large.

Seeing stars as commodities

You don’t have to stretch too far to think about film stars as living, breathing commodities. Stars sell their personalities and looks to make livings – their private lives belong to everyone, and everything that they touch from clothing to cars increases in value to their fans and the public at large. So unsurprisingly, the biggest film stars get seriously rich as a result.

The primary economic value of a film star comes from their apparent ability to mitigate risk for producers (check out Chapter 2 for more on producers’ responsibilities). Cast a star, so the wisdom goes, and you have a much higher chance of making a profit from your movie. But stars also sell big ideas, such as the American dream, as well as mundane products such as coffee and aftershave.

Selling films

The economics of the film industry are structured around risk. Despite decades of market research, focus groups and test screenings, nobody can ever be certain whether a film is going to be a hit before it’s released. So any means of moderating this risk is extremely valuable. Creating a movie based on pre-sold intellectual property, such as a bestselling novel, is one way to increase the possibility of success. Another is to cast the biggest stars.

In today’s film industry, where studios and independents usually package each film as a one-off deal, stars have greater negotiating power than they had during the studio era, when they worked under contract. Their extravagant remuneration packages reflect their clout. Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio can command upfront fees of around $20 million per movie, and profit-share deals can be even more lucrative: Cameron Diaz reportedly made $42 million from the proceeds of Bad Teacher (2011).

That being said, anecdotal evidence points to a litany of failed films featuring well-paid actors, and Forbes even publishes an annual list of the ‘worst value’ stars. (Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler have topped this list in recent years.) At the other end of the spectrum, few of the top-grossing films of all time are genuinely star-driven. Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) all featured actors who were relative unknowns when the films were initially released.

An increasing weight of research suggests that stars’ real economic value is not as high as their pay suggests. Studies carried out across extended periods reveal that the presence of stars has an inconsistent effect on profitability. Other factors, such as quality (based on reviews and awards), release date and whether the film is a sequel or part of a franchise, are much more reliable in predicting success. Of course, stars (and their agents) are well aware of the power of the franchise, which makes the latest comic book hero role a very attractive (and lucrative) proposition.

So why do stars continue to command such obscene salaries? For investors, the answer may be simply that they appear to be so valuable, regardless of whether this value turns into actual profit. For this reason, stars are often the first elements attached to a project because they provide credibility at this vital stage. Stars are also very useful when promoting films upon release. A rare interview from a big star can provide acres of column inches and visibility for forthcoming projects. Stars do sell films; they just don’t always sell tickets.

One good way to discover which stars really pull in the dosh for their studios is to sign up for an online Fantasy Film League game. Several are available (try www.fantasyfilmleague.com or www.summermovieleague.com), and each works on a similar model to that of fantasy sports leagues. Buy a few stars, and keep an eye on their profitability while engaging in healthy competition with online friends. It’s a win-win!

Selling other stuff

The adjective most frequently used in conjunction with film stars is definitely ‘glamorous’. Stars are glamorous because they look fabulous at award ceremonies wearing the latest couture, or they’re photographed holidaying in exclusive beach and ski resorts, or they can get tables at the best restaurants in the world. They ooze style, sophistication and class.

People tend to forget that in order to be film-star glamorous, you also must be ambitious, influential and just plain rich. But most non-film stars prefer focusing on the idea of glamour, probably because doing so allows people to feel less uncomfortable about wanting the lifestyles that many stars conspicuously flaunt. The image of desirable success that film stars project lies at the heart of Western consumer society, which makes stars the perfect vehicles for advertising.

The vital connection between film stars and advertising is nothing new. In the early years of the Hollywood film industry, female stars such as Mary Pickford advertised diverse products including Pompeian Night Cream (‘Brings Beauty While You Sleep!’). By 1950, even man’s man John Wayne was endorsing cigarettes alongside the dubious claim that ‘Camels agree with your throat’.

Although the benefits of movie star endorsements for products and their advertisers are obvious, these deals can also extend stars’ visibility and reach. But the principal benefit for stars is clearly financial. With fees from acting roles proving unpredictable for all but the biggest names, canny stars diversify their activities to ensure profitability and steady income. Over the past fifteen years, Jennifer Lopez has transformed herself from up-and-coming actress in Out of Sight (1998) to a global brand encompassing pop music, fashion, perfumes and TV production.

But dangers exist alongside opportunities. Products can fall out of public favour – no Hollywood star today advertises cigarettes, for example. Or conversely a star’s image can suddenly be deemed incompatible with that of an endorsed product. Advertisers of Florida Orange Juice famously dropped Burt Reynolds after a messy divorce. Seems that OJ and infidelity just don’t mix.

But more broadly, some stars are uncomfortable with having their economic power so obviously demonstrated and exploited. During the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and 70s, when anti-establishment politics were the fashion, doing commercials just wasn’t cool. This stigma led to a spate of big American stars going overseas to shoot commercials, particularly in Japan where the embarrassing images were presumed less likely to show up in the States.

In the age of the Internet, however, regionally exclusive media is clearly impossible, and yet still George Clooney’s coffee ads can be seen everywhere except American television. Count yourself lucky, America, they’re truly awful. But also incredibly lucrative; Clooney is widely reported to have banked $40 million from the endorsement deal. Now that’s smooth and rich.

Identifying with stars

Desire defines the relationship between film stars and their audiences. You want stars to succeed in their on-screen quests for love or success. You want to look like them or be more like them and, of course, you sometimes want to do naughty things with/to them. These ‘wants’ are all different levels of desire, and their great power is that you can never truly satisfy these desires, no matter how much you try. Even if, by some incredible turn of events, you end up dating a movie star, you’ll soon find out that they’re regular people, like everyone else.

Do you have a favourite film star – someone who always convinces you to get out of the house and catch her latest film on the big screen? Do you follow someone obsessively on Twitter – or even attempt to see the object of your desire in the flesh at film premieres? Don’t worry, you’re not a total geek. Well, maybe a bit of geek, but that’s practically essential in film studies circles.

Think seriously about why a particular actor appeals to you. Is it purely a physical thing? Probably not if the person is that important to you. As you dig deeper, you may well find an emotional connection to the star; you identify with that person in some way. Perhaps aspects of her star image (flip to the earlier section ‘Analysing star image’ for more details) that you gleaned through publicity interviews or on social media resonate with you – or maybe you respond to one or more of her key performances. Either way, your favourite stars make you feel like them in some way or other.

Identification in film studies is a slippery concept, because scholars use the term in different ways:

• In a commonsense way, identification describes an audience’s connection with a character while watching a film. If you identify with the protagonist, you can imagine yourself in that person’s place, therefore heightening feelings of tension, suspense and relief. You don’t necessarily feel a deep connection with the actor or the character; just that the film is efficient in helping you suspend disbelief, or buy into the reality of the story world.
• At a more complex level, some film theorists argue that identifying with a character on screen is comparable to the fundamental psychological processes of identity formation, such as French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’ (see Chapter 13). Put very simply, when a baby recognises herself in a mirror, she understands that her body and mind are united, but she also misunderstands by thinking that she’s everywhere and everything. If you lose yourself in a film, you’re like that baby!

You may find these and other theories of identification convincing – or not. But simply asking people how they relate to stars, through audience research, shows that fans really care about their idols. In the early 1990s, film scholar Jackie Stacey posted an advert in a women’s magazine asking readers to share fan letters about favourite female stars from the 1940s and 50s. Stacey received more than 300 submissions, and from these accounts, she identified the following elements of female-star fandom (from most to least extreme responses):

• Devotion and worship: Seeing stars as ‘goddesses’, unattainably perfect creatures.
• Desire to become: Modelling yourself on what a star represents, such as the confidence of Marlene Dietrich, even if the goal is impossible.
• Imitation and copying: Trying to act like and look like the star, such as through clothing or hairstyles.
• Pleasure in feminine power: Enjoying strong women, such as Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis, who get things done in their own ways and on their own terms.
• Escapism: Forgetting yourself and becoming lost in the film’s moment.

Although Stacey was exploring women’s relationship to female stars, similar studies reveal comparable responses from male fans to male stars. In fact, these relationships can be just as intense and commercially exploitable.

Sexing up the screen

Many people think of unbridled sexuality in films as a recent phenomenon, because the norms of what’s acceptable to present on screen have generally become more relaxed in recent decades. But in fact early cinema featured extravagantly sexy performers, such as ‘the Latin Lover’ Rudolph Valentino and ‘It Girl’ Clara Bow. Valentino was renowned for his ability to drive female audiences of the 1920s wild with desire.

Partly thanks to the responses that sex symbols such as Valentino provoked, America’s moral guardians put increasing pressure on the Hollywood studios until they came up with a system of self-regulation known as the Hays Code, after Will Hays, head of the industry’s professional body, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. ‘The Code’ was established in 1930 but only fully enforced four years later.

Under the Hays Code, the Hollywood studios agreed never to represent certain elements and to treat others with extreme caution. These limits had an immediate impact on the sexiest film stars because nudity of any kind was outlawed and on-screen sexual activity severely curtailed. Men and women were forbidden from appearing in bed together and kissing had a strict time limit. However, some historians argue that the Code actually increased the erotic appeal of stars by constructing psychologically rich signals for sexual activity, such as fetishes of clothing or cigarettes, and by implying rather than displaying sex.

To understand the eroticism under the Code, watch Rita Hayworth’s dazzlingly sexy performance in Gilda (1946). Hayworth launches onto the screen in close-up with naked shoulders, luxurious hair bouncing. She later conducts an electrifying strip tease, which involves removing just a pair of long satin gloves. The trashy plot implies impotence, homosexuality and infidelity without falling foul of the letter of the Code. Although Gilda is punished for her bad behaviour, Hayworth is irrepressible.

Of course the sexualised visual treatment of female film stars is a sticky subject for film studies, which typically incorporates a feminist perspective. Laura Mulvey’s groundbreaking work on visual pleasure and narrative cinema set up the notion of the male gaze, whereby female stars exist so that male characters (and a largely male audience) can look at them. As a result, watching a film echoes and reinforces sexist behaviour in society at large (see Chapter 13).

Since its publication in 1975, Mulvey’s work has been extremely influential, but many other scholars have questioned and modified it. For example, the male gaze allows little space for the complexities of female spectatorship, notably how female audiences enjoy watching sexualised male stars such as Valentino as well as watching powerful or beautiful women.

The enormous success of the Twilight franchise (2008–12) is notable in this light. The five films are built around two contrasting male sex symbols: the ethereal and smouldering Robert Pattinson and the gym-built body of macho Taylor Lautner. This dynamic proved wildly successful with younger female audiences, inviting comparisons with boy-band stars from the pop-music industry. So are the Twilight films cynical financial exploitation of hormonal teenagers, or a safe and even empowering space for girls to explore their sexuality? The answer is probably both, and that’s why star studies is so fascinating.

Working like a star: Acting, performing, inhabiting

When assessing the quality of a film, even in the most informal way, many people pass judgement on the actors’ performances before any other element, often even before the story itself. For some reason, everyone feels qualified to dismiss particular actors as wooden or unconvincing, or to acclaim others as masters of their craft. But explaining why you’re so impressed by a performance – or picking out what actors precisely do to make their work convincing – is much more difficult.

This challenge is partly because, as with other elements of the classical film-making style such as editing (see Chapter 4), movie acting is often meant to go unnoticed. Naturalistic actors aim to make you forget that they’re people pretending to be other people, and the best ones often do just that. Then again, actors can also employ highly noticeable acting techniques, such as altering their physical appearance or adopting a different accent or voice, which can be equally impressive.

Dissecting performances

As a film student, try to develop the ability to take notice of understated acting and see past showy tics to help you understand how screen acting works (or indeed doesn’t work).

Avoid the following pitfalls when critiquing actors:

• Don’t confuse performance with character. For example, you may be tempted to credit Ingrid Bergman for Ilsa’s core emotional dilemma in Casablanca: the tension between romantic love and pragmatism in the face of adversity. But this powerful struggle was already in the script before the actress joined the film. Bergman did, however, beautifully embody the dilemma in unspoken ways, through her wonderfully specific gestures and body language.
• Don’t assume that stars are just playing themselves. Even for stars whose performances across many films are similar and consistent, such as action heroes or slapstick comedians, actors still do a great deal of work to make their films emotionally coherent.
• Try not to react negatively to performance styles from different historical periods or cultural contexts. The extravagant miming and gesturing of many actors in early cinema was carried over from popular theatre where oversized performances were required just to be understood. Similarly performances in Bollywood films can seem cartoonish and camp to Western audiences who’re used to a far more restrained acting style.

Do examine carefully how actors use their bodies to construct performances. Some film genres place heavy physical demands on an actor, particularly action films, musicals and certain types of comedy (anything starring Jim Carrey). The way actors run, fight or dance is choreographed to some extent, but still their specific physical qualities create different meanings and emphases.

An actor’s facial expressions and gestures in close-up often create intense moments of conflict or drama in film. For a great example, watch the very end of The Graduate (1967). Not the thrilling race against time and interrupted wedding, but the final scene with Dustin Hoffman’s Ben and Katharine Ross’s Elaine escaping on the bus. Hoffman’s face shifts from exhilaration and triumph, through doubt, to disillusionment all in one long take. These gestures completely change the tone of the film’s conclusion.

Actors’ voices are just as important as their bodies, and getting an accent right is crucial. For example, perhaps you were as mystified as everyone else by Keanu Reeves’s notorious accent in Dracula (1992). But accents are just one part of an overall package of vocal performance. Actors can also alter the quality of their voices – pitch and resonances – through effort or coaching to produce different effects for different roles. Compare the gruff authority of Jon Hamm’s Don Draper in TV’s Mad Men to his more vocally melodious comic turn in Bridesmaids (2011).

A useful way of separating performance from character is to compare two different actors playing the same role. Remakes can be great for this game, but you also need to bear in mind that acting styles change over time and across national boundaries. Gus Van Sant’s ‘shot for shot’ remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960 and 1998) is a particularly interesting example. Many critics questioned why Van Sant even needed to make his film, but students of film acting will at least be forever grateful.

Meeting ‘the method’

Being a hybrid, interdisciplinary field of study, film studies borrows its language for talking about performance from other areas, particularly theatre studies and aspects of psychology. For this reason, several key terms and frames of reference from these fields are important to understand when you’re analysing film acting.

Crucial to these discussions is the idea of naturalistic acting, in which actors depict realistic, believable human characters. The term naturalism developed from 19th-century drama, when putting real life on to the stage was a deeply radical strategy. Actors in naturalistic plays, such as August Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1888), were encouraged to find their characters by understanding their environments and circumstances.

Naturalism was a major influence on the Russian theatre director Constantin Stanislavski, who as a young actor was notorious for disguising himself as a tramp or a gypsy to understand his roles. Stanislavski hated the then dominant style of ‘mechanical’ theatre acting, which used stylised gestures and clichés to present stock characters to the audience. He advocated a holistic emotional and physical approach that blends the actor into the scripted character. Failing that, get drunk and sleep on the streets.

Through his leadership of the New York Actors’ Studio from 1951, Lee Strasberg brought Stanslavski’s theories into American drama and film, and popularised the method school of acting. Strasberg’s method centres on the idea of affective memory, which asks actors to build up stores of emotive responses that they can then use when playing roles. Under Strasberg, training affective memory was a process often akin to psychotherapy, which other disciples of Stanislavski such as Stella Adler saw as irresponsible and dangerous.

Although elements of Stanislavski’s training had been employed by actors such as Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, method acting shot into the public consciousness with Marlon Brando’s scorching performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On The Waterfront (1954). Brando’s intense gaze, sudden outpourings of fury or despair, and ability to lose himself in his roles were widely attributed to Strasberg, although ironically he trained with Adler. Either way, film acting had a new champion.

The method spread rapidly through Strasberg’s Actors Studio, which attracted students as diverse as James Dean, Paul Newman and Marilyn Monroe. But the approach wasn’t without its detractors. The typical method performance is showy and shouty and doesn’t suit every type of role. Also, method actors can also be notoriously difficult on set. Working on Marathon Man (1976) with method-trained Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier famously quipped ‘Try acting, dear boy … it’s much easier!’

Exploring a World of Stars

The Hollywood star system was so culturally and financially significant throughout the 20th century that it has tended to dominate film-studies work on stardom. This bias towards Hollywood often excludes consideration of the rich variety of stars and star systems in different cultural contexts. Sometimes stars can be exceptionally famous with local audiences and all but unknown elsewhere, such as Fan Bingbing, the beautiful Chinese actress and singer, whereas others, for example Brigitte Bardot, burst out of a national context onto the international scene.

As a result, film stars have a particular importance to the circulation of ideas around national identity, something I discuss in this section in connection with European stars. I also take a look here at the most significant star-making film industry in the world today, the Bollywood system in India, which has invited comparisons with Hollywood in its heyday.

Pondering European stardom

The long-running, well-established film industries and the different languages and cultures of Europe have produced a wide range of film stars, sometimes echoing or imitating American ‘types’ and other times generating distinctive and culturally specific icons. The study of European film stars has a great deal in common with the study of national identities. What’s the most useful approach: defining European stars by what’s special about them or saying that ‘they’re not like Hollywood stars’?

Chapter 11 examines the film industry throughout continental Europe.

Britain

The stars of British cinema often trained in the theatre, either the classical tradition of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh or the earthy music halls of Gracie Fields. During the 1940s and 1950s the well-established Rank Organisation imitated Hollywood by developing its stars under contract, producing Dirk Bogarde and Diana Dors as British sex symbols. Nonetheless, the biggest British stars have always been tempted away to Hollywood: Cary Grant, Julie Andrews and more recently Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan to name but a few. Chapter 10 explores British film-making in greater detail.

France

French cinema has tended to be far more separate (in financial and cultural terms) from Hollywood than the British, and so the French star system developed in more idiosyncratic directions. Scholar Ginette Vincendeau identifies the following defining characteristics of French film stardom:

• Stars have more control over their images than their American equivalents. For example, Juliette Binoche refused to participate in promotion for Wuthering Heights (1992) over a disagreement with the film’s producers.
• Stars have the ability to straddle mainstream and art cinema, as Gerard Depardieu’s varied back catalogue amply demonstrates.
• The French New Wave movement of the 1960s produced a significant and long-lasting grouping of stars, led by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau.

Italy

Italian cinema also had a famous post-war renaissance in the form of Neorealism, but typically Neorealist films were less glamorous (and therefore less star-driven) than those of the French New Wave. Anna Magnani is an icon of this period due to her powerful, earthy performances in films such as Rome, Open City (1945). Italian comedic stars, such as the clownish Toto, travelled little outside the country, but sex symbol Sophia Loren was the quintessential international glamour icon. See Chapter 11 for a closer look at Italy’s beloved Toto.

Germany

The tragic intervention of World War II meant that the national identity of German actors and stars was a particular focus for international public opinion. Stars such as Conrad Veidt and Marlene Dietrich were able to work in Britain and Hollywood only by becoming naturalised citizens.

The Nazis were well aware of the propaganda potential of film stars, and Hitler and Goebbels surrounded themselves with glamorous women such as Zarah Leander. The actor Gustaf Gründgens was criticised for collaboration with the Nazi regime in the novel Mephisto (1936) by Klaus Mann (later adapted into a film).

Of course German actors today are just as able to cross over from national to transnational cinema stardom as those from other countries, as Daniel Brühl has demonstrated. (For a description of the term transnational, check out the later sidebar ‘Whatever happened to international stardom?’)

Spain

Spanish and Latin American film stars have always had a greater chance of international success due to the large Hispanic population in the United States and Latin America. Ramon Novarro, Dolores Del Rio and more recently Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem have all made it big in Hollywood.

Seeing the new Hollywood in Bollywood

The term Bollywood refers to a subsection of the Indian film industry, which as a whole is huge and features many different languages (see Chapter 12). Bollywood is popular cinema, usually made in Hindi and based on the production centre of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). But what’s interesting about this label is that it contains an obvious echo of the American film industry at its height and yet has also come to stand for the whole of Indian cinema in the Western imagination.

You can interpret the common comparisons between the Hindi film industry and Hollywood as a patronising post-colonial critique (implying that Bollywood films are a poor imitation of Hollywood) or more positively as a well-intentioned (if sometimes poorly informed) compliment. Western journalists often look to Mumbai for a nostalgic hit of old-fashioned Hollywood glamour, and this glamour is embodied in Bollywood film stars. The comparison tends to work as follows:

• Bollywood stars retain a powerful hold over the Indian public imagination in a way that may have been lost in the West.
• The press and publicity around Bollywood film stars celebrates conspicuous consumption, fashion and Western-style consumerism.
• Bollywood films often appear to be designed as obvious star vehicles to showcase the appeal of their lead actor or actress, just as with many classical Hollywood movies.

For some good examples of star-packed Bollywood films, check out the section on Indian cinemas in Chapter 12.

As an example, consider the career of Aishwarya Rai, former Miss World and current queen of the Bollywood box office. With her honeyed complexion, green eyes and raven locks, Rai’s beauty is beyond doubt: even Julia Roberts called her ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’. Her earning potential is equally impressive, because she makes as much as Roberts per film. But due to the flexible contracts typical in Bollywood, she has a much more prolific output: 44 starring roles since 1997 compared to Roberts’s mere 20 or so.

Rai’s most famous films are Devdas (2002), a glossy romantic drama filled with spectacular dance routines, Pride and Prejudice (2004), which provided her first English-speaking role, and Enthiran (2010), an ambitious sci-fi epic starring the biggest star of Tamil cinema, Rajinikanth.

Rai’s celebrity status was further enhanced in 2007 when she married fellow actor Abhishek Bachchan, son of legendary star Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, making her essentially Bollywood royalty. Her early career as a model means that she’s an advertiser’s dream, and her endorsements include top global brands such as Pepsi, L’Oreal and De Beers diamonds. Her image in India is that of a clean-living, religious woman with strong humanitarian concerns. The story of her rise to fame has difficult elements – such as an allegedly abusive relationship with fellow actor Salman Kahn – but these only seem to endear her further to her Bollywood fans.

Rai certainly has the demeanour and poise of Hollywood stars such as Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, the celebrity status and family connections of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, and the marketability of Audrey Hepburn. But in truth her fan base is already on the way to eclipsing that of Hollywood in its prime. Before long American actresses will be aspiring to be like Rai, instead of the other way around.

Separating Stardom and Celebrity

Ask people to say what they think the difference is between a star and celebrity, and you’re likely to get an answer along the lines of ‘Stars are famous for having a talent, whereas celebrities are just famous for being famous’. This commonly held opinion involves a wealth of assumptions and value judgements. Most obviously, it implies that real stars are better than mere celebrities, who are debased fame-seekers.

In fact very few, if any, pure celebrities exist according to this definition. Even Paris Hilton, often cited as a talentless celebrity, became famous due to family connections and has proved extremely talented at self-promotion. The vast majority of celebrities are also actors, TV stars or sportspeople whose personalities have somehow come to eclipse what made them famous in the first place.

In this section I reveal that the boundaries between star and celeb were always blurry, and that the Internet is increasingly making such distinctions murkier than the streets of Victorian London in a Jack the Ripper flick.

Living private lives in the public gaze

Many people believe that celebrities have sold their souls to the devil. They have fame, influence, riches beyond their wildest dreams – but at what cost? Their privacy. Time and again you hear celebrities complaining about not being able to walk down the street or go shopping or eat a doughnut or whatever. Yes, that must be horrible. But they sort of knew what they were getting into, didn’t they?

Being a star isn’t just about being talented, it’s also about constructing an image that appeals to the public in some way. And if you do that really, really well, you become a celebrity. Then all bets are off: your life is open season on past lovers, career mistakes and wardrobe malfunctions. Although technically celebrities have the same legal right to privacy as everyone else, in reality they can’t sustain their careers without allowing the public access to themselves in one way or another.

People’s insatiable thirst for celebrity gossip seems to be a fact of modern life. The interesting question is: why do they care so much about the private lives of people they’ve never met? Film (and media) studies has several possible explanations for this phenomenon:

• In Western culture, celebrity worship has replaced religion as a means of publicly discussing ethics, beauty and morality. How people talk about ethical issues such as adultery is often shaped by celebrity examples. In this sense, film stars truly are like gods (Morgan Freeman) or perhaps fallen angels (Robert Downey Jr).
• Celebrity culture provides a valuable form of common ground or social glue within an increasingly fragmented society. Whereas people used to gossip about the neighbours over the garden fence, they now chat about Lindsay Lohan on social media.
• Celebrities distract people from how awful their daily lives are by reminding everyone to keep spending money. Film stars are particularly good at encouraging escapism, while making you want to buy stuff to be more like them.

All these theories rely on a dissolving of the public/private divide, which still exists in everyday social life. You don’t stare at a stranger’s imperfect body on a beach and loudly discuss her cellulite with your friends, or broadcast the marital problems of your best friend on the Internet, do you? At least I hope not. But you’ve probably engaged in these types of interaction in connection with celebrities. Go on, admit it.

Stars have always engaged in official publicity, in which they appear on talk shows or give interviews to magazines, and these activities are valuable to their fans. But the gossip industry prizes a different type of information: the ‘kiss and tell’ exposé, the unflattering paparazzi shot or the naughty video leaked online. The appeal of these products is that they’re ‘authentic’; they appear to offer access to the real, flawed person behind the glowing professional facade.

But then, these days people are so accustomed to the way that celebrity works that they’re even cynical about such apparently uncontrolled leaks. They know full well that celebrities have huge teams of spin doctors and publicists in their entourages. And the old adage that ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ is probably true in the majority of cases. Even Charlie Sheen, who had a very public mental breakdown on YouTube and Twitter in 2011, is still working.

Star-making in the 21st century

Andy Warhol’s much-quoted prediction that ‘in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes’ has come to stand for the proliferation of routes to fame in the 21st century, and in particular for the rise of Internet stardom. Direct public access to media channels has vastly increased the possibility of becoming famous in some way. People can upload videos of themselves to YouTube and achieve thousands of views and ‘likes’.

But Warhol’s outlandish idea has a caveat: this new, universal fame is temporary and fleeting. Public attention isn’t infinite, and when the next big thing happens, you’re toast. Also the cultural value of democratised stardom is different in that anything that’s easy to achieve is seen as less worthwhile. The old-fashioned Hollywood stars that Warhol worshipped were like rare, precious gems, plucked from obscurity and polished like diamonds. If everyone wore diamonds, they’d be worth nothing.

The international phenomenon of Big Brother led to the explosion of so-called reality TV programming in the early 2000s. Originally conceived as a social experiment to explore human interaction under closely controlled circumstances, the show quickly morphed into a shortcut contestants could take to become famous, by proving how ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ they seemed while being broadcast live on national television. As every viewer knows, the worst crime for a Big Brother contestant is to be ‘fake’.

One of the remarkable features about reality TV stars is that they don’t travel internationally. Each country has its own version of the biggest franchises, and although winners from one country occasionally appear on another nation’s show, they’re rarely popular with the locals.

By contrast, YouTube is the very definition of transnational (see the earlier sidebar ‘Whatever happened to international stardom?’). The video streaming site has produced several music stars, such as Lana del Rey, and globalised others such as South Korean pop star Psy (‘Gangnam Style’).

But is YouTube any use for aspiring film stars? Several have made promising starts. Caustic comedian and songwriter Bo Burnham successfully made his reputation by posting homemade videos online, before launching sell-out international stand-up tours. He’s reportedly signed a deal to write a musical for comedy producer Judd Apatow. However his first ‘old media’ venture, a sitcom for MTV, was cancelled after just one season. Are his 15 minutes now up? Only time will tell.