The Mechanics of Stardom After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the film Singin' In The Rain as a characterization of various processes of stardom, whether public or studio-backed.
examine fan magazines as both organs of studio publicity and institutions in their own right.
discuss the way in which stardom functions as a guarantee of a film's success in the classical Hollywood period.
Star Power After reading this section, you should be able to:
describe the way in which the power of a star to increase a movie's profitability translated into a star's power to produce films.
examine the career of Tom Hanks as an example of a cinema star, with attention to the ways in which Hanks' star persona inflects the roles he plays.
Persona After reading this section, you should be able to:
define "persona," and distinguish between the public persona of a star, the performative persona of an actor, and the "actual" person.
discuss the interplay between these various levels of personality.
discuss typecasting, whether on the part of stars or casting direction, as well as the phenomenon of actors "playing against type."
Stardom and Mass Culture: From Persona to Star After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the ways in which a star's persona differs from that of an actor.
examine the roles of various agencies (merchandising tie-ins, media, fan clubs, etc.) in the construction of a star's persona, both in general and in the specific case of Mickey Mouse.
discuss why the nature of a star's persona might make it difficult for the star to play historical figures.
Stars, The System, And the Public After reading this section, you should be able to:
identify several successful and several unsuccessful attempts on the part of the studios to "make" stars.
suggest several reasons why some actors attain stardom and others do not, with attention to the role of the public in the star-making (and star-breaking) process.
Stars And Culture: A Historical Survey After reading this section, you should be able to:
examine the history of stars on film, considering both stars from other fields appearing on film and stars created by film.
describe the cultural values grouped under the term "Victorian," and discuss the careers of Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin as emblematic of the Victorianism of early cinema.
Exoticism, Eroticism, and Modern Morality: Stars of the 1920s After reading this section, you should be able to:
contrast the images of European stars of the 1920s as worldly and sexually mature to those of American stars of the same period as naïve and sexually innocent.
discuss the relationship between the increasing involvement of women in politics and society to the increasing availability of unconventional roles for woman actors in the 1920s.
list several new "types" of female character in films of the 1920s, and discuss the increasing explicitness in film titles and subjects in the same period, specifically considering the career of Cecil B. DeMille.
define "It," and name both the "It Girl" and several other stars (human or otherwise) that had "It."
describe Rudolph Valentino's star persona, and discuss the reactions of American audiences to Valentino's life and death.
describe Greta Garbo's star persona, and discuss the ways in which Garbo's aloofness typifies the relationship between a star and their audience, as well as cite several attempts to cash in on this image by studio publicity departments.
Depression/Repression: The 1930s After reading this section, you should be able to:
describe the change in types of stars from the 1920s and the 1930s, with reference to both the coming of sound and the effects of the Great Depression.
describe the careers of Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Shirley Temple, and discuss the ways in which their star personae reflected a change in social and economic order in the wake of the Great Depression.
contrast the star persona of Clark Gable to those of the popular European stars of the previous decade, and discuss the film It Happened One Night in terms of this contrast.
cite the date of the reintroduction of the Production Code, and discuss several effects of the code on filmed depictions of sex and sexuality.
World War II and its Aftermath After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the ways in which stars in the wake of World War II attempted to redefine their images.
describe the films of the late 1940s and early 1950s as exploring to an unprecedented degree the potentials of American female sexuality, as well as proposing strategies to deal with these potentials.
discuss the growing impact of psychology on the practice of film acting, with attention to both the psychologization of film roles and the popularity of the "method" acting technique.
compare the collective and inclusive film audience of previous years to the fragmented "special-interest" audiences of the 1950s.
Stars and Anti-Stars After reading this section, you should be able to:
name the stars of the 50s who continued making films into the 60s, as well as several who didn't.
discuss the careers of Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson as examples of the discomfort stars of the late 1960s and 1970s felt with the cultural status of celebrity.
examine the growing importance of television as a "training ground" for film stars, and compare television to other media as "training grounds" for film stardom.
discuss the cultural implications of the film stardom of the children of older film stars.
Different Faces: The Rise of Black Stars After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss several social and cultural factors of the 1960s that helped to make Sidney Poitier the first major black film star.
contrast both the characteristics and the target audiences of a "blaxploitation" film of the early 1970s to a Sidney Poitier film of the same period,
discuss the roles available in film and television to black actors of the 1960s and 1970s, and suggest some reasons why Hollywood drew black actors from other fields (fashion, sports, et cetera).
cite several stand-up comics who were able to successfully transition to starring roles in film in the 1970s and 1980s.
discuss the current status of black actors, as well as that of actors of other minorities, in Hollywood.
Economics and Contemporary Stardom After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the development of a star's persona and career as both an economic and cultural trajectory.
discuss a film or film role as a collaboration between a writer's story and a star's persona.
