Pecking into Popular Culture

Star Persona.

In his article, ‘Being yourself’: the pursuit of authentic celebrity, Andew Tolson defines the star persona as “the point at which private life becomes public, and where acting connects with the ‘real person.’” Stars create this image based on how they wish to be perceived. An example of where acting may connect with the real person is if an actor cries real tears when their on screen grandmother dies and the tears are real because they are remembering when their actual grandmother died. The audience searches for this real person behind the star.

In Dancing in the Distraction Factory by Andrew Goodwin, he states that, “star imagery builds on vulnerability and ordinariness to establish points of identification for the audience.” Stars need to be viewed as vulnerable and ordinary for the audience to be able to relate to them and for the viewers to find the stars authentic.

However, the star persona is extremely complex and paradoxical. Goodwin quotes John Ellis who states that star images “are composed, like narrative images, of elements which do not cohere, of contradictory tendencies.” Ellis elaborates that the star image is incoherent because it shows the celebrity as both an ordinary person and as an extraordinary person. The star needs to have both qualities in order to achieve the greatest fame. We need to find the star authentic and believable but at the same time they need to have something special and extraordinary about them for us to be interested in them.