Celebrity Moms

An interesting aspect of this week’s material is the variety of “mothers” that the reading and film deal with. Joan Crawford herself expressed two distinct types of mothers throughout her time in Hollywood. In the film Mildred Pierce she can be described as both a submissive mother who led her bratty daughter to an untimely demise and selfless mother who, despite her daughter’s horrible attitude, would do anything to protect her. The article “Too Much Guilt is Never Enough for Working Mothers” by Mary Beth Haralovich conveys Crawford from the perspective of her daughter’s memoir Mommie Dearest; in real life Crawford was said to be a crazy working mother whose behavior borderlined on abuse.
Dyer’s Stars explains the “superfemale,” which can be applied to the mother figure in today’s culture. Some audiences may have seen Crawford as a superfemale, femme fetal in Mildred Pierce. She plays as a woman that is “too ambitious and intelligent for the docile role society has decreed she play” (Dyer, 54). Monte’s death is shown as an example of the damage that can be done when someone with great abilities is confined. In order to succeed after she and her husband divorce, Crawford’s character must resort to adopting stereotypically male characteristics, like starting her own business, to make ends meet. Crawford’s persona as seen in Mommie Dearest may also be seen as “superfemale.” The treatment of her children and her hunt to find work in Hollywood were ruthless.
Celebrities in today’s popular culture who are identified as “mothers” are almost never known as “superfemales.” Actresses like Angelina Jolie, Courtney Cox, or Jennifer Garner would never be described as femme fatales, even though they certainly have a great deal of talent and ambition. Although they are conveyed to the public as caring mothers, it would be extremely uncharacteristic of them to resort to ruthless measures to care for or support their children. The only mother that comes to mind who may fit into the category of the “superfemale” is reality television star Kate Gosslin from the TLC show “Jon and Kate Plus 8”. Audiences often critiqued her harsh parenting style, especially when compared to the relaxed, hands-off style of her ex husband Jon. Kate took the more dominant, male role in their relationship and seemed to the public to have much more control over the children. When the scandals surrounding Jon became public, audiences were much more sympathetic to Kate’s “superfemale” role, because it seemed she acted this way in order to support and keep her family together. It seems that because her mothering role was so different from other celebrity mothers, Kate received more criticism.

A couple of remixes

The first is the one Lauren mentioned in class. It re-situates Hollywood locations - stripped out of context of a narrative they take on different meanings.
Los Angeles Plays Itself - Thom Andersen


The second was recommended by another IML person. The artist's statement: "In this re-imagined narrative, Edward Cullen from the Twilight Series meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes, some of the more sexist gender roles and patriarchal Hollywood themes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed - in hilarious ways."
Buffy/Twilight remix.

The Image of a Star

It is interesting to think that celebrities have outside lives from their roles in movies. Although their personal lives can be ordinary, our society has become obsessed with glamorizing the most little act to make it seem important. For example, it as heard everywhere when Chris Brown physically abused Rihanna. Although physical abuse is something serious, fan magazines and other trades do not give domestic violence the same attention when it happens to a regular citizen. Based on actions like these, the ones that are displayed to the public, celebrities begin forming an image in the eye of the people. Richard Dyer mentions in his book Stars that some of the categories that influence the creation of the image include fashion, love, marriage and sex. An overarching theme within these image-constructors is consumption. If we all look at fan magazines like People we can see Lady Gaga wearing a bizarre outfit, Katie Holmes buying a new designer outfit for Suri, or the story of Paris Hilton and her infamous sex tape. From these stories/pictures we can deduce that Lady Gaga is a fashion deviant, that Katie Holmes is a loving mother, and that Paris Hilton is a social/sexual rebel. Dyer mentions that, “The general image of stardom can be seen as a version of the American Dream, organised around the themes of consumption, success and ordinariness” (35). In other words, the reason we as a society pay attention to these types of stories is because deep inside we long for we are seeing; we create this image of stardom within ourselves for the people we see on the screen because they have the potential and resources to do what we want to do or consume.

This image construction of stardom has been an ongoing process in Hollywood. In the 1940’s Joan Crawford was given the image of a loving mother, playing roles like Mildred Pierce and adopting two children. This image construction reflected what society of the time wanted, a loving and united family, especially after the war. Although Crawford was the epitome of the motherly figure, it all came tumbling down. As Dyer mentions, stardom is known to sour the lives of celebrities, as we have seen contemporarily with Britney Spears and Tiger Woods. Joan Crawford was ‘outed’ by her own daughter, Christina Crawford in the film Mommie Dearest, where she explains how Joan Crawford abused her and her sibling by being a working mother in Hollywood. This can be up to personal interpretation as to it being a bad or good thing, but the point is that regardless of what your interpretation is, it will create an image about the star.

1. If we have different images and subcategories (rebel, independent women, etc.), what among society evolves these categories? What makes then change as time pass?

Reading Response 1-Star Type and the Independent Women

In the Dyer reading for this week, he discusses how stars play a 'type' in their films and how that type fits into their real life persona. Stardom, according to Dyer, is a version of the American dream and the ideal image of the star is an ordinary person who has achieved wealth and success, but who still retains their ordinariness. During the period of the studio system, stars were used for specific parts in film. There was little variation in the characters they played as audiences expected specific things from specific films with their favorite stars. For example, Marilyn Monroe was expected to be the pin-up and John Wayne, the all-American, the "good Joe". Within each film, there were characters who represented all of the types of people in society.

One such type is that of the independent woman. This is a type not very common, but it did still exist in limited ways. According to Dyer, there were two types of the independent woman in films. Joan Crawford's character in Mildred Pierce would fit under the "superwoman" type. This is a character who relies on her own intelligence and free will to carve out her own path in life and be successful on her own. This is most certainly seen in the film which portrays a woman who seeks out divorce from her husband and continues to work hard in order to create a better life for her and her children. While most women in films from this era are merely passive beings who's existence is based purely on taking care of the home and looking beautiful, Crawford's Mildred is active and independent. She knows what she wants and she does what she has to do in order to achieve this.

However, a problem with this notion of the independent woman, is that even in its definition, it is still based on a woman being compared to a man. Dyer's description of this type is a female character 'adopting male characteristics'. So how is a woman truly independent if all she is going is becoming more like a man in order to get by? Women are allowed to be independent, but they are still expected to fulfill their 'womanly duties' such as keeping a home and rearing their children. This is evident in the film as Mildred, while incredibly successful, is still always under careful watch from the men in her life and still expected to fulfill certain duties. Her ex-husband is always around and her benefactor who becomes her lover is always around keeping tabs on her, making sure she is doing her job. Furthermore, Mildred's daughter Vida resents her mother for working. Vida wants a rich lifestyle, but she is ashamed that her mother is the one making that happen. Finally, as noted in the reading, Mildred is still always responsible for what happens in her home, including the death of her youngest child who became ill while under her father's care. Mildred is shown as being a wonderful mother, but she is still given the blame when bad things happen to her children. Mildred is put in a position where she is supporting her family by running her own business but she is still allowing the men around her to control her (her ex-husband always coming around to judge her parenting, Wally Fay negotiating her business deals, and Monte who takes her money and uses it to spoil her daughter) . Mildred may be an 'independent woman' but her independence comes at a cost, with her losing one daughter and losing control of the other who she has devoted her life to.

Dyer also discusses how the star's image and 'type' is constructed out of various media texts. Promotion of the star is key as that is the most direct way people learn about a star's type. In Crawford's case, she was promoted as an independent woman who is a mother willing to do anything for her kids. This of course was not only true of her character's in film, but of her personal life as well. Publicity factors into a star's image as it is the kind of information the press finds out. It is how we as audiences find out about a star's personal life, what a film studio may not necessarily want us to see as it can either reinforce or completely reverse an image of a star we already know and are quite familiar with. In Crawford's case, she maintained the image of the perfect mother, struggling to make ends meet to support her children. In reality, Crawford was the complete opposite of the type that she played. As depicted in a book written by her daughter, Crawford was quite a monster of a mother but when the press was around, she acted out her type by appearing to be a devoted mother. This is all depicted in the film Mommy Dearest (Perry, 1981) which features the infamous line, "no more wire hangers!" So while star images were carefully constucted and played out, not everything was as perfect as it seemed.

Questions for the class:
1. How might the story in Mildred Pierce be changed so that Mildred would truly be an independent woman? How would that have gone over with audiences?
2. Why must a woman take on male characteristics in order to be taken seriously? Was this merely a product of the times or is it still true today?
3. Knowing what we know now about Crawford's mothering abilities, does this change your opinion of the film? If audiences knew this at the height of her stardom playing the type of the mother, would they still have gone to see her films or would their outside opinion of her prevented her from being such a huge star?

They Said What? (Supplemental Blog #2)

After Monday’s class discussion on the contradictions stars portray I started to think about the various stars I am a fan of and what contradictions they exhibit and possibly why they exhibit these contradictions. First off, I am a fan of Marilyn Manson and his shock rock music but after looking at him more closely I noticed he is not only a rebel but also an intellect, something that contradicts quite strongly with his main persona of a rebel. In his shows, appearance and persona he portrays an attitude of uncaring and lackadaisicalness when in reality he is up to date on social and political issues and has a very strong stance on both. Through interviews, one is able to see this intellectual side of the shock rocker and most are typically, well, shocked.

Other stars, however, are not as obvious. For example, Kurt Cobain was a successful grunge rock star that in private struggled with his success. He was very anti-establishment and at times did not like the fame. However, on the other hand he is one of the most successful and famous musicians of all time, showing that he put most of his energy and life into become that successful, which contradicts his hate for the fame and establishment.

Lucy Ball is another celebrity that has a contradicting personal life and character life. On her hit television show, Ball played Lucy Ricardo, a very flamboyant, ditzy and unintelligent woman who was always getting herself into trouble trying to become a star. However, in Ball’s personal life, she was a hard hitting business woman who created, along with her husband, one of the first long running television shows of all time. She was innovative in the fact that she was one of the first people who started recording television shows on film so that they could be seen over and over again. This changed the industry and television watching. Unlike her character in I Love Lucy, Ball was successful and very intelligent, again contradicting her character persona.

Unlike Manson, Cobain and Ball, there are other stars that seem to start contradicting themselves later in their career and can even be seen as rebelling towards their star persona. One example of this is Britney Spears. Early in her career she seemed to play along with and fit her start persona of the virginal girl next door and it wasn’t until later that she drastically contradicted that persona in her personal life. Even though she contradicted her persona with the clothing she wore in her early career it wasn’t until later that her actions became provocative.

Even though fans would like to categorize celebrities into certain groups and personas, it is not always that easy. Everyone from Lucy Ball to Marilyn Manson have star contradictions that make their personality and star qualities all that more complicated. Even though they may seem to be saying a certain statement about society, behind the curtains they may be preaching a whole different idea.

Ian Farwell (Core Post #1) - Studio Women

Look at all the different fashion style transitions... Rich, then Working Class, then Successful.

Beginning with our Stardom book, Herzog and Gaines discuss the intricacies of fashion in the film industry (specifically the during the 1920's & 30's), and also about film's fashion effect on the mainstream public. Our authors open with the idea that there are times, as in Letty Lynton (1932), that a single dress in a film can have further reaching effects than any other aspect of the film. One might not remember the film's story as much as that beautiful dress they saw. This concept contributed, according Herzog and Gaines, to an inevitable movement of Large-scale fashion being heavily influenced by film and females stars during this time period. The film industry recognized the power that they could wield with this, and subsequently did so in an attempt to "draw women into the theaters." -- (It was interesting to see that during one incident the film promoters exaggerating the reproduction of over 500,000 dresses in order to manipulate consumers to buy buy buy what was in style)
Bridging now to Dyer's assigned reading, we see an almost perfect arena for highend film-fashion within our consumption based capitalist system. Dyer's brings to light the idea of "success" and it's manifestations within what people desire to see in film. Hence, we see expensive fashion in film, as a result of our desire to view the excess or useless prestige-producing products we desire but cannot have ourselves. All of this breeds the necessity of "Idols of Consumption", as coined by Dyers. Our films heros turn into what are values dictate (The Good Joe/Tough Guy/The Independent Women) in order to sell more. To close the summation it is important to discuss the "Independent Women." According to Dyers and some feminist theory, this is the woman who takes on the heroic qualities of the ideal white man. The discussion that takes place in dyers book in this area is fascinating and I would like to discuss it as I analyze Mildred Pierce.

Looking at Mildred Pierce...

The Independent Women
Dyers quotes Molly Haskel in saying that women are allowed to be strong throughout an entire film, but in the end they fall weak to the temptation of maternity and love in the last two minutes. Mildred Pierce did this is effect. The character that Joan Crawford played was strong and independent through out the entire film, but in the end she loses her self-made successful business to men, her own daughter is tempted away to a life on money and murder, and Mildred herself is ready to commit suicide. And all for what? All in the end they show the strong Mildred's inevitable return to her pillar of an Ex-Husband. It is almost screaming the message don't leave your stable husband and become independent.

Fashion
The opening scene of Mildred Pierce illustrates an interesting case for fashion. In this scene Mildred is seen wearing an expensive outfit. Specifically her coat, which has a similar strong shoulder as was made famous by the dress Joan Crawford wore in Letty Lynton. However, after this moment of majesty, Mildred is reduced to wearing dull housewife apparel during a flashback a moment later. The rest of the movie really reveals Mildred's struggle to get back to this rich/lavish place for her daughter's sake, but really ironically for herself also if one follows the ordering of scenes. In other words, if one was to watch the movie with the sound off we would see a rich women reduced to rags, and then fights and works her way back to her riches. Furthermore, by turning the sound back on we can see another message too. This message creates a dichotomy between people who work hard for their money (Mildred) and people who are born into (Mildred's Daughter). The message about these two groups is that if you work hard to can still maintain hero-like qualities, whereas without hard work evil sprouts as with the daughter character.
Once considering this point of view we can illustrate an idea that Herzog and Gaines talk about, and this is the idea that some women who would go to see these films would want to see their favorite stars in glamorous dresses no matter how none glamorous the character's role. One quote promoted by the industry was "Be Glamorous" or "Be Nothing." Furthering this, most viewers according the Herzog and Gaines article, don't want to see the "sweaty armpits" of the traditional housewife uniform. So, given the very nature of capitalism (not everyone can be equally rich, because that would mean everyone is also equally poor and leaves nobody to do the dishes) we are left to dream. In the Herzog and Gaines article, we saw people would be willing to purchase cheap knockoff dresses that were similar to the ones they had seen in their favorite movies just to get at that dream. Even though everything went to hell at the end of Mildred Pierce, there is definitely something to be said about the fact that we probably all enjoy watching a person work up from nothing; It gives us at the bottom hope, and reinforces our belief that we can do it also. It reinforces what we believe are country is founded on; A ladder we can climb.

3 Question:

1) Are people every entirely masculine or entirely feminine?
2) What does the fashion of Mildred Pierce say about our society?
3) Are depictions of independent women in films always reduced to more traditional subservient depictions in the final two minutes of a film?

"Young Hollywood" Is White, Thin

Smart commentary on the new Vanity Fair Cover from jezebel.com here.

What do the women on the cover of Vanity Fair have in common with Mary Pickford?

An excerpt from "Young Hollywood" Is White, Thin:

VF's "Young Hollywood" is much like the golden age of Hollywood: There was a fetishization of the lithe, gorgeous, virginal ingenue, whose virtues and ambitions were pure, and therefore desirable. You either wanted to be her or sleep with her. She was the photographed wearing white, and her "All-American" good looks meant that she was a WASP or a fresh-faced farmgirl. Certainly not black, definitely not fat, and never both. Looking at the March 2010 issue, has anything changed? Even Evgenia Peretz's descriptions of the actresses — "Ivory-soap-girl features," "patrician looks" "dewy, wide-eyed loveliness" — reinforce the idea that a successful actress is a pretty, aristocratic-looking (read: white) actress.

Midterm Multimedia Assignment

Richard Dyer argues that star images are complex; they can reaffirm the values and ideologies of mainstream culture AND reveal contradictions in, anxieties about, and alternatives to those norms.  For this assignment you will work with another student to create a multimedia midterm project that addresses the many layers of a particular star’s text.  Your project will take the form of a 3-5 minute video that begins from one of the prompts below. You will also write a 2-3 page critical analysis of your piece, evaluating its success in communicating your central goals and ideas. You should post your project to the blog by noon on Friday, March 5 and turn in your critical analysis on Monday March 8.

Use one of the prompts below to explore “complexity, contradiction, and difference” in the star text of one of the following actors: Rudolph Valentino, Joan Crawford, Mary Pickford, Christian Bale, John Wayne, Julia Roberts, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, or Jane Fonda.∗ Your analysis should be done with clips found on youtube or made from DVDs, along with text and voiceover analysis.

1. Examine the relationship between the star and the characters s/he plays. Some questions to consider: How do the signs of character (name, appearance, objective correlatives, speech, gestures, action etc.) convey the characters’ and, by extension, the star’s persona and personality? How is the character/star a product of the social and cultural issues of their time? Does the star/character belong to a social type or multiple social types (e.g. all American girl, the sacrificial mother, the hero)? What qualities contribute to the idea that the character/star is a unique individual? Does the character/star reinforce social norms or offer an alternative to them or both? How does s/he model modes of masculinity, femininity or sexuality? Is the star/character’s personality coherent, or does it exhibit qualities that contradict one another? Is there a perfect fit between star and character?

2. Create a new star text for the star – one that reads them “against the grain” of their surface appearance. This requires being familiar with how the star has been promoted by motion picture producers and read by critics and audiences and then reading and representing the star in a different way. You may find that the star’s image already contains the seeds of contradiction or you may want to completely change her/his star text. To accomplish this, you should use the materials that produce the star (their films, promotional ads, interviews etc.) and remix them through editing, and adding voiceovers and/or text. [Alternative option: you could make a star out of one of the supporting players in the star’s film – e.g. creating a star text for Eve Arden’s Ida or Butterfly McQueen’s Lottie in Mildred Pierce.]

Your project should do the following:
• Draw upon the course readings.
• Utilize the ideas raised in lectures and discussions.
• Explore the star in more detail than discussed in class.
• Utilize basic design skills taught in lab.
• Represent the work of two individuals working on a common vision.
• Creatively approach the topic.

Star System (Core Post)

One thing that I found interesting from this week’s reading is the way actors were viewed during early cinema. Actors were rather referred to as “picture performers” as it was thought that the skill of performing in front of a camera did not hold the same significance as acting in legitimate stage theater. Even though stars existed within theater, this idea was not at first translated into cinema. In fact, “picture performers” would “pose” for the camera instead of “act”. Around 1910 this mentality started to change with the introduction of Florence Lawrence as the IMP Girl, (an innovative idea by Carl Laemmle).

The star system in once sense can be thought of a marketing system in which to draw moviegoers to a film simply for the chance to see the star on screen. Mary Pickford was one of the first female “stars” of cinema. As we saw through the screenings in class, she can carry short films and draw audiences just to see them because of her star quality. She is beautiful, likeable, and engaging.

Similarly, we screened The Sheik (1921), a star vehicle for Rudolph Valentino. Hansen talks about Valentino as displaying the star qualities of the “Latin Lover”. She also describes his appeal by stating, “he combines masculine control of the look with the feminine quality of ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’…the close-up of his face clearly surpasses that of the female character in its value as spectacle.” He embodies a highly sexualized image drawing female spectators to see the film. Another interesting fact concerning his sexual appeal is that even though he plays an Arab in the film, it is safe for white American women to desire him, because it is revealed at the end of the film that his character is really half English and half Spanish. This reveal quells any unrest that would come from a non-white actor having a relationship with a white woman.

Questions:

Why is the star system still so successful as a marketing tool and does it still draw audiences to films today as it did in early cinema?

How does the notion of a star’s persona interfere or contradict with today’s actors’ fears of being type-cast?

Since its inception the star system has proven to bring large audiences to a film. However, it is possible for a film do be extremely successful without the presence of a star (i.e. Avatar). Will future advancements in technology, as seen in Avatar, have a more powerful affect on spectatorship than the power of a star?

Role of Reporters on the Red Carpet (Misc.Post 1)

In the midst of the award show mania that has been happening lately and is continuing tonight with the Grammy's, I started to pay close attention to the red carpet pre-show in which celebrities are interviewed on their way into the show. Typically if I watch the pre-show, I just leave the TV on in the background to look at what people are wearing without really paying attention to what is being said in interviews. The past two shows (namely the Golden Globes and the SAGS) I have listened to the interviews and am surprised at how horrible they are.

In many ways, these reporters have created the obsession with seeing celebrities as 'normal people' which is why we care more about who they're wearing and who they arrive with rather than their work. This got me thinking that if reporters focused more on asking the celebrity about their work, we might take some people more seriously as an actor. Granted, the reporters are responsible for interviewing many many people and do not have much time to prepare, but there have to be more in depth questions to ask other than 'are you excited to be here?'. Quite frankly, no one really cares if they are excited to be there and the fact is, even if they did not want to be there, the answer to that question will always be yes.

I have had some experience interviewing celebrities on the red carpet through working at Trojan Vision and found that while the interviews do move quickly, the celebrities tend to be better interview-ees when you ask them about things they care about. Celebrity culture is so shaped by the personal lives of the actors, that we often forget that the reason they are actors in the first place is because (for the most part) they genuinely love to act. If the reporters responsible for interviewing them at these major events took more of an interest in the business aspect, asking them about their next projects and what they are looking forward to do in the future, chances are, celebrity culture could begin to be more legitimate as we would care about stars more for what they do professionally rather than which designer they choose to wear on a given evening (which many people do still care about!). When reporters treat celebrities like children by asking silly question, the star is given no choice but to go along with it and it is quite obvious that they do not like being asked the same thing over and over again. If the reporters start asking more pressing questions and treat the stars in a more serious manner, we can start taking the acting profession more seriously and judge the star based on their work credentials, rather than their latest hook-up at a Hollywood club.

The Star System Response No. 1

Reading the “Seeing Stars” article by Janet Staiger in Stardom: Industry of Desire, it was really interesting to see how the studios, at first only the independents, created the star system as we now know it today. The star system was developed to generate larger revenues for the films that were being produced. I began to think about why this was, and as I went through the reading it became quite clear. Audiences watch a film and begin to identify with the main character. The main character is usually created to strike a chord with the audience and allows the audience to suspend all disbelief and get lost in the story. If the audience likes this particular character and the accompanying traits, then the audience will most likely begin to associate these traits with the actor who portrays this character. This was a big move for the studios as they could now feature someone the audience liked in one film, to help sell a new movie and a new story. Audiences would believe that this actor plays good characters in good movies, and ultimately decide that if they were in new movie, then it must be good too. It was interesting seeing Mary Pickford star in the shorts that were screened in class. You could totally see the conscious effort on the studio’s part of making the short films star vehicles for her. She was cute, innocent, and an all-around good ol’ American girl. She was someone who was vulnerable, one you can empathize with, and someone that you wanted to succeed. These are important qualities for a star, and the studio definitely found films that highlighted these qualities. Ever since Carl Laemmle promoted Florence Lawrence which led to the formation of the star system, there has been this obsession with stars that has gone beyond the stratosphere of the movie industry.

Questions

Why do you think public recognition would amount to star demands of bigger salaries?

In modern culture, is the star more important than the movies/television shows they star in?

What would the movie industry look like today without the star system?