A Star's Demise (Core Post 5)

Judy Garland, truly a star. But as Dyer lays out, Garland fits three key opposing stereotypes: “the all-American small town girl-next-door; the personification of showbix good humour and bezazz; [and] the neurotic woman.” (132) Any basic biography of Garland includes the story of her addiction to prescription drugs that her studio put her on to keep her energy up and assist with keeping her figure in shape. This led to her need for sleeping pills, which was what she eventually overdosed on. Dyer goes on to discuss how the media destroys individuals. (135) As is the case with any business, there is a product being sold; Hollywood is no different, except that, in Hollywood the star is constantly selling themselves. They are promoting themselves as a brand not just when working, but 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Often times a star is promoted to match their typical on-screen persona, but at times they will be promoted against their typical characters; both are strategic business choices. As we discussed Garland embodied many stereotypes all opposing one another and all differently related to the characters she played. With this incredible pressure it is not shocking that stars are led to the extreme measures they are. As we examine modern day Hollywood we see that sadly this tragic pattern of addiction leading to death has not dissipated. We look at stars like Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, and Brittany Murphy and have to wonder what about this system is leading to these tragedies. These issues are represented so well in “A Star Is Born.” We watch not Garland’s character Vicki Lester, but her husband, Norman Maine that falls prey to the Hollywood star system. His career crumbles in front of him because of borderline addiction and inappropriate behavior, which led to His demise and ultimately, suicide. These characters and films, and real life stars in Hollywood raises many questions that we may never have real answers to as outsiders looking in.

Does Leonard Maine’s character accurately portray the cause and affect system of Hollywood? (As much as we can tell from the outside looking in)
Is it the star system that is destroying stars lives or is it the stars destroying themselves like any other individual practicing the same behaviors?
Do we excuse the self-destruction of stars because of the pressures put on them?

Core Post 5 - Judy Garland as a Gay Icon: A Star is Born as a case study

Richard Dyer states again and again that the gay community has, whether consciously or not, always identified with Judy Garland – as her characters on screen, as an actress, as a personality. He highlighted three key qualities she embodies that resonate within gay culture: ordinariness, androgyny and camp. Dyer makes many references to Garland’s performances throughout her life and details how her own transformations in star image have all reflected these qualities. What I found interesting when comparing this article to A Star is Born is that her character, Ethel Blodgett/Vicki Lester, also encompasses all three of these characteristics.

When it comes to ordinariness, Garland’s character seems to fit right in – at least on the surface. Firstly, the name “Esther Blodgett” is hardly glamorous in any way: the very first tie Norman Maine learns of her full name, he can’t help but comment that it couldn’t have been a star moniker. Interestingly, her name is so average that it is surprising. Before Esther meets Norman, she is (what she believes to be) an ordinary looking girl with ordinary dreams – she is a “plain” looking girl (as confirmed by the fussing of make-up and hair artists when she is brought in for her screen test) who had worked years to get to be part of a mildly successful band. It takes a very unordinary person – the famous, volatile Norman Maine, to point out that despite her outward ordinariness, she has extraordinary talent inside.

Garland’s androgyny in the film is extremely pronounced. This is most notable in the characters that Esther plays on screen. In “Lost that Long Face,” she dresses in an asexual ragamuffin costume (her body is hidden underneath baggy clothes, her wig is a short and messy crop) gesturing in exaggeratedly unfeminine ways. In the “Born in a Trunk” medley, she sings passionately to the audience in a tuxedo. She even assumes the male role in the relationship, both professionally and emotionally. For example, when Norman proposes to her, she playfully, but pointedly, rejects him because he needs to “change his ways” – a distinctly masculine thing to say. Furthermore, the fact that she becomes the breadwinner for the family, a traditional male role, leads to the main conflict: her androgyny is almost too male-skewed, and this makes those around her – and to some extent, the audience – uncomfortable.

Finally, Esther Blodgett is camp. Dyer says, “It is the fact of being able to pass for straight that has given gays the characteristically camp awareness of surfaces, of the social constructedness of sex roles.” Esther’s on-screen persona, Vicki Lester, embodies this exact assembled sexual identity. As stated previously, Esther has essential “male” qualities about her, but all of this is covered up when she performs as the ultra-female image of Vicki Lester. Just as gay men are able to pass as heterosexual, Esther is able to pass as completely feminine. Camp is also self-referential, even self-deprecating. When play-acting “Someone At Last,” Esther almost mocks the hopelessly romantic feminine dance moves she displays, even stating, “You know, I get pretty girlish in this number.” Thus, true to camp, she unmasks the social construction of gender.

All of this, and additionally the fact that this story is about Esther’s struggle, and then comeback (an extremely important facet of Garland’s attractiveness for the gay community), make A Star is Born a film that reads into the “gay sensibility.”

Questions:

1) Garland’s daughter, Liza Minelli, has also become a figure that the gay community relates to. How is she the same/different from her mother? Is she a distinct

star on her own, or is she an extension of her mother’s stardom?

2) Which stars today hold similar positions in relation to the gay community? Do they encompass all three of Dyer’s key qualities, and if so, how are they the same/different from Garland?

3) How do “ordinariness, androgyny and camp” as Garland’s star qualities read in heterosexual culture? Or, does mainstream heterosexual culture relate to her star persona in a completely different way?

America Ferrera: A true Hispanic Star?

After our class discussion on Monday about Jennifer Lopez, I started thinking more about the Latina stars in the media. Whereas Lopez has largely downplayed her ethnicity in her films, opting to pass as white, another star, though notably less famous, has chosen to use her ethnicity in order to play roles that try and break stereotypes. In most everything she has done, America Ferrera has played a Latina character. Though for the most part every role also draws attention to that fact, it typically does so in a more positive way. Or in a way that shows her struggle to fit in, something that young Latina girls can most likely look up to. On Ugly Betty, Ferrera created a character who was a strong, independent female who happened to be Hispanic. She was proud of her roots, but her ethnicity did not define her. This is incredibly important because in doing so, she was able to make herself and Betty a role model for girls of all races. In playing characters outside of her own ethnicity, Jennifer Lopez may be trying to make the statement that it doesn't matter, but that can also be seen as her trying to hide her true self.

Acting may be about playing a part, but it also has a lot to do with incorporating some of yourself into your character. In doing so, the character is given more authenticity because audiences can really believe that the actor is putting his/her own experiences into the role.Lopez's method has clearly worked out for her so far but in terms of making progress with diversity in the media, Ferrera seems to be doing a far better job. With her past film roles and most notably with Betty, she has established herself as an authentic actress who can carry a wide range of roles while still being proud and open about her ethnicity. While little is known of her personal life (other than the fact that she attended USC!) she has proven herself as a star to look up to and who is genuinely trying to create more diversity and awareness of minority cultures through the roles that she plays.

Garland's Star is Reborn (Reading Post 5)

The Dyer reading for this week discusses the importance of authenticity in looking at a star text. In the days of the studio system when star images were completely constructed, authenticity was more difficult to find as even when audiences were given a glimpse into a star's 'private' life, there was never any guarantee that the image was truthful. What was true was that it was in fact the star in the picture, thus guaranteeing at least some form of authenticity. Today, we probably get closer to seeing a star's authentic self because of the amount of paparazzi and the intense use of social media. However, just because a star is doing something a in picture does not guarantee that they are really acting their true self.

Perhaps the best asset of the film A Star is Born is in the casting of Judy Garland. Far enough removed from her heyday as an MGM princess, Garland was perhaps one of the most talked about stars of her era and thus the perfect star to be in a film commenting on the construction of stars in the industry. Garland's presence in the film guarantees a sense of authenticity because audiences know that she essentially had already lived the part. They thus feel like they are seeing a certain part of her life never before known. Dyer focuses on the scene in which Garland sings with her band with Norman Maine watching without their knowledge. The scene is pivotal as it must convince the audience of Esther's authenticity as a singer. Here, she is not being played by Garland as just a representation of herself, but as a separate character who needs to justify her place in the film. However, as Dyer points out, the fact that Garland is consistently in the center of the frame throughout the sequence drives the point that Garland does know what she is doing and she is talented, that she is only playing a character.

It is nearly impossible to ever determine the true authenticity of a star or their role. However in casting Garland as Esther, it gives the film, and thus the character, authenticity and justification of depicting a star essentially being created. Garland herself went through it and her later problems later on in life are also in a way portrayed through the downfall of the Norman Maine character. This role is in a sense Garland's comeback to show the world how far she has come and to prove her authentic self as a true star. While it may have worked for the time being, the fact that Garland's early and tragic death happened a few years after this film was released proves how constructed her image was and always remained to the end.

Unrecognized Success post #8

The funny thing about celebrity is that when we actually examine it, it seems quite arbitrary. A friend of mine stumbled upon a site that listed "that guy" in films, meaning all the actors that we know, that we see in more films than many stars, but are largely unknown and unrecognized. Luis Guzman is a stellar example of this. His IMBD credits read like an encyclopedia of popular film and movies since the 1990's, but typically he plays character roles or bit parts. At this point, we have to ask the question of how and why stars are chosen.

I think Dyer would argue that certain people are predisposed to stardom because of their physical characteristics, and because of how they fit into contemporary ideology. As we were discussing on Monday, race is a main factor in what options are available to actors and to the public. Because Guzman doesn't fit the physical type of a leading man, and because of his race, he is able to fit into a number of parts, but of limited scope. Simply by taking a look at the many projects he has worked on, it is easy to tell that we tend to overlook him, and others that lack star recognition.

Core post 5

I have seen bits and pieces of A Star is Born in other classes, and the parallels it draws from Garland’s own life are quite extraordinary. It directly relates to how her image was consistently constructed by the MGM studios and her own personal struggles with her appearance, her relationships, and her substance abuse problems—just portrayed between her character and her character’s husband. Garland’s own persona was consistently projected through the characters that she portrayed, and she allowed her personal history to be heard through the lyrics of her songs. But I think Garland was most appreciated for her authenticity—she had just a great emotional intensity and people were able to relate to the universality of her characters.
Garland’s authenticity can be most appreciated in the scene where she is singing late at night in a bar with her friends in the jazz band. As Dyer states, “She burns right through lyrics, delivering, instead, their pure emotional substance” (149). It is at this point that we realize the true “star quality” that she has, as she delivers a completely not manufactured performance. There is no audience (known to her) and she is able to completely give herself to her singing, truly conveying the emotions of both her and her character. Also, the fact that it is done in one take makes the entire scene seem so intimate and so personal—making it even easier to connect to Garland at this point. The entire scene is absolutely captivating as Garland seemingly loses herself in the music and the performance. Viewers can relate to the sincerity of her performance and its strong connection to her every day life.
On a completely different note, I just think it is such a strange commonality between Garland’s films that she is force to dress completely asexually. In her earlier films she was costumed as a young, innocent girl—like the plain gingham dress in The Wizard of Oz. Then, she is made to look almost boyish with her short hair style and pantsuit type outfits. Garland had major personal issues with her weight and appearance—and no wonder why. MGM made her look like the ugly, gender-ambiguous little sister to many of her beautiful co-stars, who she definitely out shined in talent. While this may be one of the reasons why she was so widely appreciate by members of the gay community, it very much desexualized her.
So my questions are: is part of our connection to Garland related to her de-sexualization? Would she have been as popular if she had had more of a sexual persona? Do you think that the insecurities that she had, which were conveyed in her performances, were self-imposed or ultimately created by the studio system?

A Star is Born (Core Post #4)

Authenticity seems to be a key judgment factor that is used when evaluating people that we necessarily don’t even know. People are always looking to see if a particular celebrity is being real or true, but how do we even know that what it is that they are doing to portray themselves as real is actually real? I feel that it is so hard for celebrities to distinguish what they think they should be doing to be real, to what is actually them.

The power of fame can change lives, which is seen in the film A Star is Born. Judy Garland’s rise to fame concerns her husband since he has seen what great power can do to people. Norman tells Judy at the height of her career “don’t let it take over your life” (Dyer). Like so many celebrities today they seem to constantly try to find that balance between their career and life. In Richard Dyer’s article “A Star is Born and the Construction of Authenticity” he says the “star chrisma works in Hollywood cinema shows a dialectic process of authentication by which existing star image is countered to reveal “true” star persona” (Dyer), he is saying that there is always some part of true in a star’s life but it is usually found privately where most people don’t see it. But our fastination with what they are like and celebrities know that we enjoy this so they give us and the media something to follow. This has led to the “growth of scandal magazines, unauthorized biographies, candid camera photo journalism and so on”. The star image that was portrayed in the film demonstrated all of the hardships with the media and personal life that Judy and Norman tried to control in order to keep a good image for the public to see.

I was completely oblivious to the type of fan base that Judy Garland had attracted during her time, but after looking back at her performances and reading about her life it makes sense as to why a gay audience admired her so much. This gay following of hers seemed to develop through out the years.

Her style of acting known as “camp” portrayed her appearance and gestures as being similar to a drag act. Judy experienced an inner conflict with her self that reflected in her acting and allowed her to also be relatable to the gay audience as they were struggling with inner conflicts as well. She constantly experienced instability and loneliness like gay men, which allowed them to find a connection with her and helped for many of them to eventually come out. Dyer states that “her MGM image made possible a reading of Garland as having a special relationship to suffering, ordinariness, normality, and it is the relationship that structures much of the gay reading of Garland”. This gave people hope that if she was experiencing this anguish and could get past it then they could too.

1. Do you think that there’s no such thing of bad publicity?

2. What celebrities today attract at gay fan base?

3. Why do you think Judy was unable to portray the kind of image that Marilyn Monroe did?