Greta Garbo2

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Stars as Vehicles of Ideological Meaning

In order to analyse the existing connections between cinema and the transfer of ideological values, it is necessary to consider the stars as an essential element within the film industry. As Judith Mayne has pointed out, the "role of the stars is the most visible and popular reference point for the pleasures of the cinema12. Mayne also suggests that previous academic approaches have challenged the assumptions of apparatus theory and textual analysis, primarily, by focussing on the intertextual system and work in the creation of the personae of stars.13

Edgar Morin (cited by Judith Mayne in Cinema and Spectatorship), has worked in Le Stars, an academic work which line of study is to consider the relations between film stars and audiences. Morin suggests that the cinema embodies contradictory desires, and that 'the star is perhaps the most stunning and condensed version of this embodiment'. He also speaks of the actor as the 'unique synthesis of physical beauty and mask, as simultaneously a unique personality and an automaton'.14 Morin's work focuses on describing the star system as a peculiar mixture of accessibility and inaccessibility. This notion provided by Morin is useful in order to approach stars personas as players of a function role inserted in the classical narrative structure, which replicates and 'overlap' the social system established by the dominant ideology with its codes and conventions of gender, characters, an so on. Furthermore the idea of realistic representation is a constitutive part of the ideology produced by cinematic apparatus.15 One of the difficulties and challenges of analysing a star image is that the sheer wealth and diversity of material resists any easy categorisation.16At the same time, stars are "labelled" according to many social variables of age, gender, race and nationality and at the same show particular discourses related with these variables.17
In semiotic terms, the images of stars are therefore the product of signification. According to Paul McDonald, 'Stars are mediated identities, textual constructions, for audiences do not get the real person but rather a collection of images, words and sounds which are taken to stand for the person'. 18 In these terms, stars belong to a complex coded structure related directly with the nature of cinema itself.




<< 1 2 3 >> Stars as Vehicles of Ideological Meaning In order to analyse the existing connections between cinema and the transfer of ideological values, it is necessary to consider the stars as an essential element within the film industry. As Judith Mayne has pointed out, the "role of the stars is the most visible and popular reference point for the pleasures of the cinema12. Mayne also suggests that previous academic approaches have challenged the assumptions of apparatus theory and textual analysis, primarily, by focussing on the intertextual system and work in the creation of the personae of stars.13 Edgar Morin (cited by Judith Mayne in Cinema and Spectatorship), has worked in Le Stars, an academic work which line of study is to consider the relations between film stars and audiences. Morin suggests that the cinema embodies contradictory desires, and that 'the star is perhaps the most stunning and condensed version of this embodiment'. He also speaks of the actor as the 'unique synthesis of physical beauty and mask, as simultaneously a unique personality and an automaton'.14 Morin's work focuses on describing the star system as a peculiar mixture of accessibility and inaccessibility. This notion provided by Morin is useful in order to approach stars personas as players of a function role inserted in the classical narrative structure, which replicates and 'overlap' the social system established by the dominant ideology with its codes and conventions of gender, characters, an so on. Furthermore the idea of realistic representation is a constitutive part of the ideology produced by cinematic apparatus.15 One of the difficulties and challenges of analysing a star image is that the sheer wealth and diversity of material resists any easy categorisation.16At the same time, stars are "labelled" according to many social variables of age, gender, race and nationality and at the same show particular discourses related with these variables.17 In semiotic terms, the images of stars are therefore the product of signification. According to Paul McDonald, 'Stars are mediated identities, textual constructions, for audiences do not get the real person but rather a collection of images, words and sounds which are taken to stand for the person'. 18 In these terms, stars belong to a complex coded structure related directly with the nature of cinema itself.
	Stars represent a set of codes or conventions that seem to be invisible and at the same time projects a collection of different readings and meanings to the audience. Stars image's construction depends on audience's reception and also in the different contexts in which stars are viewed. Richard Dyer (1998) in his work Stars has described this meaning element as the "structured polisemy". The semiotic academic work proposed by Richard Dyer is more concerned with the possible interpretations generated by the stars' position within the dominant ideology structure. Stars understood as polisemic signs provide a notion of ideological sense, and therefore any ideological implication must be studied as an attempt to identify the symbolic interpretations or in terms of semiotics -connotations- with the stars and audiences. It can be said that stars' appeal and its representation work as 'social mirrors' that reflect and embody the values any kind of ideology.

An objective perspective must be used for any academic work attempting to follow the ideological implications displayed in film texts. For this purpose, Richard Dyer suggest that, The concern of such textual analysis is then not to determine the correct meaning (ideological) and effect, but rather to determine what meanings can legitimately read in them. 19 Stars image may conceal or hide tensions, and thus, a concept of 'negotiation' emerges as a way of understanding how the relationships between different determinations function successfully, or not.20 Richard Dyer suggests that this 'negotiation' is related with the tension between the ideal (what should be) and the status quo (what is), and create a sort of safety valves that drive ideological contradictions created by the dominant ideology. In that sense, it can be said that stars function in terms of ideology by playing a double ideological role; in the first one preserve the dominant values and the second one rejects its values. Dyer's suggestion on this ideological contradictory performance is considered as the counter tendency projected by stars. But at the same time, not all stars require this ideological rejection personality to account for their ideological functioning.21 Richard Dyers describes Marilyn Monroe's appeal as an example of the contradiction role, Monroe's combination of sexuality and innocence is part of that flux, but one can also see her 'charisma' as being the apparent condensation of all that within her. Thus she seemed to be the very tensions that ran through the ideological life of 50s America. You could see this as heroically living out the tensions or painfully exposing them.22
One remaining point that links the accounts in semiotics and ideology is the categorisation of different types of social roles. Richard Dyer cites the "Good Joe", the "Tough Guy", the "Pin-Up" (mostly applied to women and suitable for this essay) as the conventional types that represent the current values of society. On the other hand, there is another star type called "Independent Woman" because it does not fit in with prevailing norms. For purposes of this essay, I will explore the "Independent Woman" type. Dyer cites the work of Molly Haskell related with this female classification. Basically, there are two 'Independent Woman' sub-categories: the superfemale and the superwoman. The superfemale is: A woman who, while exceedingly 'femenine' and flirtatious, is too ambitious and intelligent for the docile role society has deceived she plays . . . She remains within traditional society, turns them onto the only available material -the people around her- with domestic results.23


On the other hand, the superwoman is: A woman, who, like the superfemale, has a high degree of intelligence or imagination, but instead of exploiting her femininity, adopts male characteristics in order to enjoy male prerogatives, or merely to survive. 24 The way in which both types of independent woman functions as a counterpart of the dominant values is directly attached with the narratives of these types of woman. In this sense, Marjorie Rose's Popcorn Venus (quoted by Dyer) suggests that these films show that the star's independence and intelligence status are in the service of men. In her own words "it is men who define the social goals and norms: it is to get a man, or for love a man, that the star acts as she does."25 Thus, extra features, such as sexual ambiguity are associated with this type of women.26 'Ideology' term in star studies involves an encoding process by which cultural conventions are address trough cinema and film stars. In this sense, Jackie Stacey's work deals primarily with these cultural implications. Stars 'ideological' appeal to the audiences can be understood as a resulting process emerged from the audiences' identification resulting from a decoding reading with social issues such sex roles (femininity) that are represented in films and performed in a conventional way by stars. Furthermore, the term 'ideology' term can be understood as a symbolic link between a moral dimension and 'visible or invisible' ideological issues.