Deja Oliver-Core Post #1, Week 2 Reading

I appreciated that Staiger called out the rhetorical fallacies in historians Jacobs, Hampton and Bernheim’s historical accounts, like withholding dates to strengthen their argument, but still realized their value in a comparative chronology.  While her reading was really economics heavy (and I just don’t get economics that well) it did provide a very solid basis to understand the following readings.  The one thing that struck me in the Janet Staiger reading was her explanation of title cards.  “By 1913, Edison had expanded this [title card] strategy by showing an image of a player and an intertitle with both the character’s and actor’s names…” (11); which I recalled were present in “The Sheik” (1921).  This stood out to me because I had never seen that done in a film before and I didn’t understand why it was necessary. I realize now that I was viewing the title cards through a modern lens, where the star system has been in place for almost a century and audiences know who is in the films they are watching.  It made more sense to me when I viewed the parenthetical statement that followed “clearly this was a carry-over from theater programmes” (11).  The influence and importance of theatre to film in the early stages, an important clarification, was explored even further in the deCordova reading.

I like the differentiation deCordova makes in the stages of the star system, ie the “picture personality” predating the “star system” as we know it today. I think this way of thinking will be helpful for anthropologists and future historians will categorize the cult of celebrity in the 21^st century and how it pertains to technology.  It was interesting to see how the authenticity of the actors in film developed.  The legitimacy film actors had was through their association to the stage which reminds me of how in modern times many people are criticized as being “famous for being famous”; there has to be another avenue, it seems, for celebrities to authenticate themselves in order to deserve their star power.  It is not exactly the same thing but I think it would be interesting to discuss why we as an audience demand authenticity from entertainers and celebrites.