Jennica Wragg Supplemental Post #1- Working the SAG Awards Yesterday, Where all the "Stars" come out?

I had the privilege of working the SAG Awards this past weekend which I thought I had to post about considering it is probably one of the most notable events that takes place every year featuring stars and celebrity. The SAG Awards are unique because they specifically honor actors or  “stars” achievement as opposed to a culmination of cinematic talent in various areas such as directing, screenwriting, and visual effects etc. that the Awards shows such as the Golden Globes and Academy Awards recognize.

            The SAG Awards are a particularly interesting event when we think about stars and celebrity because those invited and those who attend are generally those who are nominated for Awards but we do not have our “Kim Kardashian, and Kylie Jenner” type reality based and self made stars in attendance for this event. One of the interesting points about this weeks reading was the chapter on how the film star developed and the way in which talent was recognized preceded the development of the “star persona” that certain stars were expected to perform and uphold certain standards outside their film roles. Awards season in a way epitomizes the star as exhibiting a certain level of talent based solely or primarily on their specific onscreen performance as opposed to their “performance” in their everyday lives. The recognition these stars receive from both their fans awaiting their arrival, the photographers taking their photos on the red carpet, and ultimately the publicity they receive should they win an award is due to their performance in a specific film or television show.  However, to contrast this idea that it is purely their performance in particular role that denotes certain individuals the “star quality” at the SAG awards was illustrated by the fans excitement over the arrival of certain individuals in particular film stars who have developed their persona from not only the role they were being recognized for, but rather from the combination of multiple film roles over the entirety of their career. This raises the question if Awards shows actually highlight the achievement of a certain performance that occurred by a specific actor during that year or rather highlight the strong star persona of a particular individual that has been developed based on multiple film roles throughout their career in which another performance only illuminates their star quality but cannot necessary be associated with a particular level of talent.

            For the red carpet portion of the show my job was simple or at least I thought it would be – I was assigned to be the talent spotter along with another individual who in turn we were in charge of announcing all of the talent who arrived.  What I found was that I was caught in the same trap the fans across the street were in which was I only really had an idea of who a particular star was if I had seen them in various roles other than the ones they were nominated for. This means that I was recognizing these stars based on their personas rather than their actual role they were coming to the ceremony to be recognized for. The gray area between distinguishing how we develop a certain respect or fan base for a certain “star” is illustrated quite clearly when we think of Awards ceremonies where it become difficult to distinguish on what timeline we actually develop our respect for a certain individual and determine they are a star versus just an actor nominated for an award because it would seemingly mean that if “star” is directly correlated with talent then everyone arriving at the Awards ceremony should be considered a star based purely on their level of talent and achievement. However, this was not the case- there are presenters who arrive that clearly have developed a larger “star personality” than those actually nominated which was exhibited based on the ability to recognize them and excitement over their arrival, level of security etc. that set them apart from their other colleagues who were nominated for awards but were not necessarily considered the “stars.”

            Another interesting quality about these Awards was the way that instead of honoring specific individuals many awards are given to entire casts. This is interesting because these casts are recognized as a whole as opposed to giving credit to individuals with their given names or even character names.  I was assigned the job of escorting the Downton Abbey Cast through all of their winning press and I can personally attest to having absolutely no clue who the individual actors were yet this was the winning cast who was being recognized for having the Best Drama Series on TV this year thus shouldn't they be considered stars since their level of talent has clearly set them apart? However, can we consider them stars when the majority of us do not even know their name both character and actual name? One interesting thing about several members of the cast was that they have had relatively limited experience outside of that one show thus their persona is largely constructed based solely on Downton Abbey thus raising the question if their star power will follow due to the recognition they have received based on their performance in that particular show or if their lack of filmic roles will make it difficult for them to develop individual personas since they are constantly grouped together as a cast and lack the ability to individualize their performances with a variety of different casts throughout a variety of different roles as film stars typically do. Lastly, this brings up the notion of if we can group TV “stars” into the same group as film “stars.”  While the SAG awards uniquely combines both types of media the Academy Awards do not and considering those are typically thought of as the most coveted awards to receive in Hollywood does this mean we are discounting TV stars are less significant than film stars? If films are a dying medium and the majority of content being produced will either be released in TV format or online as opposed to theatrically how does it change our notion of who is a star and celebrity and will the power of individual celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland etc. become a concept of the past.