CTCS 412: Stars + Celebrity: Core post #5: Loving Stars

In Jackie Stacey’s article, Feminine Fascinations: Forms of identification in star-audience relations, she underlines the different ways that women relate to their favorite actresses. She explains that this is a question of identification that can be separated to two different groups, fantasies and practices, even though they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive and many times overlap.

In the first part of the article, Stacey explores the fantasies in which the audience fantasizes about their relationships with the star and that are most likely are related to the cinematic context instead of the star’s real persona.

Generally when the fantasy is based around devotion and worship, the spectators feel pleasure from “some kind of difference from the star” and “the distance produced by this difference” provides a “source of fascination” (Stacey, 149). Here, spectators often fantasize about the stars because it is seen as something unattainable and far away – which further perpetuates their image to perfection. In this case, quite often the spectator’s self is pushed to the side and never put in comparison to the star in an effort to diminish the gap between them.

In other cases, spectators feel the desire to become their idolized star – which is only made possible by the recognition of the self and the difference between spectator and star. This fantasy to become the star is many times knowingly unattainable, however still strongly felt by many fans. This perpetuates the “construction of the ideals of feminine attractiveness circulating in culture at any one time” since it mostly revolves around a star’s appearance (Stacey, 151). Female spectators also take pleasure in the star’s personalities and behaviors within the cinematic context since it is something they lack and desire in their own life. Many spectators also take pleasure in escapism in order to be part of the star’s world.

I feel like fantasies used to be more common before the internet since stars used to be far more unreachable than nowadays. The internet offers new spaces and possibilities of contact; it serves as a bridge between the artist’s image and the spectators. Therefore, it is less common to see spectators that only live on fantasies and don’t contract from their idolized stars in some way.

The internet works for the humanization of the celebrity to the public. Fans can find out more about their idols online and may even feel like there is an intimate relationship. But is this a real relationship? Stars reveal only what is convenient for them. Moreover, it is not always the celebrity that updates their profile on social networks, feeding many fans a false “close relationship”. What fans meet is the representation of a celebrity, the true persona of a star is not revealed on the internet but rather a piece of their public figure. Their public exposition is chosen according to their interests and the entertainment industry’s, not the fans' curiosity.

In the second part, Stacey explores how these fantasies become practices as spectators take a step further and transform their identity in some way to diminish the gap between them and the idolized star. For that, they engage in pretending, resembling, imitating or copying in order to become closer to the star.

Pretending revolves around the imaginary factor since generally the spectator knows it is not true. For example, nowadays there are many online blogs where fans pretend to be part of a star’s world in a specific film or show, and generally many women in these websites rely on role-play to pretend to be their idolized star’s lover or best friend.

Other spectators rely on resemblance as a form of identification with their idolized stars. Even though it it isn’t a transformation, the spectator uses the association between the star and themselves centered on a physical feature that can make them alike. For example, a lot of magazines and blogs feature what stars are wearing and show where their look can be bought for you to look exactly like them. This is more pertinent to the female world because women generally tend to be more concerned with this aspect about their idolized star.

Many spectators take it a step further by imitating their stars in some way to fulfill their desire of becoming more like them and diminish the gap between them. For example, ever since Miley Cyrus posted a video on Facebook of her twerking routine to the song “Wop” by J. Dash, the act of twerking became a world-wide phenomenon for her fans. Especially after twerking during her tour, many fans started to post videos online trying to imitate her twerking.

Here's Miley Cyrus:

And here's a video of a fan trying to imitate and give a tutorial of Miley Cyrus' twerking:

Copying is different than imitating because it encompasses the transformation of physical appearance. Therefore, the “construction of women as cinema spectators overlaps here with their construction as consumers” (Stacey, 156). With the gap between stars and their spectators becoming increasingly smaller, the act of copying is increasing as fans see it as a way to be more sub-emerged in their idols world. Photoshop and the internet nowadays are working as props for young fans to insert themselves into a star’s life; making them increasingly more obsessed and more prone to going through some sort of physical transformation to be more similar to them. Before, we would see many people, unconsciously even, changing their hairstyle, to look like a specific big star of the time. But now, people are doing plastic surgery to look like their idols.