Jinghan's core post #5 some thoughts on feminism-- in terms of star image and fans identification

        Dyer's book Stardom: Industry of Desire makes several interesting points in terms of Hollywood feminism. In regard of both female stars as subjects of male gaze and female as spectatorship. First of all, Dyer talks about "images of women" and "women as image" in feminist film theory. For the "images of women", he quotes Molly Haskell's idea that "discusses the female stars in Hollywood cinema in terms of stereotypes which limit and control definitions of femininity in a male dominated culture". For the "women as image", Laura Maulvey's idea is that it's the investigation of female stars as objects of the ‘male’ gaze (as cited in Dyer, 147). Dyer gives example of the different constructions of femininity within Hollywood-- Bette Davis resembles power and rebelliousness, Marilyn Monroe resembles sexual attractiveness, and Deanna Durbin resembles clean-livingness (150). These are stereotypes draw by the concept that female stars as subjects of male gaze. They are defined with different tags in a male dominated society.

        When it comes to women as spectatorship, it becomes female's fantasies about their own identity and the identity of the stars. Although Dyer argues there are four identification practices when it comes to fans who fantasize themselves being the stars (most of them are female spectators' fantasies)-- pretending, resembling, imitating, and copying. But it is the last identifications practice-- copying, that becomes not separable from consumption of fetish. For example, Dyer gives an example of female spectators copying stars' hairstyles to transform the identities of spectators. In addition to that, they also purchase clothes and imitate stars's makeups in order to transform their identities of spectators. 

        One example I thought of as an example of Dyer's statement is the television teen drama series Gossip Girl. Besides we see the female actors all dress in the way that male spectators would appreciate-- extremely felinity and charming (Dyer's argument that female stars as subjects of male gaze); audiences of this show kind grow with the characters. Since most of the audiences are teenagers from middle schools to young adults from colleges, their life experiences correspond to the characters' stories from season 1 to season 6. Countless girls and young women learned brand names such as Roger Vivier, Harry Winston, Proenza Schouler, Oscar de la Renta, and etc... from this show. Don't even mention Chanel, Dior, Christian Louboutin, and Louis Vuitton... Even since Gossip Girl the amount of sales of those brands increased rapidly just because every female spectator in real life want to dress either like Blair or Serena and live a life like one of theirs in the show. Thus, copying identification practice is not separable from consumption of star fetish. Although Dyer states that his research was to examine the spectators' pleasures of cinema experiences in the context of 1940s and 1950s, I think his findings still apply to today's audiences.