During week three we went beyond what is on the surface of a star and instead looked at what the star’s image is made of. An image that helped put this together was a photograph by Arnold Crawford showing the different perspectives to a star’s image through a mirror. There is the star we see all glammed up, the way the star sees themselves, and perhaps what the star wishes we could see. The important piece here is that the star chooses to be viewed in a certain way. In ‘Intro to Heavenly Bodies’ the author states, “How we appear is no less real than how we have manufactured that appearance, or than the ‘we’ that is manufacturing that appearance.” Meaning we only know what stars are like based off what they appear to be like. There are, however, specific elements, such as interviews, magazines, social media, that show us what they are “really” like. In the end, there is a distinction between the star’s private self and the star’s public self and the star decides what parts of their lives they want to be private or public.
There are various characteristics that help the stardom image. Among these characteristics are the lifestyle the stars live, such as wearing expensive fashion, or how they spend their leisure time. Overall, we idolize stars because they portray roles in society that we can relate to. For example, the “rebel” or the “independent woman”. Despite a star being often different from the role they portray in a movie, they more than likely mention in an interview ways in which they do relate to the character they portrayed. To me this shows how fluid our personality’s can be and also how the star tried to live through their character’s experience, not their own.
When I watched the film Morocco, starring Marlene Dietrich who portrayed Amy Jolly, I found myself laughing or smirking at many of Jolly’s actions. Jolly definitely portrayed this sexy, confident, badass woman role. I appreciated the film’s feminist take. Still, Jolly let her love for a man control her life, showing how vulnerable woman were in the 1930’s through 1950’s. In comparison to Monroe, who associated with the dumb blonde persona, Dietrich associated with the femme fatale persona. Although I agree both are symbols of female empowerment in different ways, I prefer the femme fatale persona as a symbol of female empowerment. I say this because when I think of female empowerment, I think of women going against society’s expectations of the “typical” woman. I also think of fighting for gender equality and putting to question gender norms. Dietrich wore suits and spoke up for herself all while feelings confident in herself. A contemporary example of the femme fatale is Emma Watson. Watson is an educated woman who has been a star since she was a child in the Harry Potter series. I would not associate Watson with the dumb blonde persona since she does not look, act, or dress like the “most desirable woman” does. After J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, announced she does not believe in trans rights, Watson along with many of her costars stood up to Rowling stating their support for trans people. Furthermore, Watson has shown to be an advocate of female rights and BLM, attending the 2018 Women’s March in D.C. and being featured in the British Vogue magazine where she spoke up about racism. If you look through Watson’s twitter, you can see how supportive she is by just looking at her retweets involving BLM and gender equality. Without a doubt, Watson uses her platform to the best of her ability and truly emphasizes female empowerment.
Emma Watson at the 2018 Women’s March in D.C.
“Self-education is an essential part of any anti-racist journey, and reading has always been a huge part of my personal learning,” says @EmmaWatson. https://t.co/vyWXSgd3GX
— British Vogue (@BritishVogue) June 5, 2020
