In the media today, the sensationalism of the tabloids are often filled with the misadventures and interactions of stars. To what extent this is true is often a point of debate in media analysis. I need not discuss the myriad of example of this, most of which involve emotionally unstable women struggling with a demanding lifestyle and a promiscuous image.
In light of the idea of image propagation, often with women using their sexual prowess as a means of power and drawing attention. In many ways the establishment of a meta-textual ability to have an identity is essential to the perpetuation of a successful music career. This can often mean the continual evolution of image that can be radical in order to draw continual attention to the artist and thus, the music. These characterizations being carried over from artist to artist was scrutinized in Adorno’s notion of part interchangeability. The epitome of this would be the continually progressing David Bowie, who rose to fame with his persona of ‘the first space-age bisexual Deco superstar’ that he called Ziggy Stardust. He morphed from being a sensitive artist, to glitter queen to neo-Nazi, and disco robot, all with seemingly well timed theatrical mock-serious philosophical stand in the star system.
In an interesting example that is difficult to categorize in its popularity and effect is the career of the Nu-Metal band Slipknot. They are known for their antics onstage, and since they all wear masks and jumpsuits like those of jailed convicts, their appearance onstage is powerful and brings an entirely rawer semblance than if they just performed their style of music onstage without their individual personas. They have a freedom in their expression, since not only their physical faces are masked, but they also are able to be at a higher level of theatrical intensity, that is intentionally anger and emotion based, thus the anonymous of their image equals a power of conveyance.
Slipknot with a link to their live in London concert
In this same manner of personification, artists often take on another level of intertextual narrative, that can be seen in live shows and in the album of the period that they were in this phase or characterization. Gerard Way, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance exhibited this behavior in becoming the persona of The Patent, who is dying of cancer and looking back on his life in the concept album: The Black Parade. Through the eyes of this character, a story can be told at a far more intertwined intensity of conveyance than if it was just the typical singer on stage just becoming really involved in the songs about the trials, tribulations and joys of life, and thus the lyrics take on a far more genuine meaning. This level of personification is almost similar to watching a famous actor performing in a musical on stage. We know all about who they are in reality(or at least what we have procured from fan journalism, and celebrity biographies), and so to have them act not only like the performer that they usually are, but also as a role/image brings an entirely more animated and intensive viewing and receiving experience. In Andrew Goodwin’s book Dancing In the Distraction Factory he discussed the idea of diegesis; it being the world in the context of the music video, the result of the combination of the setting and story. In the case of the music video for Welcome to the Black Parade, this world is the summary of The Patient‘s highly emotionally and mentally constructed view of the world as he bids farewell to it and is led away by the Black Parade. In many ways it has the fantasies and delight of childhood in the parade filled with strange creatures all dressed in marching uniforms, but in many ways he has the adult view of the suffering that he is escaping when he sees the three sister War, Famine, and Sickness approach him with a sign saying ‘starved to death in the land of plenty’.
Lead singer Gerard Way with a link to their music video for The Black Parade.
These examples have a lot to do with what Andrew Goodwin talked about in his book Dancing In the Distraction Factory, in that the “creation of character identities for pop stars to provides a point of identification for the listener-spectator”. This role of stardom is also helpful in the “construction of the star identities is central to the economics of the music industry.” This basically implies that a long career can only be sustained by ‘stars’, where their very identity is an assurance of sizable music sales.
The idea of being a star in and of itself is a very slippery slope in analyzing, since it is essentially as Dr. Strangelove discussed in the lecture; the sum total of the entire marketing process around the star in addition to the combined, manipulated and constructed image of the artist. In typical Post-Modern analysis, this can result in a rather contradictory and indeterminate that doesn’t usually even result in meaning, but simply clues that have mixed meanings of projection in being ordinary and extraordinary.
This concept was the focus of the 1940s film starring Bette Davis and the paradoxial relationship that she had with the character she played in The Star. She herself was one of the decade’s most successful and regarded actresses, and in this film she played an actress of the same caliber of fame who falls down the slope of obscurity. She is obsessive that she “just needs one good role to get her back”, that is, back to being a desired and hit making actress who is the object of desire for the producers in the then quite powerful studio system.
We all have an element of the desire of scopophelia, to be looked at. Whether this is the reason for the popularity of MySpace, Facebook and Youtube, is not entirely debatable.
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