The Star System

Hollywood's Production of Popular Identities

Paul McDonald

• Publisher: WallFlower Press
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9780231503242
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

Looks at the development and changing organization of the star system in the American film industry. Tracing the popularity of star performers from the early "cinema of attractions" to the Internet universe, Paul McDonald explores the ways in which Hollywood has made and sold its stars. Through focusing on particular historical periods, case studies of Mary Pickford, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, and Will Smith illustrate the key conditions influencing the star system in silent cinema, the studio era and the New Hollywood.

1         STARDOM AS A SYSTEM

The place of stars in Hollywood cinema can be understood from a number of directions. Stars appear in films and other forms of media texts that cumulatively form the images of stars. At one level, these texts form the general image of Hollywood stardom, the image of stars as wealthy, glamorous and beautiful human beings. At another level, texts are linked by their reference to a single person. Linking texts in this way, the image constructs the star as a particular identity. Stars are not just images. Stars are people who work in the film industry and as such they form a part of the labour force of film production. The role of the star in the industry is not, however, only confined to their function in the process of filmmaking. In a commercial cinema such as Hollywood, stars are important to the processes of production (making films) but also distribution (selling and marketing films) and exhibition (showing films to paying audiences). Filmmaking is a high-cost and high-risk enterprise. Stars are used by the film industry as a means to try and manage audience demand for films. Distributors use the presence of stars to sell films to exhibitors in domestic and overseas markets. Exhibitors, who own and run the theatres showing films, are attracted to films with stars because it is believed the presence of stars help to draw audiences to films. In this circuit of commercial exchange, the star therefore becomes a form of capital, that is to say a form of asset deployed with the intention of gaining advantage in the entertainment market and making profits. This chapter further explores the role of stars as images, labour and capital. In other words, the chapter considers stars as a source of meaning, work and money.

Stars as Images

From the earliest years of the system, the identities of film stars were constructed for commercial purposes across many different sources. It is this construction of identity that Richard Dyer defines as a star’s image:

By image … I do not understand an exclusively visual sign, but rather a complex configuration of visual, verbal and aural signs. This configuration may constitute the general image of stardom or of a particular star. It is manifest not only in films but in all kinds of media text. (1998: 34)

Dyer sees the images of stars constructed across various categories of texts, including not only a star’s film appearances, but also forms of publicity and promotion. Additionally, stars are the objects of critical reviewing and other forms of commentary, for example published star profiles, biographies and interviews. Other factors contributing to the images of stars are the characters they play and the style of performance they use to portray that role. It is also necessary to consider the types of film or genres a star appears in. Stars are also categorised by social variables of age, gender, race and nationality. In semiotic terms, the images of stars are therefore the product of signification. Stars are mediated identities, textual constructions, for audiences do not get the real person but rather a collection of images, words and sounds which are taken to stand for the person. From their familiarity with a range of star texts, moviegoers form impressions of that person so that the star becomes a collection of meanings.

It would be worth adding to Dyer’s notion of star image the relevance of gossip, for informal talk about well-known performers is one of the clearest examples of how stars enter into popular culture and everyday life. Frequently a source of unfounded rumour, gossip may depart from the actual truth of stars’ lives. Rumour cannot be simply dismissed as falsity however, for if the same untruth is repeated regularly and becomes known by enough people, then rumours can come to define something of the truth of a star’s image. Even when it is acknowledged that a particular story about a star is untrue, rumours can still have a residual effect, a legacy, which contributes to the enduring image of that star.

While the identities of stars are highly individuated, Dyer points out that a star is never wholly unique. The images of stars appear both ordinary and extraordinary. Through their images, stars appear ordinary and like other people in society. In this sense stars are not unique because they are typical. Stars are, however, also shown to be exceptional and somehow apart from society. The wealth and looks of stars set them apart from everyday people. It is never possible for any individual member of the audience to comprehensively know all the textual sources through which a star’s identity is represented. Knowledge of stars is therefore differently dispersed across society. Moviegoers also bring many different social and cultural competencies to their understanding of a star’s identity, so that the image will be interpreted in many different ways. The meaning of a star’s image is therefore not contained in the sources that represent the star but is produced in the moment of interaction between moviegoers and star texts.

For this reason, the images of stars are open to a range of differentiated readings. However, this is not to suggest that the meanings of stars is entirety open to individual or subjective interpretation. The images of stars are open to a range of meanings and readings but that range is inevitably limited. At one level, the meaning of star image is constrained by the content of star texts. Jack Nicholson smiles in a particular way. He speaks with a certain rhythm. Opinions may differ over whether Jack Nicholson is charming or vulgar, menacing or sexy, but it seems unlikely that his image will be read as conveying innocence and moral purity.

Equally important is to see star texts in context, to recognise that readings take place in particular cultural and historical circumstances. One of the most obvious indicators of the historical determination of a star’s popularity is the fact that stars seem to be objects of fashion and changing audience tastes. A star who at one time entertained enormous popularity because he or she was seen to be ‘of the moment’ may very quickly become stale in the public imagination. This cannot be seen as a matter of mere caprice on the part of the audience however, for the fashionability of stars raises questions about what makes a star popular at one time and not another. In certain cases, stars seem to transcend historical fashions, enjoying continued popularity over different periods of time. In such cases, however, the image of a star is nevertheless still historically transformed. The Marilyn Monroe of the 1950s, for example, is not the same as the Monroe of the early twenty-first century.

Stars as Labour

Various developments in Europe and the United States during the nineteenth century led to the invention of moving image technology. Although this prototype film technology was available before this time, the first uses of film as an entertainment medium occurred in the 1890s. In this period, film went from being a technology to a business. The moving image moved from being an object of scientific curiosity to becoming a commodity, a thing that could be sold. It is in this early commercialisation that the moving image can be said to have moved from the status of film, i.e. a strip of photographs, to cinema, i.e. the industry for exploiting the economic value of the image.

Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century, cinema became a product of the changes experienced in various European nations and the United States that had seen those countries become industrial capitalist economies. Cinema itself became a capitalist enterprise. Initially, the cinema industry made money by protecting the patents to camera and projector technology. It would take several years for producers to start regarding the content of films as the main source of revenue for the industry.

In her work on the Hollywood film industry, Janet Staiger (1985b) borrows the Marxist concept of the ‘mode of production’ to explain the work of film production as a capitalist enterprise. Although Staiger sees the history of the American film industry as the growth of an overarching capitalist mode of production, she identifies different systems of production. A system of production is effectively a sub-system of the capitalist mode of production, marked by patterns in the arrangement of labour, technology and capital. During the history of Hollywood, the organisation of the star system has changed as the structure of the film industry as a whole has changed. The changes Staiger describes are discussed in more detail in the following chapters, for they are important in identifying the emergence and subsequent transformation of the star system.

Staiger sees patterns in the organisation of labour as central to identifying transition in systems of production. She regards the labour force in Hollywood as broken down into different categories of workers, for example cameramen and women, scriptwriters, prop-makers, and so on. All these roles represent a particular task in the overall process of making a film. Staiger describes this system as a ‘detailed division of labour’ (1985b: 91); unlike a social division of labour, in which one worker will be involved in all stages of producing something from first devising to the finished product, a detailed division of labour splits production into a series of separate functions. For Staiger, the arrival of a detailed division of labour in Hollywood was the result of the American film industry increasing the volume of films made, requiring studios to imitate factory-like modes of mass production. Under a detailed division of labour, particular functions become an area of specialisation. Workers perform some tasks and not others. Staiger also points out that the organisation of labour in Hollywood established a hierarchical system, between management and talent or the crafts, and then between the different levels of responsibility and decision-making in those areas. As a capitalist industry, Hollywood has therefore organised labour on the structural principles of specialisation and hierarchical power.

Stars fit into this structure. In the division of labour, stars are categorised as performance specialists: stars are required to execute certain tasks. During pre-production, star work involves reading scripts sent to them and the learning of lines. When a film is in production and undertaking principal photography, the star’s work requires some limited rehearsal time, the shooting of scenes on location or in the studio, and repeated takes. In postproduction, stars will do some dubbing or post-synchronisation of the voice during sound re-recording. For many performers, this will be the end of their work on a film but as stars have an important role to play in the distribution of films, star labour also involves participating in the various promotional tasks of giving press interviews, appearing at gala premieres and appearing on television chat shows.

These are the specialist responsibility of the star in the division of labour. Stars may be categorised as performance specialists but their position in the industry is also marked by their hierarchical status. Not all film actors are stars. In the labour pool of actors, stars are the elite. There is a lot of overlap in the working responsibilities of stars and ordinary performers (learning lines, dubbing, and so on) but also differences. Ordinary performers will not have to complete the promotional commitments that a star will, however a star will not have to undergo the humiliation and disappointment of the auditioning process.

Danae Clark (1995) describes the distinction between stars and ordinary performers in terms of ‘labour power differences’. For Clark, any understanding of the star system cannot concentrate exclusively on those performers with star status but must see the star as a relative position in conditions of labour power: ‘Though the term “star system” refers to the institutional hierarchy established to regulate and control the employment and use of all actors, stars have become a privileged class within the division of actors’ labour’ (1995: 5; emphasis in original). Seeing the star system in this way demands consideration of the power that attaches to stardom in the film industry.

Stars as Capital

To understand why stars have more power in the film industry than other ordinary performers, it is necessary to see that stars are not just a source of labour but also a form of capital. Stars are valuable to the industry in ways that extend beyond simply how they play a character. After the labour force, Staiger see the other aspects of the capitalist mode of production as the means of production and the mechanisms for financing production. The means of production defines not only the physical resources of buildings, materials and technologies required to make films, but also the skills, knowledge and techniques employed in the use of those resources. Financing in a capitalist mode of production requires the supply of money or capital for the purchase of physical resources and labour. Capitalist industry works as a system by combining labour, technology and capital in ways intended to produce and maximise profits. The products of labour become commodities sold in the market and it has been a classic concern of the critics of capitalism that commodity production separates the product from its creator, with the effect that the labour force is alienated by the organisation of production.

Stars have a place in the film industry both as a category of labour and a form of capital: a star becomes a form of capital because in the commercial film industry, he or she is a valuable asset for a production company. Stars are a form of investment, employed in film productions as a probable guard against loss. The wages of stars account for a major portion of any film’s budget and stars are also a marketing tool, whose images are promoted with the intention of trying to effect the entertainment market. Barry King (1987) also points out that stars act as capital because in the contemporary film industry, they have increasingly established their own companies so as to profit from the sale of their images. Early cinema used brand names to differentiate the products of film production companies. After the arrival of the star system, however, films were increasingly marketed through star differentiation. Cathy Klaprat (1985) sees the value of stars through the economic principles of product differentiation and demand inelasticity. In economics, when demand for any product can be seen to decrease if the price is raised, or to increase if the price is lowered, then the market for a product is said to be elastic. However, where changes in price do not effect demand, the market is inelastic. Klaprat argues that with the most popular performers of the studio era in Hollywood, star differentiation could theoretically stabilise demand, creating a consistent box office performance for a star’s films and so allowing distributors to raise the price of their product in dealing with exhibitors. Star differentiation therefore became a valuable strategy in Hollywood, offering a means for not only stabilising the price of films but also the raising of prices for certain products.

While differentiation is crucial to the economic value of stars, rarely have stars ever maintained a consistent record at the box office. Rather than fully accepting Klaprat’s view of stars as a mechanism for manipulating the market for films, we can more cautiously suggest that stars act as a means of product differentiation which can only potentially stabilise the market.

Stars do appear to offer an unrivalled opportunity for product differentiation. At one level, various individual stars appear to share common characteristics, and the system of stardom differentiates performers according to type. For example, the ‘young male rebel’ type is a category which would include stars of the 1950s, like Marlon Brando or James Dean, but also stars of later decades, such as Sean Penn or Christian Slater. At a further level however, the star system seems to resist the classification of stars as types. The identities or images of stars are of value to the film industry for they appear as individuals. Staiger suggests that from an economic point of view, ‘stars may be thought of as a monopoly on a personality’ (1985b: 101). Monopolies emerge when there is only one supplier to a market. Star monopolies are based on a belief in unique individuality: ‘there is only one Jim Carrey’.

The monopoly status of stars is not only of value to producers and distributors. As Leo Rosten observed, star labour has a uniqueness which ‘places that personality in an almost unchallengeable bargaining position’ (1941: 329). Historical examples have shown that both producers and stars are aware of the value of personal monopoly represented through a star’s image. How that monopoly is defined and used is therefore potentially an area for struggle. Star contracts must deal with stars as both labour and capital, defining relationships over not only the star as a particular category of worker but also the star as a property and a product that can be exploited for commercial purposes in image markets.

Star work has a different status in the labour market than other types of work. In manufacturing, for example, labour is hired to produce something separate from the person. The sale of that product as a commodity in the market has been the basis for Marxist arguments that labour is alienated in capitalist economies. At first glance, this condition would not appear to apply to stars, for here the person and the thing produced are one. However, there are potential grounds for division between the star as working person and the star as image, a division between the star as labour and the star as capital. The image may be taken to represent the person but it is also separable from the person. Star images are circulated in various forms of text and in many different contexts. Star contracts must therefore define not only the conditions of an actor’s labour but also the rights to use the star’s image. As Jane Gaines (1992) observes, the contracts of stars are intended to cover two legal entities: the private person of the performer and the star image.

Gaines points out that star contracts are based on conditions of exclusivity. Unlike other categories of labour, involving the sale of knowledge or skill, the work of stars is based on the selling of a distinctive identity. To sue for breach of contract, the employer must be able to show that a star’s services are extraordinary and unique, and that without the services of that particular star, the employer would be damaged in ways that could not be compensated. Equally, the contracts of stars must determine the rights to the exploitation of a star’s image. Studying particular examples of star contracts, Gaines sees conditions laid out to determine the right to use a star’s ‘acts, poses, plays and appearances’, and then the ‘name, voice and likeness’ of the star (1992: 157). The former appear as part of a feature film and as such are the property of the film’s copyright holder. The second, however, can be used to carry the star’s image into other media, designed for commercial and promotional use.

Gaines comments that ‘there is more at stake in the enforcement of a personal services contract in the entertainment industry than in other fields of employment because the entertainer is the product’ (1992: 153; emphasis in original). The relationship of person to image is the ground for potential legal conflict for the star system. While the star has some control over how he or she appears on-screen, depending on the agreed terms, contracts can grant the right to use a star’s name, voice or likeness in ways which may not be seen to be desirable to the star as a person. The image is therefore always liable to escape the individual control of the star.

The Production of Popular Identities

There are several connections to be made between seeing the star as image, labour and capital. Star images are collections of meanings read from various star texts. Star work involves the labour of contributing to the creation of some of those texts. In the Hollywood industry, stars are placed in the structure of specialised and hierarchically organised relationships with other categories of labour. Unlike other performers, stars have greater power in the industry because of their dual capacity as labour and capital. The star becomes a form of capital inasmuch as his or her image can be used to create advantage in the market for films and secure profits. Because the image is not the person but rather a set of texts and meanings that signify the person, then the image is something separable from the star. Star contracts cover both the labour of the star but also the product of that labour, the image. Contracts set out the ownership and control of the image, defining who has the right to use the image, or parts of the image, and in what contexts. The images of stars are therefore legal entities.

What follows is an attempt to explore these connections between stars as image, labour and capital during different phases of Hollywood history. We will took at the place of the star system in the changing conditions of the industry as a whole but also how examples of particular cases, be they stars or organisations, represent certain trends in the system at that time.

2 MAKING THE SYSTEM

When tracing the foundations of the film star system, some histories of the cinema have frequently repeated a now familiar anecdote as the catalytic moment for the creation of the system (see, for example, Cook 1996: 40; Jacobs 1968: 86–7). The story goes something like this. In the first decade of the twentieth century, American film production companies withheld the names of film performers, despite requests from audiences, fearing that public recognition would drive performers to demand higher salaries. This policy was followed by the powerful companies of the M...