Course overview
Film stars matter: they are everywhere, but they are also unknowable. In this course, you will explore how film stars reflect national preoccupations and how they achieve national and transnational fame. You will trace the career of major film stars from across global film culture and study their star image through, their on-screen performance style, their off-screen persona, and their celebrity bodies and faces. By combining a range of star theories with close textual analysis, you will look at the development of the Hollywood star system, consider what the popularity of certain film stars might tell us about issues of cultural identity and ideology and reflect on why stardom fades.
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate an understanding of the key concepts in and theoretical approaches to stardom, celebrity and performance
- Critically evaluate historical, political and ideological shifts in celebrity/stardom cultures
- Analyse the roles played by different agents (actor, audience, technology, media) in the construction of stardom
- Consider the ways in which case studies of specific individuals illustrate stardom and celebrity
- Use contemporary technologies relevant to the completion of assessment tasks