For my own research on Stanwyck, Crawford, and June Allyson, Star Studies is the appropriate term because each of these women was an industry in and of themselves. Subsequently, each star needed to be "built" up by an industry and then pushed out into the market place to see if they resonated – hopefully turning into a Star. What makes them Stars (with a capital S) is that they did resonate with audiences, which is of course uncontrollable by studios. A Star has long lasting cultural impact, while a celebrity is more ephemeral - i.e. Tania Harding or Heidi Montag vs. Julia Roberts or Judy Garland. 

 

The new journal Celebrity Studies coming out this year should be helpful in situating this part of film/media studies. 

 

J. Hayes

Georgia State University 

Communication Department 

Graduate Studies 


 
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:13:32 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [SCREEN-L] Star/Celebrity studies
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Hi
> 
> I'm writing about the move from Star studies to Celebrity studies - perhaps 
> an inevitable development in our celebrity-saturated culture. There's 
> reasons for arguing why it's happened both academically as well as in 
> everyday life... however I wondered if people doing work in this area are 
> all calling it celebrity studies? Does anyone still refer to their work as 
> 'Star Studies'? Even though I can think of some argument to say that a 
> particular article or piece of research is more about the 'star' than about 
> 'celebrity'; I wonder if, as a field, celebrity studies has become an all 
> encompassing term?
> 
> Be great to hear feedback on this, especially if you or anyone you know of 
> is still using 'star studies'!
> 
> Thanks
> Corinna
> -- 
> 
> Corinna Tomrley
> Centre for Women's Studies
> University of York
> 
> http://www.rawnervebooks.co.uk/FSUK.html
> 
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