I'll take Mike's bait, because I think the question he raises is crucial--and should be central to much of cinema studies. The question: Why are so many film viewers (or consumers of mass/popular cultural products more generally) fascinated by performers--figures we tend to lump under the categories "stars" or "celebreties"? Often there's an extra clause attached to this question, and often it's left implicit. Mike has made it explicit: ... instead of art, meaning, value [or something else- -narrative, say]? The question should be central because it opens and/or impinges on so many other questions in film studies. One of the questions it raises is: Where does (should?) film studies as a field begin and end? What are the borders of our inquiry? How does "identification" and "indentity" or "willing suspension of disbelief" work in fiction film? *How* does the fascination with performers get expressed? How do viewers "use" film? Do any of these concerns entail outside fiction film and how do they entail outside the U.S. cinema and/or a U.S. reception context? How is this "fascination" inflected (or not) by social categories like class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age? (It's worth noting here that, aside from Richard Dyer's two books focussing on stars, *Stars* and the underappreciated *Heavenly Bodies*, there is considerable feminist work on stars, my current favorite being Jackie Stacey's *Star Gazing*.) Personally, I think many film viewers (and I should say I speak partly for myself here--though I find my figures of fascination tend to be musicians more often than actors and I wonder why that is) are fascinated by performers because that fascination is "productive." Having these imaginary-but-real and emphatically "open" (when must interpretation of a star end?) people/characters/texts (Dyer talks about the "star text") to speculate about and use permits us, besides the (guilty? certainly not straightforward or simple) pleasures of gossip and scopic delight, to map out positions we might take (or imagine taking) in life--they help us define what we mean by concepts like (to use the Depp example) "pretentious" or "aventurous" and give us case studies to use in conversation (whether with others or self). In this regard, Resnais' use of old film clips in *Mon Oncle d' Amerique* strikes me as funny *and* right: At moments of extreme pressure in their lives, the characters in this film (at least one of whom was played by an actor who has become an international star: Gerard Depardieu) seem to "see" (or is just us?) brief flashes of their favorite stars in parallel action (for GD it is Jean Gabin, of course). The characters do not apparently think, "What would X do now?" nor are any of them shown to be "obssessed" with a star, even to the point of writing a fan letter, nor does the film seem to claim that these images determine in any direct way the characters' behaviors--but the performers/stars *are* part of the mix. For many film viewers (us), they are a big part of the mix (i.e., meaning, value, quality, attraction, art, identity). As scholars, I think we find this unnerving for a wide array of reasons--performers are powerfully affective without being clearly meaningful, the text has no end and isn't even much of a text, etc.--but I don't think that means we should (or can) avoid studying perfomers/stars... or the people (including us) that are fascinated by them. SO bring on the studies..... Arthur Knight William & Mary ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]