Teaching Stars and Performance

Stars fascinate and engage students and studying them provides an effective means of exploring a range of issues and theories in Film and Media Studies. "Teaching Stars and Performance" examines what makes and defines a star and how a star is constructed through both a film text and associated fragmentary texts of publicity, promotion, criticism and gossip - a very useful area for cross-media investigation. The guide also looks at: the historical and social context of these ideological meanings; the marketing of stars to a range of audiences as a way of examining the film industry and film genres and of comparing the construction and appeal of stars in Hollywood and in Britain; audiences in relation to theories of spectatorship and audience identification and fandom; screen performance in relation to theatrical influences, the development of method; acting and the construction of performance through cinematography as well as physical movement. As with all the guides in this series, this title is supported by additional student materials on dedicated password accessible web pages.