Film Stardom and Celebrity

Wedi cwblhau'r modiwl dylai'r myfyrwyr fedru:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of key concepts in the fields of star and celebrity studies.
2. Analyse a star image using key critical approaches to the study of stardom and celebrity.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of historical changes in star image and the fields of star and celebrity studies.
4. Evaluate how a star/celebrity image impacts on wider society.

This module investigates the subject of stardom and celebrity across film, TV and media contexts.
A) Cultural and political contexts: understanding the processes by which stardom and star images are constructed within popular and public cultures and the political impact of these.
B) National: having an awareness of the different ways stars are consumed within different national and transnational contexts (both away from, and in relation to, Hollywood filmmaking).
C) Theoretical: exploring how stardom has been traditionally theorised within celebrity studies and cultural studies.
D) Historical and industrial: investigating the changing role of the star within the Hollywood industry from the early 1900s to the present day, and the star as a ‘worker’ as well as an ‘image’.
E) The multi-platform nature of celebrity, whereby the construction and maintenance of stardom is achieved via enterprises across a variety of media forms including cinema, television, the internet and print media.

This module offers a critical insight into the history of stardom within mainstream media. It will examine major theoretical discourses pertaining to stars, stardom and celebrity culture. Students will be encouraged to consider the correlation between individual stars and the range of contexts which define performers as stars via a series of case studies linking major stars with a variety of historical and critical approaches. The way in which stardom is constructed by producers and consumers through film texts, marketing discourses, multimedia platforms, national and transnational cinemas, audiences and specific historical circumstances will be analysed.

This is the indicative content of a number of topics that will be studied on this module:

• The history of film stardom

• The construction of star images and their meanings

• Stardom and gender

• Audiences responses to stardom and celebrity

• Marketing and publicity

• 'Authenticity' and Celebrity

• The Wrestler as a hybrid celebrity

• Television stardom

• Stardom, media personalities and celebrity culture

• Celebrity labour

• Celebrity and Social Media.

Mae'r modiwl hwn yn cydymffurfio a FfCChC Lefel 5