Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Richard Dyers star theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial profit. He believes that stars are created to represent 'real people' experiencing real emotions and feelings. Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve one purpose; to make money out of the audience, who respond to various elements of a stars personality by buying their records and becoming fans.

His theory is broke up into three sections;

- Audiences and Institutions
- Character/Personality
- Culture

Audience and Institutions

Starts are made for money purposes alone. Increasing the brand identity benefits the institution as they become a household name increasing sales in all of the media platforms. The institution then models the artist around the target audience they choose. An example of this would be Lady GaGa, according to Richard Dyer, was modelled around fashion forward people so that the audience can relate to her as a person and also to her music. In our music video we increased Karl's brand identity by using a costume that is very similar to the rap and hip-hop genre so the audience of these genres would recognise his fashion sense and relate.

Character/Personality

Dyer suggests that the characters are represented through their roles in the films. He suggests that the screenwriters make 2nd personalities for the person. This is purely for the financial benefits and to attract the audience, he suggests that this is the only reasoning behind the character choices. He also says that it could take several films to create these feelings for a person. He gets across the point that it is much easier to make these feelings in the music scene rather than the film industry. In our music video we have tried to represent Karl to suit the audience rather than our own idea.

Culture

The culture of the artist is what attracts the audience and enhances their 'star quality'. There star quality is how the person is seen off screen as well as on screen. Their personality off screen is a huge part of how the audience reacts towards them. The audience of the star will be influenced by how the person reacts and will in some cases will try and duplicate some of the things they do or try and duplicate their looks. This means that the audience may take a liking to the persons look such as their hairstyle or the way they dress and try and replicate it themselves. In our music video Karl is wearing clothing very stereotypical of the rap genre hopefully this will encourage males to dress like our main character.