Core Post 5 - Chimezie Metu

One of the readings this week contained a quote that I found to be really interesting in regards to things that we have talked about in class and also some movies and interviews with actors that I have seen recently.  In Christine Gledhill's chapter, "Signs of Melodrama", she credits Richard Dyer for the argument that "stars appeal because they exemplify what it is like to be particular kinds of person" (pg. 208). This really stood out to me because of some of the discussions that we have had in class which dealt with the ways that stars often catch the attention of the audience through their performance or their appearance on screen even though the character they are portraying might not necessarily coincide with that actors persona in the real world. 

In addition, I was also able to relate this quote to an interview I saw this past week with Michael B Jordan, who played the role of Killmonger in Black Panther that was recently released. In the interview Michael B Jordan talked about how he basically lived in solitude in order to fully grasp the range of his character Killmonger, who lived a large part of his life alone after his father's death when he was a child. Although the portrayal of the character might be an extreme one in terms of the film, Jordan was able to exemplify what it meant to be a particular kind of person. I'm not too familiar with the film industry but I think that this type of commitment to a character and to portrayal of different kinds of people is what makes stars so appealing to a specific audience. Actually going out and living the lives of the characters and roles that they are attempting to portray only enhances their performance in the role in my mind.