Supplemental Post 1 - Madison Lorenz

This past weekend my friend and I got on the topic of who we consider to be celebrities and who we consider just to be "well-known" but not necessarily a celebrity in our eyes. It was interesting to hear her take in comparison to mine. One of the things that she mentioned is that she has a nine year old brother who views YouTube personalities as celebrities. For me, that was funny to hear because when I think "celebrity" I think of Angelina Jolie and I never felt YouTube personalities were at the same rank as someone like Angelina. She said that she was having a conversation at the dinner table with her family and she mentioned that one of her friends is friends with a YouTube personality. Her brother went crazy and started asking a million questions. He was so in awe of learning this fact. This just goes to show how different generations and age groups have different definitions of what a celebrity, or star, is.
I then when on to ask her if she views certain social media personalities, or influencers, as celebrities. She admitted that she would get star-struck by certain Instagram and YouTube personalities and feels that they are up to the standard of a celebrity. On the other hand, I would have to disagree. There are some social media influencers that I feel are "popular" but not necessarily "famous." To me, celebrities are people who are recognized and known amongst different countries and are embraced by groups of people from all over the world. An American Instagram influencer may have some followers from other countries, but most likely if you stopped someone on the street in Europe, they would know who Britney Spears is but they wouldn't know who this influencer is.
I thought this conversation was fun and it was cool getting a different perspective on this topic from someone who isn't involved in the entertainment world.

Supplemental Post 1 - Ali Appelbaum

My friends had a really interesting star sighting experience that I thought I would share! Raven Symone posted that she was having a yard sale in Los Angeles and that she was getting rid of a lot of her stuff. She posted her family’s address and said that she was going to be there. My friends, Parker and Cade, saw this post and decided it would be fun to go. Cade is new to L.A., so he though it was a very “L.A. experience” to be able to go to a celebrity’s yard sale. They thought it was a one day event, and were upset when they weren’t able to go. But, the yard sale stayed open through the weekend and they were able to attend. They looked up the address and realized it was only nine minutes away. As they drove away from USC, the area got a lot less nice and a little unsafe. They were a little nervous and drove past the house a couple of times because they couldn’t find parking. They parked a two minute walk down the street and when they arrived, they were surprised that there were very few people there. There were a few locals and maybe one other couple there from her instagram promotion. They knew that they were going to draw attention because they were clearly in a different demographic than most of the people there. The others were there to actually buy things and Parker and Cade were there because they wanted to check it out and meet Raven.

Raven was sitting on the steps of the porch in a white zip up onesie, which was really dirty. It looked like she was running around in the grass. She had the hood on, wasn’t wearing makeup, and her hair looked like she just woke up. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone. She came up to them and pointed out that a certain box was discounted. Cade picked out a print from the Guggenheim museum, which was ripped at the bottom. He asked how much it was and Raven said it was garbage and he could have it for free. She called him “sweetie.” Cade bought a book and Parker picked out some video games. Raven went inside the house and someone from her family went up to them and said “Raven is going to leave soon, so if you want a picture you can do it now.” The family obviously knew they were there to meet Raven. They paid about twenty dollars for all of their items, Raven came outside, they took a selfie with her, and she left.

Parker and Cade said the experience humanized Raven a lot. Raven was Cade’s favorite Disney star growing up and he said seeing her family really put things into perspective and made him think about how hard she probably had to work to get where she got in acting and in her career. This is relevant to what we have been discussing in class because we have been discussing the intersection of a celebrity’s private and public lives and this is an example of when those two worlds intersect.  Having a yard sale and allowing her fans to see her in a completely vulnerable state is incredibly commendable and I think it’s amazing that Raven did this. I wish I knew about it!

Here are her instagram posts if you're interested!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd5k333AP-E/?hl=en&taken-by=ravensymone

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd8f1QqAsAT/?hl=en&taken-by=ravensymone

Supplemental Post 1 - Giuliana Petrocelli

At this point in the class, we have seen Bette Davis in two films. In All About Eve, she was a strong female character, although obsessed with being an aging star. In Now, Voyager, she transforms from a timid and controlled daughter to a confident, independent woman. I am impressed by her versatility onscreen, as I felt that she was able to play both roles well. It seems like she really shines in moments where her character has to confront others or show her power onscreen. Yet, she also is able to be extremely vulnerable and emotional in the same roles, which is possibly why she was so successful. I have not studied her career or seen other films than these, so I would be curious if anyone has other opinions about her abilities or the roles she was often cast in. What star qualities of Bette Davis did you notice while watching the films?

On an unrelated note, an experience this weekend reminded me of how unique Los Angeles is. I was shopping in Hollywood and having trouble finding a particular store based on Google Maps. A group of people were congregated near where I thought the store was, so I went up and asked for directions. Before I could speak, they saw how lost I looked. "Are you here for the audition?" they asked me. Somehow, I had stumbled across auditions for an acting studio. "Oh no, no..." I answered and finished my shopping thinking nothing of it. But later that day, I was reflecting on the experience and laughed at the fact that only in Hollywood would you stumble across auditions without even trying. It seemed so stereotypical - the type of story that anyone outside of California might dream would happen. A tourist might stumble upon the audition and assume they would become a star!

Supplement 1- Madeline Virga

It was just released that Tom Hanks would be playing the beloved Mr. Rogers in a biopic. I can't help realize that in the latter half of Hanks life he has been cast as prolific men who are seen as kind and have a sense of childlike wonder (Walt Disney and now Mr. Rodgers). He has even voiced a toy which to me is the epitome of childhood.

This weekend I saw The Post, but I found it hard to picture Hanks as the ruthless hardcore editor of The Washington Post. In this class, we have already talked about the perception of a star/actor and how their consistent characterization in and out of movies influence peoples perception of future roles and the person themselves. To me, Hanks is a great actor, but in The Post, I could not see him as the character he was portraying.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/keelyflaherty/its-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-because-tom-hanks?utm_term=.euRjGyR3R#.qnQ19VAxA

Supplemental Post 1 - Lauren Sullivan

Last weekend my parents were in town and we were driving through Beverly Hills killing time before their flight home. We passed someone selling star maps and spontaneously decided to pick one up. None of us had done this before and figured it might be an entertaining way to kill an hour. This unusual practice got me thinking about stars and our relationships to them. The whole experience felt sort of bizarre and uncomfortable. The streets were largely deserted aside from the rare ridiculously expensive car and I felt like an outsider and an intruder. While the houses in these neighborhoods were as lavish and polished as the stars’ personas, it felt odd to look out at the places where these celebrities live out their private lives. It felt too intimate and invasive. I didn’t need to know that Nicholas Cage was hosting a children’s birthday party on Sunday afternoon. It reminded me that behind these star personas are real people and perhaps the public isn’t meant to see beyond this image. I think a degree of distance is essential between fans and the stars they admire.

Supplemental Post 1 - Erin Cooney

I had to check when the chapter from Hansen about Rudolph Valentino was written after I finished it and it made a lot of sense that it was from the 1980s. The article's attempt to use the language of "transsexual" and "transvestite" (pg. 269, for one example) may have functioned at the time the article was written--though I'm skeptical of even that--but that part is pretty much nonsensical today. How the article emphasized gender was a pretty challenging part for me. Identification with a character, a star, etc., who is of a different gender than you are (or a different gender than you've been assigned, if we want to actually talk about transness) can be interesting, but not really the way this article went about it. This is especially an issue around the article's conflation of gender and sexuality, by focusing some on what happens when the woman viewer identifies with the character whose gaze and attraction is the subject of the film but mixing that up with a conversation about gender and "spectatorial cross-dressing" (269).

I would love to read on article that engages with how trans folks identify with stars of various genders and how that operates, because I think that's a pretty interesting conversation around what celebrities do for gender, identification, aspirations, etc. This article kind of used that language, but in such a 1980s, outdated, confusing way that it just muddled up any actual point it was making, in my opinion.

Core Response 2 - Joyce Chun

In “The Emergence of the Star System in America”, Richard deCordova talks about the star system and its emergence from the picture personality. Picture personality appeared around 1909 and was “considered the beginning of the star system” which is also seen as a big difference from the star, according to deCordova. Not quite as exactly as today, player’s names were concealed from the audience because the “players did not want to risk their reputations by being discovered in films”. The Star, on the other hand, was not just known for his or her role in film, instead, his personal life was also involved. “The private lives of the stars emerged as a new site of knowledge and truth”. While reading this, the first thing that popped up in my head was The Kardashians. This mega family is the perfect illustration of The Star and how The Star is defined with the personal lives of “actors”; this family name is recognizable by almost everyone in the nation because of the stardom that was built behind it. With the audience’s constant interest towards these family members and the lives they live, the family was turned into “The Star” that Richard deCordova was talking about in this article. “The private life of the star was not to be in contradiction with his/her film image – at least not in terms of its moral tenor. The two would rather support each other”. Despite the Kardashians not being actors, this quote reflects their situation where the private lives of these stars support their image, not in films, but on whatever else they are involved in, whether it be endorsing a company, making a speech; the image drawn from their private lives is reflected by the other works they are occupied with.