A look through Richard Dyer’s Star theory
Have you ever wondered how stars, be it an actor or musicians or sportsmen or the recent popular influencers, are made? Richard Dyer, an English academician, dissects the idea of ‘stars’ in his book ‘Star’ published by British Film Institute.
While defining a star, Richard says that stars are a social phenomenon. He quotes, “Stars are a group of people whose institutional power is very limited or non-existent, but whose doings and way of life arouse a considerable and sometimes even a maximum degree of interest”. He further dissects stars into three areas,
1. Stars as a construction
2. Stars as a commodity
3. Stars as an ideology
Let’s look at this with an example, a film star. Is there any bigger star in Indian cinema than our SUPERSTAR Rajinikanth? Rajinikanth started his film career in 1975 by acting in a supporting role in Apoorva Raagangal. Since then he has acted in 167 films, transitioning from supporting roles to antagonist roles to protagonist to a hero to a star. If you want to know about his exciting film career in an interesting brand perspective, do check out here.
He was given the Superstar title by Kalaipuli S. Thanu in 1978 as part of film promotion. But the title was seen on screen only from 1989. Since then he is the one and only superstar of Indian cinema and still manages to give blockbuster films at the age of 70. Let’s dissect the stardom of Rajinikanth through Richard’s star theory.
Stars as a construction
Richard states that stars are carefully constructed with the help of music videos, magazines, advertising, etc. In the case of film stars, it’s the films and the characters they play. The star’s image is not the reflection of the real person.
Rajinikanth started his career as a supporting actor and moved up as a lead actor. When he was starting as a lead actor, Kamal Hassan was already an established actor/star. In order to differentiate himself from Kamal and also to establish his stardom, he chose films which gave him scope to improvise his style. He himself said that he chose a different strategy as supposed to Kamal’s in Kamal 50 years celebration show.
The style factor he brought in defined his image, his career. Anyone who hasn’t seen his film would know about his cigarette throwing style or the sunglass’ style. As Richard says all this stylish, charismatic image we see of a star’s is not seen in real life. In real life, he is as simple as any other human being.
Stars as a commodity
Stars are commodities. Richard states that stars are used as commodities by production houses, music label companies, etc. The whole merchandising market is based on stars being commodities. It extends to an extant that the production houses or music labels want every other budding actors to follow or mimic the established star’s pattern. This would help them generate more profits.
Though Rajinikanth hasn’t endorsed any brands or has any merchandise brand of his own, he is a commodity. His construction of stardom from a supporting actor to superstar which we discussed earlier has become a success formula in Tamil film industry. The route of small characters to romantic roles to action hero to larger-than life stars has been followed by the current starts (Vijay, Ajith, and Sivakarthikeyan to quite a few) of Tamil cinema. The production houses seems to endorse this as it gains them huge profits.
Also Rajinikanth’s films are considered as minimum guarantee in the film distribution circle. Hence the producers started pumping huge budgets to his films and gained high returns. Sivaji: The Boss (2007), Enthiran (2010) and Kochadaiiyaan (2014) and 2.0 (2018) were highest budgeted film in their respective time period.
Stars as an ideology
As the stars get made, their fandom or the people who follow them grows. The followers become ardent fan of the stars. They try to recreate whatever the star does in the films/music videos. They share a great connection that they start following the star’s ideologies.
This key area of star is what makes Rajinikanth the superstar of Indian cinema. His unique styles were recreated by many of his fans. His fans club are continuing to do charity works which reflects the ideology of the star, which is to help everyone. To further illustrate the point of fans following star’s ideology, Rajini’s life has a very interesting incident. In 1996, he announced his disbelief in then incumbent government run by Jayalalitha. Following his disbelief Jayalalitha lost the 1996 elections by a huge margin.
Since that incident, Rajini’s entrance into politics is a hugely discussed and finally he has announced his entry into vote politics. We will have to wait and watch whether his ideologies are getting converted as votes.
Paradox of star
After dissecting the idea of star, he further writes about the paradox of a star. A star must be both ordinary and extraordinary. The star has to be ordinary to allow audience to relate to themselves, but also extraordinary in order to be idolized by them.
Rajinikanth is simple, ordinary human in real life which helps him to be ordinary and relatable to the audience. Also his rags to riches story, form being a bus conductor to superstar, is an inspirational story to many. While being ordinary, his onscreen image is extraordinary, larger than life. The paradox is fans expect him to be both ordinary and extraordinary in both real and reel life.
Richard Dyer’s star theory applies to all stars irrespective of the field they are in. But the theory fits so perfectly for Rajinikanth, at least among the Indian cinema stars, and that makes him the superstar of Indian cinema.
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