Cheering For The 1% (Or Perhaps The Top 25%): Part Five

The following is an essay I wrote a year ago for a class on celebrity culture. I have been uploading the essay in parts for the past several weeks. This is the final entry of the series. I find it to be pretty relevant today for a number of reasons (the now concluded NBA lockout, the Occupy Wall Street protests, this recent article from Forbes ,etc.) and hope you find it to be an enjoyable read.     

      At a recent panel on film criticism at the CUNY Graduate Center, three critics, Stuart Klawans, Lisa Schwarzbaum, and David Skerritt were asked if they kept an actor's private life out of their minds when viewing and reviewing a film of theirs. The critics thought about it for a moment and then admitted quite proudly that they did. A student asked if it were possible, given all the controversy and acts of highly scrutinized public aggression, if anyone, let alone newspaper men, could watch a recent Mel Gibson movie and not think about his personal troubles. Not only that, but wouldn't critics feel the need to at least address them in their reviews; it would almost be like ignoring the facts if they didn't. The critics were stumped and admitted that Gibson, the man as well as the actor, would have to be discussed when speaking about one of his films. Film criticism, after all, is not conceived in a bubble. Given the media hoopla over Gibson's anti-semetic and alcoholic tirades and angry voicemail messages, the actor now finds it difficult to separate his personal life from his stardom. His struggles have now become a part of who the American public identify him as. 

 

      Every star brings a piece of him or herself to the table when exposing themselves in front of a movie camera. There is Sean Penn, the progressive activist, Marlon Brando, the stubborn and difficult activist, Spike Lee, the rebel activist, and Russell Crowe, the phone-swinging, hotel-wrecking, angry rogue. As an eager public in the internet age, it is nearly impossible to avoid all forms of cultural gossip, and if we were to judge each film and each performance in a vacuum, wouldn't we be denying logical and blatant themes in a person's body of work by ignoring the auteur theory (stars as auteurs is a practice not unheard of in film criticism)? The personal life of a Hollywood star is forever a part of his stardom, but as evidenced by Lohan and Gibson's most recent film projects, it does not equal success at the box office. Polemics may argue that it could actually work against them, but the evidence for that is not fully there yet. For now, let us acknowledge the influence and power of a star's personality in the press and note that it does not always equal box office power or a lack thereof. Will Smith, an actor thought of to have a friendly and likeable personality, has had a few misses in his career – although to be fair, some actors would dream to have the kind of creative misses he has had, while Katherine Heigl, not well liked by mainstream media, seems to have a continuously loyal movegoing audience. What to make of all this? Sometimes films are just films, and other times they are instances of sociological testing.

     In closing, popular American filmmaking is in transition mode, one which relies on pixelated eye candy and less of the human variety. Actors will forever be needed to star in these movies, but stars will be bystanders to the $300 million budget and overbearing special effects. The entire spectacle will sell more tickets than any one name could, and branding, as an alternative, is now an entrepreneurial way of marketing one's self. Damned if they do and damned if they don't, stars-in-the-making face an insurmountable task ahead of them: stick to what they know, running the creative well dry and risking fan fatigue, or branch out and try something different, risking fan alienation and disinterest. Stars will never sell as well as genres can. For proof, take a look at the cast lists of recent American horror films, a wide-ranging group of movies that often resort to casting lesser known, fresh new faces, usually to decimate and dissect. These modestly budgeted films do well without stars (it's no-name cast almost makes the film feel more dangerous and removed from Hollywood, an alluring trait for any horror aficionado), and sell themselves on the stardom of a fictional kind: a serial killer, a bloodthirsty shark, an ominous ghost, and so forth. Attractive content sells better than attractive people. Take the flashiness out and all we're left with is weekend grosses, salary disputes, personal agendas, and basketball statistics. Is $119 million too much for anyone?