CTCS 412
Thursdays 12-3:50/Lucas 309/205
Spring 2007
Professor Tara McPherson
Office: Lucas 409
740-3330
Gender, Sexuality, and Media:
Special Topic: STARS
From talk shows to the internet to The Enquirer to the countless star biographies scattered across cable and bookstores, fascination with celebrities permeates our culture. We can all name favorite stars, and our desire to learn more about them can fuel our engagements with popular media. Throughout the twentieth century, most of the popular writing on cinema has consisted of star biographies and tell-all memoirs, but scholarly investigations of the star are more recent. This course revolves around a critical investigation of the role of the star in contemporary U.S. culture. In an attempt to analyze the star phenomenon, this class will focus on the role of the star within the ‘machinery’ of cinema – the ways in which stars function in the entertainment industry, within cinematic and extra-cinematic texts, and at the level of individual fantasy and desire.
How are the images of stars created and circulated, guaranteeing both audiences and profits for film producers, distributors, and exhibitors? How do stars act as organizing presences within cinematic fictions? What is the relationship between character and star image – does the star image bind the spectator into the fictional world of the film or does it threaten to escape or exceed it? How are our own desires and fantasies mobilized or managed by classical Hollywood texts? What are the ideological effects and cultural consequences of the star phenomenon? Do stars help underwrite particular cultural notions of gender, class, sexuality and race? How do they model modes of femininity and masculinity? How do stars fuel consumerism? Can certain audiences read stars ‘against the grain,’ reclaiming the star for their own communities? How do stars crossover from one medium to another or between fan bases?
As this list of questions makes clear, the paradoxes posed by cinematic stars – figures who are represented as both like and unlike us, mythical yet real, public but intimately known, commodities as well as people – suggest a number of important issues which are crucial to the understanding of film as an industrial, textual, and psychological product. By employing historical, feminist, psychoanalytic, and sociological theories of the cinema and of acting, we’ll explore some of the many issues raised by the Hollywood star machine.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
This course is designed as a discussion-based seminar and to work effectively it will require faithful preparation and active participation from all class members. You should do all assigned readings before class and also actively watch television and film and survey the web, looking for examples from the contemporary media to supplement course materials. Class time will be divided between brief lectures, longer discussions, group work, and screenings. Your grade will be determined as follows:
1. Participation and attendance are required. Missing more than two classes will significantly lower your grade. In addition to being physically present, you'll be expected to contribute to discussions each week. I will call on you at random, so be prepared to contribute. (10%)
2. Online Blog participation: During the semester, you will be required to post at least 15 times to a class blog. At least five of these posts should be in the form of weekly reading responses (approximately 250-350 words). These responses should engage critically with the course reading for that day and should demonstrate both a grasp of the material and your own considered response to the same. Simply saying you liked or didn't like something or providing a straight summary of the readings is not sufficient; you should demonstrate careful, analytical thinking. Feel free to draw on class screenings or materials outside of the course as well, integrating them into your discussions and analyses. These 5 responses should be posted by 6 p.m. on the evening before class. Your other 10 posts can take the form of responses to other posts, star sighting stories, links to interesting celebrity sites or tales, etc. Ideally, the blog will become a communal space for the class, one used to address and ponder course themes and to point your peers to interesting materials. You are, of course, expected to read the blog regularly and are encouraged to post more frequently if the spirit moves you. The blog is at http://ctcs412.blogspot.com/ ; you will soon be receiving an invitation to join the blog; follow the instructions in that email. (30%)
3. A take-home mid-term exam/essay. We'll discuss it in more detail later. (30%)
4. A final paper of 7-10 pages which applies the issues raised in the class to a topic which you will choose in consultation with me. Alternatively, you may choose to do a "creative" project after clearing your idea with me. (30%)
COURSE TEXTS:
* Richard Dyer, Stars
* Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies (HB)
* Christine Gledhill, ed., Stardom: Industry of Desire (SID)
* Readings marked (R) in the syllabus will be available online through USC’s electronic reserve system.
COURSE SCHEDULE:
1/17: Seeing Stars: An Introduction
Screenings: All About Eve 1950 J. Mankiewicz 138m.
Selected shorts
1/24: The Star Phenomenon
Readings:
Dyer, Stars, pgs. 1-30, 87-131
Screenings: The Sheik 1921 George Melford 80m.
Selected silent shorts with Mary Pickford
1/31: Early Stars: Our Girl vs. the Sheik
Readings:
Staiger, deCordova, and Hansen in SID
Screening: Now, Voyager 1942 Irving Rapper 117m.
2/7: Consuming Stars: Stars and Studios
Readings:
Dyer, Stars, pgs. 33-63
Laplace, “Producing and Consuming the Woman’s Film”
(RESERVE)
Eckert, SID, pgs. 30-39
Screening: Stagecoach 1939 John Ford 96m.
2/14: Big Men: Masculinity & Genre
Readings:
Gary Willis, Prologue and Introduction to John Wayne’s
America (RESERVE)
Steven Cohan, “The Spy in the Gray Flannel Suit” from
Masked Men (RESERVE)
Britton, SID, pgs. 198-206
Screening: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 1953 H. Hawkes 91m.
2/21: Big Women: Femininity and the Fifties
Readings:
Harris, SID, pgs. 40-44
Dyer, HB, pgs. 20-66
Screening: A Streetcar Named Desire 1951 Elia Kazan 122m.
********************RECEIVE TAKE-HOME MIDTERM******************
2/28: The Method Men: Acting and Masculinity
Readings:
King, SID, pgs. 167-182
Dyer, Stars, pgs. 132-150
Gledhill, SID, pgs. 207-229
Screenings: Viva Las Vegas 1964 George Sidney 86m.
Assorted Elvis
3/6: NO CLASS: Catch up on star gossip.
3/13: Elvis Sightings: Whiteness, Taste, and Southern Boys
***********************MID-TERM DUE***************************
Readings:
Sweeney, “The King of White Trash Culture” (RESERVE)
Spigel, “Communicating with the Dead” (RESERVE)
Screening: Showboat 1936 35mm James Whale 113m.
3/27: Black Masculinities and Popular Culture
Readings:
Dyer, HB, pgs. 68-140
Mercer, SID, pgs. 300-316
Screening: Terminator 2 1991 James Cameron 136m.
4/3: Hardcore Masculinity in the 1980s and 1990s
Readings:
Jeffords, “Terminal Masculinity: Men in the Early
1990s” (RESERVE)
Bukatman, “Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance” (RESERVE)
Dyer (McDonald), Stars, pgs. 180-186
Screenings: Truth or Dare 1991 Alek Keshishian 118m.
4/10: Softcore Femininity: The Many Faces of Madonna
Readings:
hooks, “Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister” (RESERVE)
Cvetkovich, “The Powers of Seeing and Being Seen” (RESERVE)
Screening: Out of Sight 1998 Steven Soderbergh 122m.
4/17: Global Stars: Consuming Latino/a Culture
Readings:
Roberts, “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat” (RESERVE)
Lopez, “Are all Latins from Manhattan?” (RESERVE)
Frances Negron-Muntaner, “Jennifer’s Butt” (RESERVE)
Erin Aubry, “Back is Beautiful,” online in Salon: http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/1998/07/cov_15feature.html
Screening: A Star is Born 1954 George Cukor 154m.
4/24: Loving Stars: Fans, Identification, and Camp Culture
Readings:
Stacey, SID, pgs. 141-163
Dyer, HB, pgs. 141-194
Meyer, “Rock Hudson’s Body” (RESERVE)
Recommended: Dyer, SID, pgs. 132-140
Screening: Rock Hudson’s Home Movies Mark Rappaport 63m.
Assorted reality television
5/1: Becoming Stars: Reality TV + Everyday Celebrity
Nick Couldry, “Teaching Us to Fake It: The Ritualized
Norms Of TV’s ‘Reality’ Games” (RESERVE)
Jeffrey Sconce, “See You in Hell, Johnny Bravo!” (RESERVE)
John Hartley, “’Kiss Me Kat’: Shakespeare, Big Brother,
and the Taming of the Self” (RESERVE)
ALSO: BEGIN STUDENT PRESENTATIONS DURING 2nd HALF OF CLASS.
*********Final Paper/Project will be due during the scheduled exam period. The class will meet then to screen creative final projects.***************