Star Theory: Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer is an English academic that specialized in cinema, He works as a professor of Film studies at many University such as kings college London and many others. Dyers work emphasizes "the aesthetic and historical specificity of cultural texts", this is also what Star theory tries to teach us.

Star Theory
In the theory Dyer believes that artists are constructed through artificial images such as advertisement, films, magazines and music. He claims that consumers (the audience) prefer artists to convey their true emotions themselves and not to be groomed by the record labels who try to create a fake persona for the artist or artists. A "real" artist can use their individual image as a unique selling point. Richard Dyer also believes that artists are manufactured to make money for their record labels by appealing to a target audience, this means that record labels have to market different artists to get a certain target audience and publicity as they are niche and whole markets.
For example record labels do this through Mirror branding, Rage Against The Machine (band) and Joe McElderry are signed to Sony Music

As you can see above there is a clear difference between the Joe McElderry who auditioned for the 2009 X-factor and The Joe McElderry who was later signed to Sony music after winning the competition. McElderry's image has been changed from puny young boy to handsome man in black, the later image is clearly more attractive to women which is his target audience as it makes him look more mature and sophisticated and something that a women would want.

Ideology and Culture
Within Star Theory Dyer has many other beliefs, he also believes that the artist then become trendsetter as their popularity grows, for example fans will copy hairstyles and clothing, this is always the case as when we look toward changing ourselves we search up the styles from celebrities, especially hairstyles. Even with Cultural and religious beliefs the Artist has the ability to impression their audience, for example Cat Steven's who is now Yusuf Islam. With the modern culture, the internet has allowed greater access to the personal life of stars for the audience.

The Problem of Characters and Personality
Richard Dyer believes that these artist are presented as "real" human beings as this then allows the star to support hegemony which is the Artists influence over the world, the artist becomes an idolised and glorified version of the audience which is the public but in actuality they are contradictions and the reinforced ideas of the music industry, but unknown to the audience is the fact that the artist true character and personality is compromised for their acceptance. An example of this is Lucy Spraggan, in all her music videos she is doing we normal stuff for example attending a party, this allows the audience to think that they have a possibility to be in her position or be like her.

Personally i think the Richard Dyer theory is very logical and it makes sense, it also explains why artists change so drastically when they are signed by a label.