Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in film, television and music. Irrespective of the medium, stars have some key features in common. A star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g. advertising, magazines, etc.) as well as films and music. Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings.

Stars descend upon a range of subsidiary media - magazines, television, radio, and the internet - in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences. The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences.

Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, that is both incomplete and 'open'. Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes. These two paradoxes are as follows:-

1. The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer. The star has to be someone that people can aspire to be like
2. The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer

The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to 'complete' or to 'make sense' of the image. This is achieved by continuous consumption of the star through his/her products. In the music industry, performance seems to promise the completion of the image, but it is always ultimately unsatisfying. This means their fans will get away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image.