Star studies, as a vibrant and elastic field, has been in constant revision and expansion since the 1990s, and this revision and expansion will undoubtedly continue. The current collection intends to contribute to this process and open up more discussions, mainly outside of the conventional scholarship of star studies. By revisiting, we mean testing boundaries, offering alternatives and challenging cliches. This opening chapter aims to address two key features of stardom – performativity and locality/translocality – in relation to existing research and also to the chapters in this collection.
PERFORMATIVITY OF STARDOM
Since the star became a subject of scholarly inquiry, critics have never stopped the attempt to define stars and stardom, whether it is ‘the combination of myth and capital, of goddess and merchandise’ (Morin 1960: 71), a ‘powerless elite’ (Alberoni 1962), an ideological site of reconciliation and resistance (Dyer 1979), the object of desire and identification (Gledhill 1991), a category of labour and a form of capital (McDonald 2000) or a cultural institution that ‘justifies high reward’ (King 2015). Among numerous words used to describe stars, what we come across most frequently are probably glamour, charisma and desire. Being glamorous and desirable has long been seen as the essential step into stardom.
Many stars discussed in the current volume, however, are neither glamorous nor desirable. Can they be seen as stars? To be more specific, when one is from an infamous genre such as pornography and morally stigmatised, is one a star? When one is a child who does not project sexual desirability, is one a star? When one comes from a socially and ethnically disadvantaged position and struggles to get mainstream recognition, is one a star? When one comes from a non-Hollywood cinema and is largely unknown to a global audience, is one a star? When one is not actually a human being but a creature who is deemed not expressive and self-aware, is one a star? Moreover, will a previous star continue to be a star when s/he no longer fits in with general definitions of the star?
