Friday 19 September 2014

Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Richard Dyer:  Star Theory

The Star: - Dave Grohl - The Foo Fighters

"The terms 'pop performer' and 'pop star' have become interchangeable"
The first of Richard Dyer's 4 rules of the star theory is extremely applicable to the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl as, although he isn't a 'pop' performer, he is still just as well known for his personality as he is for his performing. The bands management would be highly fond of this due to the fact that the front man of the band is scene by the audience as a 'star' and some would even go as far as viewing him as an icon. This is also important in advertising the band as the fact that Grohl is a star means that various chat shows would be keen on interviewing him which is always great for the bands publicity.

"Stars are constructed, artificial images, even if they are represented as being 'real people' experiencing 'real emotions' "
In my personal opinion Dave Grohl doesn't comply with this rule of the star theory as he has been in multiple bands who are managed by different individuals. This means that if his image and emotions were all constructed, then across his career he should have various personas due to the fact that the different managers he would have had would all have had their own ideas on how to make him more appealing to the fans. The fact that Grohl has maintained his image for multiple decades since his time in Nirvana to now being in the Foo Fighters , and all the other bands in between, connotes to me that he is genuine and that his persona isn't artificially modified in order to please the audience.

"Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose; to make money out of audiences"
You can't deny that the music industries main aim is to make money out of audiences. However, these same aims are often not shared by the stars who the industry work with; this is because the aim of most stars is to share their music and to share their work with a wide range of people in order to become popular, not to just make money. You would argue that bands such as the Foo Fighters, who like to be extremely experimental with their work are not in the category of stars who are just out to make money. This is evident due to the fact that if the bands sole purpose was to just make money, the easiest thing for them to do would be to make music which follows the trends and which is along the lines of music which is currently popular at the time. For this reason i disagree that Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters comply with this rule. This is due to the fact that they not just experiment with their music, But also because the music industry have very little say on the recording of the bands albums. For example, the songs on the album "Wasting Light" were recorded on tapes rather than through computers as Grohl believed it would provide a much better sound, even though the tapes would be much more expensive.

Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a certain ideology.
All bands/musicians in my opinion have to have certain values, attitudes or ideologies. I believe this because if they didn't then their lyrics would be meaningless to them and that wouldn't allow them to address them as intended to the audience, furthermore without values or attitudes a musician would only be a "Pop performer" as there would be very little substance in their persona to make them a "pop star". One thing which the Foo Fighters express at their live shows is to not take life to seriously and to enjoy it whilst you can, this is just one ideology what the band try to relay to audiences world wide. An attitude which all members of the band share is that they are now heavily against excessive drug abuse. This view was installed in all of the band following their drummer being close to death a few years ago due to drug abuse. All members of the band are now sober and many are married and have kids so this connotes that they represent a straight edged lifestyle and that they value family in their lives.

Humorous – Dave Grohl is presented with a humorous identity in various scenes, one example of this is where he is dressed as the large lady and is struggling to sit in the airplane seat. This signifies to the audience that he is willing to take any criticism or backlash that he receives if any audience members become offended.

Multi-Talented – he doesn't just act out one role in the music video; instead he portrays numerous different characters with various personalities. Furthermore this shows that he is a comfortable actor as well as a world famous musician. His talent goes even further though as in his career he has been in many bands such as ‘The Foo Fighters’ (on vocals) but also he was the drummer of ‘Nirvana’

Confident in himself – The roles which Dave Grohl portrays in the video shows that he is comfortable in himself as he doesn't mind dressing as an overweight character or as a character of the opposite gender in order to apply his persona to as much of the video as possible.

Popular – This video gives an incite to how popular the musician is, not just to the fans, but also to his peers in the music business as the video features the band ‘Tenacious D’ who Grohl is friends with. An even more recent identification of his popularity would be the fact that Prince Harry personally invited him to do the closing ceremony of the ‘Invictus’ games.

Genius - Dave Grohl in my opinion is a genious as he uses his knowledge of technology in order to make sure that his music is delivered to the audience in the best way possible. One example of this would be that he decided to record the album "Wasting Light" on tapes rather than recording them using modern studio equipment as it made the songs sound better.

Pioneer - Grohl is a pioneer in many ways, first of all his original band Nirvana are without doubt the most popular band to associate with Grunge Rock due to the fact that they, along with a few other bands, invented the genre decades ago. Furthermore, he decided to do what hardly any stars have done, and that was to record the album "Wasting Light" in his garage. He decided to do this due to the fact that the walls were a better barrier for the sound than the walls in a music studio, and since then many other bands have done the same.

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