Richard Dyers Theory

Creating A Brand: Dyer's Star Theory

Stars as constructions

From the theory it mentions how stars have two characters such as the star that is constructed for the artists brand/image which creates an ideology for them from the audience such as Katy Perry being much more sexualised as an object and wore much more revealing clothes and wigs causing dramatic changes to her image, which all relates to the male gaze as a pop icon but in reality they are nothing like their constructed representation, making the audience relate much less as they have become much more used to the artificial simulation of the artist.

Stars as Products -Queen/ Darkness

The Band The Darkness fits this classification of being a remake of Queen because of the style of the mise-en-scene and overall visuals of the songs they make such as the colours and its a homage to Queen and references to queen because of the huge influence of their style in their songs.This therefore makes them the more modern and updated version of Queen with some twists which attracts the nostalgic fans of Queen.

Stars as commodity -Drake

Stars are produced to create profit as much as they can, not only from their music but also from merchandise and synergy such as posters, toys, t-shirts and other types of media such as cross media convergence.The record label will want to make as much profit as possible and Drake as a massive influence on the music industry as one of the leading artists, the record label will also tend to follow recent trends as they know certain things will work to help generate money.This is why we get so many boy bands such as One direction and the wanted.

Stars as embodiment of ideologies/cultures -Beyonce

Beyonce fits this category as she has a massive influence on females and has an ideology that influences and creates and impact on the world such as empowering females to become confident and not ruled by men, because of this she has a strong following of a fan base, her songs mainly contain empowering parts of women become much more stronger than they are usually perceived in typical music videos.Her songs can touch controversial topics but combats them with respect, but giving confidence to her main fan-base, she is loved by her fans and is respected by many people.

Stars as personalities Bob Marley

I believe that Bob Marley fits this category as his artists image is a raggae artist that smokes a lot and is religious in Rastafarianism and this ideology that he has created for his image is mostly his real personality in real life, as his songs contain many views that he believed and he was religious and was a smoker in real life and the record label choose not to change or manipulate his image that much, and this benefited them as this allowed him to become very popular and he naturally fits the stereotypical image of a raggae artist that smokes with dreadlocks and is religious.

 

How will this impact my music video?

For my music video I would like to use this theory for my artist. I primarily want my artist to stay true to himself and not to construct an artificial image of himself making him and the artist the same person (Stars as personalities) Another useful and creative element i would like to use is stars as commodity or products as this allows me to create ancillary products such as Digipaks and advertisements for our artist which will help boost and promote their brand and ideology. For all the other categories such as stars as constructions I would try to go against as I believe it doesn't fit the artists image and personality making it not work and flow with the artists vision.