Richard Dyer Star theory

Dyers star theory is that major icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions in order to increase financial gains. He states that these celebrities are constructed to portray real human beings who also experience emotions. Celebrities are manufactured for one reason which is to make money from the public or people that look up to them for example buying their records, going to their concerts and buying their merchandise.

Dyers theory was split into 3 sections;

• Audiences and institutions
• constitutions 
• Hegemony 

1. Audiences and institutions 

Celebrities are mostly made for the money that they make, by increasing their branding the institutions are able to see the benefits like increasing sales on all platforms that they are part of. The institution will then mould their star so that they can fit in with a certain target audience for example Lady Gaga was made to target those who struggle with low confidence and also people within the LGBT community as she encourages them to be themselves and not to care what anyone says. 

2. constitutions  

Constitutions more of less relate to the audiences and institutions. 

3. Hegemony 

Another word for Hegemony is culture. the idea of this is to get the audience to be able to relate to the celebrity because they may have a special feature that audiences want to share with the star. Some fans become so influenced by their favourite celebrity that they end up behaving like them and dressing similar. In ways this is okay but it can also be very negative as some celebrities are heavy drinkers or drug abusers. Stars represent shared cultural values and attitudes, and promote a certain ideology to their audiences. when the audience become interested in these values it adds star quality to the celebrities. For example Kanye West decides to bring out a new trend (which didn't actually work) and everyone begins to wear his designs and try to look like the models. Celebrities benefit from social media for example twitter and their feed, they also create names for their large group of fans for example Selena Gomez calls her fans Selenanators and Lady Gaga calls her fans Little Monsters. This makes their fans feel a part of something that is big and exclusive.