Unit 6: Star Power and Journeys to the Stars

Question 1

Identify the key element(s) that support a performer’s iconic status

Answer 1

• Fame is based on iconic status randomly given. It depends less on achievement, and therefore more an item of exchange valued mainly as a commodity.
• Celebrity is between the capitalist producer of popular culture and the audience. The celebrity, as an individual who has achieved significant audience identification, shows the audience how to be a celebrity and how to live as a paramount capitalist.

Question 2

Trace thematic strands through the work of the creators of popular culture.

Answer 2

• relatability; the every man; humourous; sympathetic (chaplin’s tramp)
• fearless; sexually liberated; tough girl; progressive; physical appearance (Madonna)
• fearless; tough guy; reactionary; muscular appearance; action figure (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Question 3

Identify problematic subject matter or persistent “flaws” in images and visions that icons and visionaries present.

Answer 3

• The star text is not about the “real” person behind the image, but instead a crafted narrative blend of consumerism, success, and ordinariness.
• Celebrities come to represent a range of ideologies in a society. Thus, politics is reduced to faces representing ideas.

Question 4

Evaluate the overall positive or negative contribution of individual performers or creators.

Answer 4

Positive:

• Relatability, they can be role models
• Audience connection to them
• Help the success of projects

Negative:

• Promotes capitalism/consumerism
• Removes the real identity
• Set unrealistic beauty standards
• Control the actions of their fans

Question 5

Modern Times

Answer 5

• Silent film by Charlie Chaplin

Question 6

Reading - “Star Trek and the Vietnam War”

Answer 6

• Star Trek embodied an ordered, self-contained society capable of making traditional American values and images triumphant throughout the galaxy.
• The first episode aired in 1966 when the US was fully engaged in the Vietnam War and the final episode in 1969 when the war was raging on.
• “The city on the edge of forever” episode is a parable suggesting that the peace movement directed against the US war in Vietnam might pose a danger to the progressive course of history.
• “A Private Little War” promoted the official administration version of the history of the Vietnam war that had begun because of the invention of the Soviet Union (in the show, the Klingons). The episode suggests the war is an ugly necessity.
• “Omega Glory” implies that the war in Southeast Asia, which no longer held any promise of victory could evolve into a mutually destructive conflict.

Question 7

Reading - “The Crack of Doom: The Uncanny Echoes of Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who.”

Answer 7

• the monster had been there the whole time within this protective space, of the danger that lies beneath the surface of appearances. What appears safe and ordinary may always hold such terrors beneath.
• Represents Sigmund Freudian’s theory of the uncanny.
• The uncanny is that which is deeply familiar but we which we have (subconsciously) attempted to conceal from conscious recognition. It is that which we have known all along but which we are not yet aware we know.
• The chilling effect of the uncanny is the divisions between the conscious and unconscious minds - by opening up the darker recesses of the unconscious to the light of one’s own conscious scrutiny.
• The broadcast of desires and fears might be considered central to the processes of television.
• Steven Moffat utilizing the uncanny in his episodes of Doctor Who. He hides things and then reveals them or demonstrates that they were already visible.
• The doctor’s talent is to see what’s everywhere but what people have chosen not to see, that which has been secreted away. He forces humanity to confront its hidden horrors and thereby to free itself from repression and self-oppression, from its psychical and actual police state.
• Takes everyday objects and its them into objects of fear.