MC Guffee, Benjamin

"While facing the camera he knows that ultimately he will face the public, the consumers who constitute the market. This market, where he offers not only his labor but also his whole self, his heart and soul, is beyond his reach."

"The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the 'spell of the personality,' the phony spell of a commodity."

Unpacking these quotes reveals the ugly truth behind most of our beloved Hollywood stars. Basically, Benjamin argues that once an actor makes it to the big screen, his or her success is based on their commodification by the film market. This completely separates the actor from their reproduced image to create two distinct beings. One is the genuine actor, who strives to perfect his craft and the other, being the image of the actor being reproduced. Thus, the reproduced image serves only to advance the market’s capital gains rather than the actor’s artistic work.

For instance, Brad Pitt is a Hollywood hunk, who always portrays an action hero or bad boy. This reproduced image is then implemented in capitalist campaigns like clothing, cologne, and to sell future films. While making Brad Pitt a considerable amount of money, it completely avoids his craft and function as an actor. We know little about his personal beliefs or values, and we make no attempt to understand his artistic visions. Instead we confine him as the sexy action hero and continually market him as such. Thereby, we have done nothing to acknowledge him as a person, but rather buy into the film market’s “spell” of his personality.

Although terrible for any actor, I believe this concept is specifically dangerous for the actress because they are sold in films as the damsel in distress who is transformed into a highly sexualized object rather than a person. In the same manner we have reproduced images of Brad Pitt as the desirable bad boy on screen, we have imprisoned the work of an actress to be a victim of the male sexual desire. In addition, the actress is also placed in advertisement campaigns for clothing, perfume, and cosmetics to accentuate the market’s reproduction of her lustful image. This notion increases capital gains for both the film market as well as the campaigns she’s featured in.

In summation, it is this very commodification of celebrity that makes it incredibly difficult for an actor or actress to transcend genres of film. In a sense, it is the consumer turned critic that now alongside the market controls the career aspirations of Hollywood’s finest actors and actresses. By confining actors and actresses to specific genres, the market is able to milk their reproduced image for all its worth.