Star System

During Classic Hollywood, spanning from 1920-1940, studios began to grow and prosper as they developed their own teams of actors and actresses, writers, directors, technicians, and equipment that enabled them to produce a lot of successful feature films. According to Straubhaar, the star system was the film studio’s use of star’ popularity to promote their movies. The star system was a key component in advertising and promoting movies. It encouraged viewers to go out and watch movies just because their favorite celebrity was starring in it. Further on, this made it more likely for studios to use the same actresses and actors over and over again for their films, because they had already created such a popular image for them. The star system was a great key in funding for film studios.

The star system affected the kinds of films the studios made. With the Star System, stars were directly associated with the genres of movies they starred in and studios. As summed up in class, the Star System made stars tangible products of immaterial production. They became the best representation of what studios did.

MGM was infamous for the Star System. We can examine Judy Garland, an MGM star. Child was discovered as a child, and became one of the world’s greatest actresses. She is a prime example of how studios used a consistent set of character traits to associate actors and actresses with certain genres. Judy Garland was specifically protrayed in her films as a lively character with her singing and dancing This became her very iimage during Classic Hollywood. An example of her stereotype can be seen in The Wizard of Oz. The Star System was widely used during the Classic Hollywood and did wonders for the movie industry.