Dyer’s Star Theory:

Richard Dyer’s Star theory suggests that celebrities are essentially products of institutions. He believed that celebrities were made to seem like real people, so that they could become more relatable to their audiences and therefor make their products and the institutions products more appealing for purchase. Within this theory, he breaks it down into three sections or parts: Stars (celebrities) as social commodities, as images and finally as signs. To show this, I am going to take the British band “The Beatles” and use his theory to analyse them. The Beatles image changed over the time that they were together, and so I am going to pick a specific time. In May 1967, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. This was an entirely new image for the Beatles. At this point their image was an alternative rock band, and it has been constructed through the vast use of colour and a chaotic album cover. It was also conveyed in their music, as they used new and different recording techniques to develop their sound into something more complex than they achieved previously. This paired with the colourful and psychedelic image that the album cover was conveying set this image in stone.  

 

 

This image is further enforced in some of their music videos. Despite a lot of their songs not having music videos due to the technology of the time, “A Day in the Life” is one of the songs from the album that does. This video has shots in slow motion, and flashing lights, and lots of colour which reinforces the colourful and alternative rock n roll image that they were trying to convey.

 

 

 

Also, despite being a band well before social media, they still convey this aspect of their band a lot on Instagram. They especially show behind the scenes of the music or behind the scenes of the music videos, and these photos have a big contribution into the bands image, as it shows that they aren’t just this psychedelic band in front of the camera, but they also are behind it, meaning that it truly is what the band had become, which reinforces that idea more and more. Despite this image of the band being very alternative, it didn’t seem to be at that time, which allows them to become more relatable to the audiences. Paul McCartney expressed this when he said, “The mood of the album was in the spirit of the age, because we ourselves were fitting into the mood of the time”. This shows the bands image to be relatable but also interesting and influential for the audience, as The Beatles represented this image in every way they could.