Star Theory

Richard Dyer, an English academic, proposed Star Theory, the idea that artists are manufactured by institutions for financial purposes. He believes that artists are artificially constructed though images such as films, magazines, advertising and music in order to attract a specific target audience, with there being a ‘niche’ and ‘mainstream’ market for audiences, record labels therefore have to market their artists differently to cater for their target audiences.  Dyer claims that artists who seem ‘real’ and are not prepared by record labels who create fake/artificial images for them are preferred by consumers.

Consumers love artists who convey their true emotions in their songs and image as they themselves can easily identify with them. For the artist, they can use this ‘realness’ as unique selling point.

Culture 

He beleived artists create trends, which their fans could follow while they listened and consumed their music. Fans would often copy their clothing and hair styles that their favourite artists would have. This was especially evident during the rise of The Beatles in to mainstream society, fans of the groups would often copy their favourite member's haistyle. With the advent of new technology such as the internet and social media, audiences can now have even more access into their favourite artists life.

Representation
The music indusrty is able to create and promote artists who specialise in different genrse as they are able to appeal to different target audiences. For example, if an artist specialised in rap music, the music industry would help the artist develop him/her to have the image of a rap artist and help the person appeal to the audience thats interested in that kind of music.
 

Deconstructing Britney Spears

When Britney Spears was introduced to the mainstream audience, she began to raise issues regarding the imagary of females within the music industry. Then, the music industry was dominated by males so it was initially thought for it to be very hard for her to break out and become a star. Her initial image was seen to be a role model for the average teenage girl.

Her early videos were able to appeal to the young female groups through really 'girlie' imagary e.g. bedroom culture, dolls, signature pigtails look with choreographed dance routines which girls could copy them and feel like they are part of her 'gang'. In regards to Laura Mulvey's theory, she could also be seen as exploiting  male audiences by being the object of erotic desire through her clothing, wearing a crop top and some kind of sports bra showing off her body to the audience.


She was able to connect with most teenage girls by raising up some the problems they go through with her songs e.g the music video for 'From the Bottom of my Broken Heart'  addresses relationships with boys.

What was quite unique about some of her music videos was the ability to empower and exploit at the same time. For example, in the music video for 'I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet A Woman', she empowers by showing she's mature and moved on from her childish gimmicks but also exploits through revealing clothing attracting voyeuristic views from male audiences.

Recieving constant backlash over the choice of clothing in her videos, she used the music video for 'Overprotected' as a way of responding to the comments being made against her saying that she is a grown woman and doesn't to be need told what to wear. She believed showing off your body was a form of empowerment for women  and being able to do that was a good thing.

More recently, Britney released a music video for 'Hold It Against Me', she used this a way of rejecting all the previous images she had formed and try to start afresh, she wears a white wedding dress to empasize this message like she was pure and innoncent but was forced into marrying this industry. She shoots paint at TV screens showing footage of her previous music video and shows a scene of her fighting herself  which I infered to be this constant internal conflict she has between her personal and professional life.