Stars, Fans, and Consumption in the 1950s

By Sumiko Higashi

Subjects: Biography, PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / History & Criticism, Motion picture actors and actresses, united states, Motion picture actors and actresses, Motion pictures, biography, Popular culture, united states, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, Popular culture, Motion pictures, periodicals, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, United states, social life and customs, Women consumers, History, Periodicals

Description: "The fan magazine Photoplay pioneered the construction of both female stars as social types and fans as aspiring consumers in the first mass consumption society. In the 1950s, stars embodied a leisured California lifestyle based on goods. Addressing working- and lower middle-class readers, Photoplay published beauty tips, fashion layouts, sewing patterns, home decorating advice, recipes, and vacation guidelines so that fans could live like the stars. This book traces the changing social mores regarding female behavior and the new relationship between stars and fans. When the magazine adopted tabloid conventions to report sex scandals like the Debbie-Eddie-Liz affair in 1958, stars were demystified and fans became scandalmongers. The construction of female identity based on goods and performance in a consumer society resulted in multiple, fragmented, and unstable selves - a legacy evident in postmodern culture today"-- "As the leading movie fan magazine in postwar America, Photoplay constructed stars as popular social types like the girl next door signifying small-town values in the midst of suburban affluence. And fans were addressed as aspiring consumers to be initiated into the rituals of feminine self-making and gracious living. When glamorous stars were demystified in scandalous headlines at the end of the decade, however, fans exchanged Cinderella dreams for a fascination with scandal"--