Star Image

Richard Dyer is a professor in the department of Film studies at King's College. Dyer said that a star is an image created by music companies through advertising, magazines, music videos etc and not a real person. His theory is that they are made simply to make the company money by advertising to a specific audience.

Dyer's theory can be supported by looking at artists such as Miley Cyrus, this is because when Miley Cyrus started out in the industry she was a young pop performer, performing to the young teens who watched her show 'Hannah Montanna'. Looking at her at the time we could not know for definite that she was not herself, but as the show was ending people began to see a different side to the cute and joyful teenage Miley, and began to see a darker side with the release of the song 'Can't be tamed'.

Once the show was over she changed her style, music and record label. This shows that the record label before was trying to keep the teenage image of Miley but it's not what she wanted. She began to wear different outfits and have different styles, she cut her hair extremely short and dyed it. Her fan base has changed completely with some of her old fans sticking with her and a lot of other types of people beginning to like her. Her portrayal of a lack of clothing and inappropriate behaviour has drastically changed people's idea of her. This illustrates her lack of control within her old record label, and how she is reflecting who she truly is with the style she pereceives now.

Some people say, this change of style and persona is actually all a publicity stunt. People have made this accusation because her drastic change of style and very provocative and crude attitude has created a huge buzz about her, and people don't stop speaking about her. Miley has changed her image because as well as her growing up, so has her fans. This means that they have matured and therefore have different interests. The young boys who watched her in Hannah Montana , weren't interested in her being innocent and coy, therefore meaning she had to mature her image and make it applicable to her fans and audience. With the significant change in style, Miley has attracted many new audiences to people praising her outrageousness and appreciating how far she was willing to go to stay successful. This is similar to Kylie Minogue, who was innocent and coy on the TV show 'Neighbours' and came back very sexy in her singing career. The new image that Miley perceives is extremely different to her old one. Her hair, provocative clothing, outrageous stage stunts and rebellious attitude has kept the audience intrigued and keeps people talking about her. This is because it was completely different to her innocent and little miss perfect attitude that she perceived whilst on Hannah Montana. Now she appeals to a wider range of audiences, which helps her career significantly.

Miley is a prime example of how synthetic artists need to change their image to keep up with the times. Madonna changed her star image frequently to keep the audience interested and intrigued. People don't like the same old so anything that is rebellious and breaks the rules is what they like. Due to the increasing number of singers in the industry, the successful ones need to change their image and keep up with the times to determine they stay successful.

Despite being slated by the media, Miley still has a army of fans known as "smilers" and has over 20 million followers on social media site twitter