Monday, November 16, 2009

Movie Star Heart Throbs Help Fans Develop Healthy Relationships?

Okay, so let me first get it out there that YES I am a Twilight Fan... or one of the billions that is. And since the 2nd part of the series comes to theaters this week I found this topic appropriate. 'Twilight' hunks part of film's heartthrob history is about how the stars of Twilight, and past famous actors and actresses are immensely admired by their fans, so much so that they get those 'butterflies' in their stomachs just when they think about their idols.
"Girls have been falling in love with movie stars since the dawn of cinema. When teenagers became Tinseltown's prime marketing target, Hollywood delivered handsome heartthrobs any girl could love."
Hollywood makes these characters more appealing visually, which makes more and more people go to see the movie. Even in this Taylor Lautner New Moon Interview/Trailer, his character Jacob is shirtless about 90% of the time. Lautner even states that he had to add 30 lbs of muscle to get ready for this role.
The article even goes on to say how they play off the fans admiration for profit!
"As if adolescent emotions weren't enough, today's heartthrob crushes are supported by all manner of merchandising and gadgetry. 'It's so much more elaborate than it used to be,' says USC cultural historian Leo Braudy. 'Every movie comes fit with its posters and its icons and its bobble-head dolls.'"
The more that an actor is idolized through the media, the more the movie and company benefits by making toys, gadgets and more that can be marketed. I found this really interesting because it shows how many industries can merge together to benefit each other. Advertising industries use popular actors/actresses to promote the movies they are in, the movies lead to production of goods based on characters or events all that are bought by fans, who increase greatly due to advertising !
This especially adds to twilight because the movie series is based off of a book series, so there was already a large fan base from those who loved the books. I just found these connections really interesting!

1 comment:

  1. Not only that, but recently, Burger King has been playing off the images of both Lautner and Robert Pattinson with recent commercials on television. The ad features obvious candidates (teenage girls) as members of "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob," but later evolves into overweight construction workers wearing bright orange vests demonstrating their allegiance to either Edward or Jacob (obviously not both).

    This article from MTV.com details it a bit more than I have.

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