Richard Dyer is a British academic who specializes in film studies. His star theory examines how a celebrity's public image and persona ("star") is constructed through four elements: construction, ideology, commodity, and paradox. Specifically, Dyer argues that a star's personality is shaped by how they present themselves through media like interviews and photos. A star's ideology or message also appeals to certain fans and social groups. Additionally, stars promote non-musical merchandise to commodify themselves. Finally, stars must seem both ordinary yet extraordinary, and present through media but ultimately unattainable, to maintain their iconic status.

1. Born in 1945 Richard Dyer is an
English academic who owns a
professorship in Film Studies at King
College, London.

2. STAR THEORY
Richard Dyer’s star theory can be split into four things and these
are the elements that shape a star, star:
- Construction
- Ideology
- Commodity
- paradox

3. STAR CONSTRUCTION
Richard Dyer presents the star construction as how the personality of the
star is developed in their introduction. This is illustrated as how the star
may be in there everyday life and how the star has to present
themselves through their music.
For example, rapper chief keef a hard-core rap artist became famous
through his different and ruthless type of music which is different to the
normal r and b rap. He talks about his life and how he lives and makes
money on the streets with his peers and how do to gang violence one
could die any second. He presents through his video shoots, interviews,
photos from magazine etc. and as you can see this is his personality
towards his fans. Perhaps he may be more laid back and easier to
approach in his day to day life.

4. STAR IDEOLOGY
The Star’s ideology is perhaps illustrated as their motto and from this their
music is shaped around. Their ideology is something that appeals to
specific social groups, and becomes a reason why their fans copy the
star and use their music to inspire them in their own day to day life.
For example, fans of ‘Tink’ may listen to her music as it normally about the
struggle of love and how a lady should not give up on themselves due
to mistake that could have resulted in a downfall in their relationship.

5. STAR COMMODITY
The commodity is how the star sell’s itself apart from its music. This can be
shown through t-shirt, perfume, drink, etc. The merchandise may have
something to do with the stars personality and may attract the social
groups that are most attracted to the star. For example P Diddy and his
vodka Cîroc he promotes his drink in his music videos and make
fellows rappers drink the drink and they may show this in magazines,
their social media, etc. and this is how the rapper uses itself to create a
profit because as fans look up to them they would want to have it as
well.

6. STAR PARADOX
Richard Dyer also explains that there has to be a paradox of the star,
meaning that the star must be:
- Both ordinary and extraordinary - ordinary being something that the
star’s fans (general public) can relate and extraordinary being
something that separates the star from the general public and makes
them unique, this could be a sense of humour or a certain talent.
- Both present and absent – the star could be present through its
merchandise, social media, something that allows someone to feel
some sort of connection with the star but absent in the fact that the star
is out of reach and not always tangibly with the fan and this how a star
obtains its image.