Star System: Shirley Temple

Working as a factory based system, the studio system was embodied to be an empowering and organized system introducing itself as the key to Classical Hollywood’s Success. From market control to production, etc. a specific aspect that seemed particularly important to me was existence of the Star System and its role in the success of classics. Stars were in fact the products of production and were the representation of what the studios did. Furthermore, they were discovered, contracted by studios, and were paid to sell their products. Since stars were associated with genres and studios, their work was seen as limited due to specific categorization for each actor/actress.

Genres were embodied to understand audiences likes and dislikes as well as expectations. They usually displayed simplified forms of story telling according to musicals, western, horror, comedy, crime, etc. By this, actors were given specific roles to adhere to these genres, yet by ensuring these high demands, actors were as mentioned above, limited to their work. Because of this, a quick image of what kind of films would be made were easily seen if their actors could only be as good as their last role. In this, the Star System gave a negative connotation on how things ended up working for the studios as well as actors if both were a limited conjunction.

A great example to this would be the great, Shirley Temple. By the help of the Star System, little miss Shirley Temple was in fact, discovered, contracted by the studios, and paid to sell their products. The talented and favored actress appeared in numerous films made by the studios in which she was the young hero of the story in each film, never failing to sing, dance, or carry the same traits as the last film, i.e. the curly hair, rosy cheeks, etc. Therefore, the adoration from the public for Shirley Temple was apparent thus giving the studios their many classic, yet similar films to produce. In this, Temple was categorized, traded off, and obviously as well as expectantly overworked to fulfill the reputation of the studios by the aid of the Star System.