Narcissus, Adonis and Medusa: troubled beauty in classical receptions of film stardom

Abstract

The construction of early movie stardom in Hollywood and Europe in the 1910s and the decades that followed was shaped by the mythology and art of the classical past. When we undertake an archaeological excavation of the early idols of the new medium of cinema, we discover the key role that ancient sculptural representations of the divine and human ideals of beauty played. To analyse the discourse of screen stardom, even in modern times, involves understanding a palimpsestic history of cultural reception that can be traced back to Graeco-Roman antiquity. This process can be detected across several different iterations of screen stars –labelled film ‘Venuses’ and ‘Apollos’. This cultural practice has its roots in older art forms, including theatre, drawing also on the long reception history of the classics.

Apollo and Venus dominate this story of classical reception as idols with distinct and recognisable sculptural types that flatter their cinematic pretenders as established ideals of beauty – and often whiteness – in Western art. Moreover, their mythic associations with artistic accomplishment, love, and sex, only strengthen their status as almost wholly ‘positive’ references for publicists, critics, and audiences alike. Similarly, another popular type, Hercules, is appropriated to denote masculine strength and a more rugged type of male beauty. While there is room for subtle variations within this range, and hints of other hidden but carefully signalled meanings, in the use of these myths, this chapter seeks to explore other, less frequently evoked, classical figures in film publications from the first half of the twentieth century. Figures such as Narcissus, Adonis and Medusa are linked to contemporary conceptions of beauty, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. However, their meanings are sometimes coloured with a more ambiguous, and sometimes ‘negative’ coding associated with weakness or transgression, and less fixed visual types, which can render them delightfully subversive.

This chapter draws on the scholarship of Richard Dyer, Leo Braudy, and others, to present archival research into the role of film trade papers and fan-magazines in engaging audiences in the active reception and construction of film stardom. In exploring a selection of case studies, I will foreground the different methods available to the researcher in uncovering these classical receptions, including the new possibilities made possible by the digital archive.

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ORCID for Michael Williams: orcid.org/0000-0001-5386-5567

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