With stars in their eyes: Female spectators and the paradoxes of consumption

This chapter considers the ways in which female spectators related to Hollywood stars through consumption in 1940s and 1950s Britain. In an attempt to challenge some of the work which assumes this relationship to be one of totally successful domination, tying women tightly into positions of subordination, I shall argue for a more ‘complex and contradictory’ model of the female spectator as consumer. The central concern of this chapter, is how Hollywood stars are connected to the consumption practices of female spectators in the production and reproduction of particular formations of female subjectivity at this time.