Hollywood.. or High School?

As I was reading Dyer's chapter on star types, I was not thinking about Hollywood, but high school. It’s a connection that I found telling, humorous, and worthy of a Reading Response. While Dyer cites problems with Klapp's types, I found them both true and useful. After all, it is with these very types that we define ourselves in high school. You become "the jock," "the nerd," "the prom queen," "the class clown" (just look at The Breakfast Club!). Just as with stars, we pigeonhole both ourselves and one another into these types so as better to understand one another. A tangible manifestation of these types are year-end superlatives - my high school gave out awards for "Best All Around," "Most Likely to Succeed," "Best Smile." This is similar to the first chapter of Dyer's about stars as superstars (Morin's Olympiens). We constantly define stars (or they try to define themselves) as the sexiest in the world or the richest, always attempting to reach that categorical top.

These characteristics - types and superlatives - define both high school and Hollywood. The fact that such similarities exist in these two worlds demonstrates a characteristic of the audience. In fact, I think the existence of types says something more about the way we, the audience, interact with and construct star images, rather than studios. Just as we categorize and prioritize our roles in high school, we categorize and prioritize the stars of Hollywood. So why do we do this? Why do create types for ourselves, and then project these types onto the stars of Hollywood? I think it is in part due to the convenience of these actions as shorthand in understanding people. Pegging someone means you don't have to spend as much time getting to know them; you already have their basic characteristics figured out (“the jock” will be athletic, unintelligent, determined; “the nerd” will be smart, socially awkward, easily intimidated; etc.). Also, relating Hollywood to a world we are already familiar with allows us to better understand it. With Hollywood as an extension of high school with types that we already know and accept, we can better understand a world that is in actuality quite foreign.

Why do you think types exist – both in high school and in Hollywood? What is our obsession with creating and even reaffirming these types?