Superstar

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Like Terkel's Working, the documentary Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story elaborates on the life behind the working person. The documentary uses Barbie dolls as its characters, which symbolizes the fake and impossible body/lifestyle that a music celebrity has, especially a female. Females in the public eye, especially performers, HAVE to look good. They must be skinny, tall, well endowed, curvy, but not plump and they have to have smooth, clear skin. It is physically impossible for a human being to be shaped the way that Barbie is, yet millions of girls world wide look up to Barbie and do everything they can, even sickening themselves, in an effort to obtain this impossible figure. During a recording session in this documentary, Karen is shown in a dark booth, trying her best to be, in her her own words "Perfect". She makes one small mistake, coughing, and her brother is all over her back, telling her, "Look, we’ll just do it until it’s right. Just do what I tell you, and it will be great." In the entertainment industry, females have an impossible agenda. Their record labels and agents have them on a leash, and they must follow all sorts of orders. They have to put out new albums every year, shoot a bunch of videos, appear in a half a dozen commercials, do a photo shoot every other week, do something for charity once a week (most of us don't do one thing all year) fly all around the world on tour performing a concert every night, and oh yeah, one more thing...they have to keep their body fat dangerously low. The stress that these young ladies go through is phenomenal and it is not shocking that anorexia and bulimia are such a huge problem today. These 'superstars' are role models for thousands of young girls around the world and when these young girls see their idols skipping meals, they follow right along and do whatever it takes to be like a superstar. This is even more evident today as magazines, movies and television programs are plastered with unhealthy stick thin women and then in the news every week, there is a new female celebrity with an eating disorder. The worst effects are those of the younger female celebrities that walk into a life of unbearable pressure and unattainable tasks. It is no wonder some of these young women resort to a drugs, alcohol abuse and violence.


Although Superstar focuses on two significant issues, eating disorders and the pressures and distortions of the mass media, it is not best used as a detourent for young girls. Since it uses dolls and cheap editing, it may not be taken as serious. Young girls can not identify with the Barbie doll Karen; there is not enough development of her character. There are many other videos that are more appropriate and more effective in teaching young girls about eating disorders. Superstar has become more popular since it has been banned in certain cases, as Hilderbrand notes in his article, "its [Superstar] reception has been significantly influenced by the conditions of its exhibition and circulation, even more so since its withdrawal from legitimate distribution" (61). This swithces the focus of the documentary to bootlegging it and obtaining it, rather than the key moral issues it portrays, as Hilderbrand also notes, "Videotape duplication of the work formally changes the text so that its thematic concerns—mass-media distortion
and its relations to subjective and bodily breakdown—become rendered on the surface" (62). The issues are only viewed at from their face value, deeper meaning is not pursued. Eating disorders and mass media's distortion of the human body are serious issues that have to be addressed. Making a 'mockumentary' using dolls is a start, but more serious attempts should be at the forefront.