‘Do you wanna come with me?’: The role of the star image as brand for the commodification of cult in mainstream telefantasy

ABSTRACT

A key strategy of TV companies in the UK and US since the late 1990s, has been to create distinctive channel brands with flagship TV shows as brands that act to convey the channel’s brand values to audiences. Mainstream quality cult shows, including Doctor Who for the BBC and Game of Thrones for HBO, have conveyed something of the brand of their respective channels in the highly competitive multi-media global TV market. In this essay, I analyse star images as brands (aspects of star image used for economic and promotional purposes), to consider their role as part of the launch and promotion of global cult telefantasy brands through promotional paratexts and their subsequent integration into the TV series narrative. Through the analysis, I argue that key aspects of star brands – particularly authenticity and intertextuality – are a central part of processes of mainstreaming, ‘cult-ification’ and generic balance, necessary to make mainstream cult telefantasy in the contemporary TV landscape. I contend this highlights the increasing importance of cult as a currency in global TV branding and of star brands in shoring up its extensive commodification. In doing so, I add to the understanding of star branding as part of the commodification of cult for mainstream telefantasy, a previously under-studied/theorised aspect of star and television studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Cult TV
• Stardom
• Telefantasy
• Authenticity
• Doctor Who
• TV brands
• Stranger Things

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use the term cult telefantasy in this paper not to contest the notion that cult TV exists in other genres (The Mighty Boosh for comedy, would be an example [Hunt 2013]), but to focus on the specific dynamics of cult telefantasy as a sub-genre.

2. I use the term channel in this paper to encompass the range of transmedial TV outlets now available including TV networks, cable/satellite channels and online demand services.

3. The use of TVI to TVIV to reference ‘eras’ of television is not without its problems. Most notably, it is difficult to pinpoint when TV eras begin and end, given that change is incremental and gradual. However, I use it here as a useful way of referring to features of the TV industry and the way its TV products were/are consumed in the very broadest sense.

4. Examples include Christopher Eccleston in Doctor Who, Michelle Yo in the recent Star Trek Discovery (2017-) launch or Winona Ryder in Stranger Things (2016-).

5. I follow Gray’s (2015) argument here that paratexts are part of the text (of the meaning we take from a TV series). However, for clarity, I will refer to the paratext, the meta-narrative (meaning of the whole series and all its sanctioned paratexts) and the core text (the TV episode or episodes themselves).

6. Although as Dyer (1998) notes stars emerged in relation to theatre in the 18^th century.

7. See Egan and Thomas’ (2012) edited collection for a range of chapters focusing on this aspect of cult film stardom.

8. To be clear, the BBC refers to Eccleston as an actor in their press materials but I would argue that they do so in order to foreground this aspect of his star image as a ‘serious actor’. Thus, I am suggesting that at the time Eccleston might not have held the type of star status associated to Hollywood stars known across the globe, but his star image was one known by many mostly British audiences in relation to his TV and film drama work.

9. Known as the mature trailer in relation to its R rated content according to the MPAA U.S. film classification. Thus, the trailer could only be shown before films with an R or NC17 rating. https://filmratings.com/Content/Downloads/rating_rules.pdf.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Craig Haslop

Craig Haslop is a Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Liverpool. Craig currently researches digital toxic masculinities and aspects of promotion and sexual identity in relation to cult television.