Clint Eastwood's US audience 1964–2009: a reception-oriented approach to star analysis

Abstract

Using Clint Eastwood and his American audience as an example, this essay argues for the importance of a reception-oriented approach to star analysis. Empirical data is presented (surveys, box office revenues, discourse examples) as a methodological suggestion for how a star's historical audience might be studied empirically. The data reveals with what and with whom Eastwood was popular, and on the basis of these findings, an interpretation is developed as to why this was the case.

Keywords:

• Clint Eastwood
• popularity
• audiences
• American culture
• stardom

Acknowledgements

This article is based on my PhD thesis, published in German as Stars und ihr Publikum am Beispiel Clint Eastwood (2011, Hamburg, Kovac). More data and sources can be found there.

Notes

1. My own calculation from the box office data that I have compiled.

2. Interestingly, this fragmentation does not seem to be a recent phenomenon. A poll conducted by Fortune magazine in the late 1930s (Anon 1937) showed an even higher fragmentation.

3. Not all of them are necessarily fans in the sense that they also engage in a high degree of activity beyond watching Eastwood's films, such as becoming members of fan clubs, collecting memorabilia and so forth (on fandom, see Harris and Alexander 1998).

4. Marketing, where the term originally emerged for products and brands, acknowledges this subjective element (see Gardner and Levy 1955).

5. Hence, I find it somewhat unfortunate that deCordova (1990) has used the emergence of discourses on film actors’ private lives to mark the beginning of film stardom and therefore has practically made it a definition of the phenomenon.

6. In the USA, with few exceptions, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg, who have a marking function similar to stars, because they represent a certain type of film, directors rarely have as great a drawing power as star actors (see Kindem 1980).

7. Published box office data is not comparable for longer time periods as is. Whether the reported figures are grosses (cinema revenues, sometimes only of selected theatres) or rentals (distributor revenues), whether the take of re-releases was added, varying geographical scope (Canada is sometimes included in ‘domestic’ figures), and most importantly, the change in ticket prices all have to be taken into account. I have collected and adjusted the data to create a ranked list of Eastwood's films according to the number of tickets sold, the best approximation for the size of the cinema audience (I do not know of any estimates of repeat viewings). In the rare cases where popularity data is used at all, but usually without these adjustments, interpretations are often false. For example, Allison (2007) concludes that the changes made to the Dirty Harry series were successful, because the revenues have increased. Adjusted data shows that the life cycle of the franchise was similar to most others: the first film was a major hit, the sequel did even better, and the following instalments showed a steady decline in attendance.

8. This film is usually regarded as a flop, because it was too expensive to make a large profit. But in terms of attendance, it was a hit.

9. For further indications of African American sympathies with Eastwood's characters, see the influence of his films on black filmmakers, such as Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) or John Singleton's remake (or sequel) of Shaft (2000).

10. On the double plot structure of Hollywood films, see Bordwell et al. (1988); for an empirical study of the values of American hit films, see Beckwith (2007).

11. Stempel (2001) claims that he was the first to call Eastwood a ‘feminist filmmaker’.

12. Authors such as Jeffords (1989) have perceived a ‘backlash’ against the progressive values of the late 1960s in the Hollywood films of the 1970s and 1980s. However, Powers et al. (1996) have shown with a quantitative content analysis that this is not the case in the majority of American films. In fact, they point out that filmmakers are often more liberal on average than their audience.

13. For an overview, see Broude (1990); for a discussion of the differences to psychoanalytic concepts, see Mosak and Schneider (1977).

14. On Eastwood's courting of the critics, see Kapsis (1993) and McGilligan (1999).

15. For examples of readings of Eastwood's films that are relatively sympathetic and tend to interpret them as deconstructive and ironic, see Beard's (2000) collection of essays, as well as some of the essays in the collection edited by Engel (2007).