ABSTRACT
Due to the absence of celebrity fandom literature, Chapter 3 examines how film stars and celebrities have been conceptualised across different academic disciplines and what is already known in the academic literature on how film stars appeal to consumers. The chapter starts by discussing how different academic disciplines have studied the consumption of films, whereby particular attention is paid to film studies. Then, the chapter examines how film stars and celebrities have primarily been conceptualised, studied and ‘consumed’ as textual consumption objects or ‘human brands’ rather than as real human beings. The chapter concludes by proposing the use of narrative transportation theory as an alternative approach to understand what personal meaning(s) a celebrity may have for the individual consumer.
