Karen Carpenter Research Paper

Media and cultural studies Assignment :

Grainy days and Mondays

Karen Carpenter was an important twentieth century female American pop singer, drummer during the 70s, And was best known for her vocals, Karen became more of a vocalist, rather than a drummer, further on into her career, because of the logistics of the trap sets that made drumming and singing simultaneously too difficult. Her music as very popular with American girls and her elegance on stage set a role model for them. Critics often labeled her the "girl next door.”
She along with her brother, Richard Carpenter formed the famous duo-The Carpenters. She died at an early age of 32 due to heart failure and complications with her illness of anorexia
nervosa, about which , not much was known back then. Karen's obsession with her weight began early in her life. At age 17, she began the "Stillman" diet, under doctors supervision, and lost a lot of weight, about 20 pounds from her 140 pound weight. It seemed that Karen would battle with her weight forever. She was obsessed with her diet and developed the disorder anorexia nervosa, which first manifested itself in 1975. At one point in her career, she dropped down to just 80 pounds and with a 5’4 height she was literally starving herself.
By the mid-1970s, extensive touring and lengthy recording sessions had begun to take their toll on the duo and contributed to their work difficulties during the latter half of the decade. Exhaustion and emaciation forced Karen to cancel concert tours. She fainted once, on stage during one of her performances of the "Top of the World". At the same time, Richard developed an addiction, which began to affect his performance and led to the end of the duo's live concert appearances for several years. That 1988 film marked Haynes’ breakthrough — a 43 minute dramatization of the life of the late pop singer Karen Anne Carpenter, enacted entirely by Barbie dolls.
FSLC head programmer Dennis Lim called it “the skeleton key” to all Haynes’ work, and you can see what he means; he works with the themes of fame and popular culture obsession that would reappear in his famous work, while engaging for the first time with a female protagonist. He devised the project with friend Cynthia Schneider, hitting on the idea of making a movie with dolls “because I was interested in sort of playing out some theories or ideas or questions about narrative structure, and how we identify in stories emotionally. It came out of some stuff in college, critical theory and stuff like that. It was made against the backdrop of 1970's, when America was going through a tumultuous change .Gay and lesbians and Afro Americans were fighting for equal rights, Beatles were a rage and people were very much interested in personal lives of superstars .The movie 'superstar 'made on the life of Karen Carpenter which was released in 1989 shows the female body issues with anorexia nervosa and her inability to deal with her personal and public life which ultimately resulted in her death. Lucas Hilderbrand an assistant professor of Film and Media studies was fascinated with the movie because it was made at a time when America was dealing with War, unemployment, political issues, drugs and gay rights He has given us a
Detailed analysis of the movie along with aesthetics , degradation and illegal distribution. The unusual fact about the movie was that Haynes used Barbie dolls Instead of real actors and also made use of dark flickering text which is difficult to read Many speculate that, it made the Movie more dramatic and intriguing. It can be seen that through expressive images and effective music can re create an era which is connected to sheer mass nostalgia. For many people this movie was a cultural memory of 70s and they were naturally drawn towards it. Though his tone is sympathetic towards Karen, it shows her family and people around her in a negative light. Her parents with their strict demands were shown as overly controlling, and Richard and their musical collaborator were portrayed as gay and selfish persons . After the release of the film When Richard Carpenter watched it he felt offensive of his portrayal and that it showed his family in a bad light He also realised that Haynes had not obtained licenses from either Richard or his music label, This gave rise to another controversy Richard sued Haynes to obtain clearance and won the suit As a result, all copies of the film were recollected and destroyed. The museum of Modern Art retains a copy , but it is not authorised to screen it People’s secret engagement with the movie gave rage to pirated videotapes, which was a bootleg aesthetic.
It was their response to the movie, by watching, copying and illicitly which entirely changed the history of movie distribution. In spite of the tape’s poor quality, the kids had such strong emotional responses to the film that it became the model for their own projects. Many people even reported having watched the tape on first dates; the lure of seeing a rare film apparently functions as an extremely seductive tactic. People who had not seen the film, showed a desire to watch it as soon as they could —rather something close to insistence that he shows it to them—or, in one case, having the embarrassment about not being able to claim the cool cachet of having seen it. The poor quality of the copy often added to the experience. The poor quality of the tape makes people realize that the movie was not meant to be watched, at least legally. Not only the forbidden nature of such tapes attracted the audience more towards it but also made the movie a cult. They was a mass who wanted to watch a movie which talked about the personal life of their ‘Superstar’. There was another group, which was interested in it only because its ban attracted them more towards
it.

Tape’s poor quality, jittery images, flicker, unclear sound all of this made either of the two effects on its viewers. Either they found it frustrating or on the other hand for many of them it actually intensified their attention. It gives a kind of deviant pleasure to its viewers. Which is almost similar to the kind of infatuation people have towards sex or drugs. Only because these objects are prohibited in general social context. What all this suggests is the multiplicity of values these tapes represent to their collectors. Although in most cases the root motivation for obtaining copies may simply have been one of wanting to possess a favorite text, ‭Superstar‬’s out of reach status complicates the tapes’ values. The film’s relative scarcity, of course, drives viewers to reproduce tapes when they finally have access. These actions suggest viewers’ fears that they may not obtain tapes again, as well as dedication to preserving their continued personal access Hilderbrand also attributes the appeal of the film to its forbidden nature, because it was banned during the time when DVDs and VCR's were invented, and bootlegs still circulates it so it made the film more exciting to watch. The movie became even more of a hit and over the years it has developed into a cult film.