Abstract

While it is a truism of film history that the arrival of sound film in the late 1920s quickly relegated certain stars to the past, fan magazines had been publishing articles since the mid-teens that focused on the careers, fade-outs, and current whereabouts of players of the motion picture industry’s early years. These publications resurrect stars from the past in articles and photo displays that also evidence a deep investment in hailing the newest fashion in dress, hairstyle and personality. This investment is compatible with the industry’s cycles, but also reminds the reader what or whom was left behind in the rush to newness. Fan magazines negotiated the tensions in giving voice to both fan desires and film industry’s needs by recognizing that those desires and needs weren’t always in sync. This essay explores how the fan magazine’s juxtaposition of star-of-the-past with modernity’s rapidly moving present suggests that the social imaginary of past cultures and societies is an affective landscape, as well as a disciplinary framework.