Judy Garland:Icon or Star?

I didn't want to abandon my weekly posts, but I'm about to leave for Spring Break. So, I thought I would leave all of you with an essay I wrote for a class last year. Enjoy!

“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Entering the Land of Oz in her blue gingham dress and pigtails, Judy Garland became a star. From that moment on, MGM worked to perpetuate Judy’s image in all of her films as the all-American, authentic, girl-next-door. In the roles of her early career, through the studio’s treatment of Garland as a commodity, Judy wholly fulfills the definition of a star, as defined by Morin in The Stars. However, Garland provides us with a unique case in that her stardom and iconicity do not stem from the same sources. Although Judy was adored for her star persona by audiences of the 1940s and 50s, she has endured as an icon of the dark side of fame, as exemplified by her later film roles. Today, Judy’s star persona remains in the legacy of her films, but modern audiences recognize her as a symbol of lost innocence and the demons that often accompany stardom. Thus, Judy provides us with a rare dichotomy – the immense success of her early career establishing her as a star versus her struggles with addiction and multiple valiant comebacks firmly cementing her as an icon of the tragic, fleeting nature of fame.

To become a star it is necessary to have some modicum of talent or unnamable, unique quality that makes you special in the eyes of the public. Possessing a voice capable of relaying complex emotions through song and a self-effacing sense of humor, she was dubbed “the entertainer of the century” (American Masters). But even beyond the unforgettable voice, Judy still had “mystical electricity” and a “je ne sais quoi you can’t copy that separates real talent from ordinary talent” (American Masters). Her charisma and vocal talent rendered her a star. At the same time, this unidentifiable attribute that propelled her to stardom also pushed her towards a life of tragedy that made her iconic.

In his book on The Stars, Edgar Morin lays out a much more intricately, detailed definition of a star that Judy Garland fully embodied in the first half of her career. Morin states that “the characters of her films infect the star. Reciprocally, the star herself infects these characters” (27). From the Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy to Esther Smith, in Meet Me in St. Louis, to her multiple roles in the Andy Hardy films, Judy was the quintessential All-American girl. MGM’s reluctance to cast Judy in any other type of role reflects the studio’s recognition of Judy’s star persona and their quest to further this image to maintain her appeal. Even when Judy began to take on more adult roles, she still portrayed a naïve, innocent with gumption and authenticity. Also, her specific persona directly correlates with the definition of a star: “The star is pure. . . The star is profoundly good, and this cinematic goodness must be expressed in her private life as well” (Morin 37). Thus, in her continual representation of an innocent, ordinary, girl-next-door, Judy fulfills the requirement of virginal purity and innate decency on-screen.

However, although her goodness on-screen was easily created through her persona, she still needed to express goodness in her private life. The studio, knowing that the star’s “private life is public, their public life, publicity” (Morin 4), sought to perpetuate the innocent, girl-next-door persona within Garland’s off-screen activities. For her to be a true star, she had to embody the girl-next door in her everyday life so that her star persona could become an overriding factor in all aspects of her life. Garland remembers that the “publicity department puts out newspaper stories about you that astonish you, and you begin to wonder who you really are, but you can’t argue with them because the studio is trying to make you a star” (American Masters). Additionally, the studio strove to ensure that Judy’s actions were entirely in keeping with her image to maintain her star status.

Ironically, today Judy’s star has faded, but the tactics used to make Judy a star inadvertently contributed to the problems that directly led to her enduring iconicity. To keep her thin, working, and in the public eye, MGM put Judy on a steady stream of energy, sleeping, and weight pills that laid the basis for her lifelong struggle with drug addiction. Although producers dubbed Judy perfect for the role of Dorothy, she underwent much prodding in hair, make-up, and costuming. Her strict diet, pill regimen, and the derogatory comments made about her appearance, both on and off-screen, seriously depleted her self-confidence leading her further down the path of substance abuse as she tried to cope with her insecurities. When she eloped at nineteen and became pregnant, MGM dubbed this unacceptable for her image and the teenage roles she continued to play. On the advice of the studio, her mother and new husband forced her to get an abortion that emotionally devastated Judy and created a rift in her marriage. The betrayal of the studio, her mother, and the man she had trusted to protect and love her furthered Judy’s insecurities. This combined with the long hours of non-stop work caused Judy to regularly turn to pills to get through the day (American Masters). By starting her addiction to pills and changing her appearance, MGM set out to create an eternal star on-screen and instead produced an enduring off-screen icon.

In MGM’s total control over her life and the molding of her image, Judy also reflects Morin’s idea of the star as commodity. He claims, “The star is a total item of merchandise” (113) in a capitalist system. In packaging Judy in similar roles in multiple films, the studio used Judy as a piece of machinery in a film-making factory. However, in the studio’s disregard for her health and their all-consuming focus on making a non-stop secession of Judy Garland pictures to bring in box office dollars, she acutely felt the strain of only being “seen through money-making eyes” (American Masters). Indeed, upon her release from her contract after her health prevented her from completing a picture, her realization that she only meant money to the studio led to an attempted suicide. Even in her commoditization, the effects of making Judy a star provided life experiences that would make her an icon.

Garland’s obsession with her success as a performer allows her reciprocity of personality and screen image to become a unique part of her iconicity Eventually, Judy began to so fully associate her identity with her roles that she viewed her success as a human being linked to her success as “Judy Garland the performer.” When she was fired from the studios and her television show was canceled, it was like the “cancellation of a person” (American Masters). Requiring affirmation as a performer to feel fulfilled as an individual truly emphasizes how much a star feels connected to their on-screen persona. Essentially, the over-arching persona and the performer become one. Fully representing the reciprocity of screen image and reality, the failure of Judy’s show became a failure of self. She had a “tremendous desire to please,” which translated into earnest and emotional performances that always made her “vulnerability apparent” (American Masters). Correlating directly to the love she sought from all those around her, including her audiences, Judy’s performances conveyed an emotional fragility that stemmed directly from the fragile stability of her own sanity and daily life. Thus, Judy’s performances, particularly in her later films and concerts, helped mold her as an iconic figure because they were direct windows to the inner struggles and pain for which she is often remembered.

In 1950, with an estranged mother, a drug addiction, two failed marriages, and her film career on the skids, Judy was well on her way to becoming the cautionary tale of a child-star destroyed by the perils of early fame. Indeed, it is the sordid details of this tragic life that have led Judy to become an iconic representation of the cost of fame. However, it is her indomitable spirit and relentless perseverance, as illustrated in her countless comebacks that really helped to make her an enduring icon. She was described as “always having come back from something (sufferings and tribulations) and always keeping on coming, no matter what” (Dyer 150). To an extent, her continual need to return from some period of suffering made her the symbol of the comeback itself, particularly because each comeback was always immensely successful. A Star is Born chronicled the exact sort of process that Judy endured as a child to become a star. Rather than giving birth to a star (as the title suggests), the film helped make Judy an icon by serving as her first real comeback and revealing the seamy details and consequences of Hollywood and the star-making process, which she came to represent.

Her continual efforts to return to her former glory despite her constant pain and struggling reflect her adherence to the belief that the show must go on, as so many of her film characters insisted. Indeed, this quality combined with her vaudeville-esque performances led to her being labeled, “Miss Show Business” (Dyer 151). As she has come to represent both the glitzy façade and seamy underside of show business, this label is still relevant in regards to her iconic status today. In the March 28^th issue of Entertainment Weekly, Diablo Cody writes in her column, “The term showbiz. . . has a certain 1940s charm as if it should chiefly refer to productions that involve Judy Garland and/or a trolley.” Judy channeled the collapse of her stardom and the consequent comeback into creating an iconic figure that persists today.

Furthermore, “this come-back, going on, suffering and strength quality could even be read in the performance of the songs” (Dyer 152). Thus, every time she sang she created a mini-comeback for herself as she went on with the show. Two particular songs, “Over the Rainbow” and “Get Happy,” help illustrate this phenomenon. Judy was constantly trying to go “over the rainbow” (American Masters), to get to a magical place where there weren’t any of the troubles that plagued her reality. Her continual quest to forget and conquer her troubles was reiterated in “Get Happy,” a song from her later career. The two songs, coming from different stages of her career, truly emphasize her never-ending fight to triumph over the odds.

Through her multiple comebacks, Judy not only came to represent the dark side of Hollywood, as evidenced in her evermore ravaged appearance, but also the resiliency of the human spirit. In her continual falls from grace and then glorious comebacks, Garland also manages to represent opposite extremes of human nature and emotion. Essentially, she becomes a representative for all of us through her songs. With each comeback, Judy continually reminded audiences of the immense talent that could be lost should she again fall subject to her inner demons. Many performers have paid dearly for fame, but none have come to represent that cost and the full tragedy of its implications as has Judy. Perhaps this is so because in making the comeback part of her iconic status, she continually reminded us exactly what that cost was.

Finally, in her embodiment of the tragic consequences of fame, Garland transferred a key component of her stardom to her iconicity. Because the stars were the result of a rapidly expanding middle-class, “they [were] no longer inaccessible: they [were] mediators between the screen-heaven and earth” (Morin 23). Garland not only lives in the realm of mortality, but “she is not so much a movie star herself as a stand-in for us the audience” (Dyer 167). Judy, in her ordinariness, becomes a direct link between spectator and film. A star is also someone “with whom one can identity” (Morin 83). As the “heroine of the misplaced,” people identified with Judy Garland in a unique way and could associate with the pain and humor in her voice (American Masters). Her ordinary, authenticity was a key factor of Judy’s star persona, allowing audiences to identity and feel as if her character represented exactly how any regular person would act in the same situation. Audiences’ ability to relate to Judy and through her, link to the magical realm of her films contributed to her success as a star. However, this ordinariness, particularly in regards to Judy’s continual struggles with substance abuse, also contributed to Garland’s iconic status. Her recurrent comebacks and ultimate loss to a battle with addiction further allowed people to identity with her problems and her pain, as they experienced similar issues. Additionally, she helped remind people that no star is immune to the weaknesses of human nature, particularly in an environment like Hollywood where such weaknesses are exploited. Thus, in succumbing to her inner demons, Judy reinforced the fact that she is just like the rest of us. Judy’s struggles and ordinariness helped to establish her as an icon of the cost of fame and the exploitative nature of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

While many of the qualities that made Judy Garland a star transferred to Judy Garland the icon, her enormously different roles as star and icon highlight the immense disparity of stardom and iconicity. Although some icons are directly created from their star personas, it takes more than stardom to become an icon. In Doris Day and Julia Roberts, we see that lovable “girls-next-door” easily come-and-go in films, answering the particular needs of audiences at the time. Although Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears both accurately reflect the tragic consequences of fame and fortune, no one has continually strived as hard to succeed with each performance, nor reminded us of the innocence and beauty lost to Hollywood, like Judy Garland. No other star so ultimately represents the dark side of Hollywood and the cost of fame, and it is this, coupled with her star persona, that has made her an icon. As Garland exemplifies, to achieve iconicity and transcend stardom, one must be unsurpassed in what they represent as an icon. There is a strong, resounding, unique “I” in icon.

Works Cited

"American Masters: Judy Garland, By Myself." Susan Lacy, dir. PBS: 2004.

Cody, Diablo. “Movie Camp.” Entertainment Weekly. 28 March 2008

Dyer, Richard. “Judy Garland and Gay Men.” Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and

Society. Ed. Ed Buscombe. British Film Institute Cinema Series.

Morin, Edgar. The Stars. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972.

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