Pop Star

Selena Gomez

By: Muhammad Faraz Malik

We live in a world where media and stars are worshiped and idolized. We can’t go on a day without knowing the latest news of our favorite pop stars. Pop stars are artists who are artificially constructed in order to sell the album and their image to the audience because as I have mentioned this before, the audience does not only look forward to the release of a music video but to the release of the new look, style and character of the pop star. They look forward to seeing what new thing or style they have adapted in order to know what’s trending and what’s not. Richard Dyer, a famous theorist came up with the pop star theory. He states that a star is an image, not a real person that is constructed. To further explain the concept of Pop Stars, I am going to use Selena Marie Gomez as an example as currently, she is one of the most popular pop stars.

Selena Marie Gomez was born on 22nd July, 1992 in Texas. At an extremely young age, Selena started showing interest in pursuing a career as an artist. In 2002, Selena made her first appearance as Gianna in a television series called, Barney and friends. She appeared in 14 episodes of the show between 2002-2004. This was the first step towards the beginning of her career and the first of many steps that made her into a pop star.

Selena Marie Gomez played one of the lead roles in a Disney channel series called “The wizards of Waverly place”. She played the role of Alex Russo. This role got her a really huge fan base as a lot of people, myself included,  loved her character and her role. She appears as a lazy, savage, teenager, who has a really good fashion sense and had a great humor. This character played an important role in her journey to become a pop star from a pop performer.

In 2008, Selena released her first album “Kiss and tell”.

Since this was her first album, she had to make it extravagant and had to portray a persona which the audience would want to follow. In the music video, Selena Gomez shows up like  a complete fashionista, she’s all dolled up. She has different looks in the music video, all which are extremely hot and catch your attention immediately. She has adapted Marilyn Monroe’s style, the hair, the dress, the vibe but it has all been displayed in a very contained manner. She looks sexy but not in a really bold manner, in the teenager kind of sexy way.

 In the same year, she appeared in a movie “Ramona and Beezus” and released her second album “A year without rain”.

Selena Marie Gomez is not only famous for her voice or her songs, but also for the way she is with her fans, her outfits, her personal life experiences and so much more. The artists not only sell their albums, but they sell their own image and identity and that’s what makes an artist a pop sensational star. “A year without rain” was her second album and in order to avoid the second album syndrome she had to come up with something new in order to maintain her fan base. Selena’s appearance in her music video was so eye-catching and flawless. She appeared in a graceful, trendy dress, her hair are styled  in a natural yet kinda elegant way. She’s wearing black nail polish with a smokey eye look, she portrayed the persona of something dark and that is what intrigued the audience.

The audience likes the music but it is the new look and appearance of the artist which the audience looks forward to seeing. In her first album, she came out like a complete diva, but if she had done the same with her second album as well, the audience may not have liked her music and style anymore. The lyrics are sentimental, they are about distance and heart break.

In 2013, she released an album called “Come and get it”.

In this music video, she comes out like a complete diva. She looks hot but not in a revealing way. Her complete image of a sad, innocent girl is gone and she has created a new image in order to keep the interest of her fans engaged. She can’t bore them with the same style as then no one will be interested in following her. The music of this song has an Indian vibe to it which has spiced her look even more and has made the entire music video and her image really seductive.

Richard Dyer states that a lot of pop performers are described as pop stars because they are quickly promoted to this by their management. This is either done by famous boyfriend/girlfriend, attendance at important premiers and parties or by a feature in gossip magazines. Although Selena Marie Gomez has gained a lot of success on her own, I’d say that she became a real pop star by dating famous pop stars.

From 2008-2010, Selena dated Nick Jonas and that got her a lot of attention too but not as much attention as she got when she dated Justin Bieber from 2011-2015. They both were referred to as Jelena and got a lot of fame because of their relationship. When their relationship ended, they got even more sympathy and fame as this was a turn towards a different persona and it got the audience’s interests engaged. This led to Selena Gomez releasing another album called “The heart wants what it wants”, this got more fame than it should have because the audience perceived it as a message for Justin and this got both the artists a lot of attention. This constructed a new character, persona and again, kept the audiences interest engaged towards Selena’s life.

The video started of by Selena Gomez talking about how hurt she is and how broken her heart is, this music video took her character to another level as now she appeared as a sad and broken star. She still looks hot, but not the glamorous hot, the sad and desperate hot and that has given the audience something new to look forward to.

In 2014, Selena performed “The heart wants what it wants” at the AMA’s and she burst into tears while performing, this added to her recent persona of her sad and broken person and got her more attention and fame. She wore an elegant dress and had her hair styled in a simple yet beautiful way.

Dyer states that stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meaning. One of the many reasons why Selena became a pop star was because of her persona of a humanitarian, she always stood up against bullying and always gave motivational speeches that encouraged her fans. There are numerous pop stars being introduced every year and in order for the old pop stars to keep their place, they need to keep doing different things to keep their fans. As did Selena Gomez when she became the producer of a series called “13 reasons why”. This came to being one of the most trending series on Netflix and became really popular and the fact that Selena Marie Gomez was a part of this good initiative increased her fan base.

Selena Gomez is currently dating The weekend and that has got her a lot of attention. She has been one hell of a talented diva but in order to survive in the industry, one needs to keep coming up with new things and ideas and Selena Gomez has lived up to them fully.

Selena Gomez joined the industry at a very young age and since then, she has come a long way and has transformed into a pop sensational star.

Her looks changed with time. She started of with her innocent, teenager look and with time, transformed into a ravishing Diva and gave her audience something new to look forward to, every year.