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From Shy Tomboy to Queer Icon: Kristen Stewart and Embodying/Overcoming Anxiety in Contemporary Hollywood

2022; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 41; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10509208.2022.2159296

1543-5326

Milan Hain,

Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the grant of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for specific research under Grant IGA_FF_2021_005.Notes on contributorsMilan HainMilan Hain, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor and Area Head of Film Studies at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. He is the author or coauthor of five books on cinema, including, most recently, Starmaker: David O. Selznick and the Production of Stars in the Hollywood Studio System (forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi). His articles have appeared in Jewish Film and New Media, the Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance and The Slovak Theater. In 2011 and 2012, he was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Recently, he has become the recipient of the Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Łódź, where he researches the representation of Czech and Polish identities in studio-era Hollywood.Notes1 She declined to participate in the sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. The resulting film, The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016 Reyes, M. 2016. "Why Kristen Stewart Was Happy To Not Be Part Of The Huntsman: Winter's War." Cinema Blend, May 11. https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Kristen-Stewart-Was-Happy-Part-Huntsman-Winter-War-130207.html. [Google Scholar]), received negative reviews and performed poorly at the box office. See Reyes (2016 Reyes, M. 2016. "Why Kristen Stewart Was Happy To Not Be Part Of The Huntsman: Winter's War." Cinema Blend, May 11. https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Kristen-Stewart-Was-Happy-Part-Huntsman-Winter-War-130207.html. [Google Scholar]).2 Another analysis of Stewart's performance style can be found in Logan (2019 Logan, E. 2019. "Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria." In Close-Up: Great Cinematic Performances Volume 1: America, edited by M. Pomerance and K. Stevens, 274–285. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. [Google Scholar]).3 The film's gender politics are analysed in Tuzcu (2019 Tuzcu, A. Y. 2019. "Between Zero Dark Thirty and Camp X-Ray: Changing Gender Dynamics of Contemporary American War Film." Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies 20 (1): 57–71. https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/article/view/311/409. [Google Scholar]).4 The affair—and the public's response to it—is briefly discussed in Finsterwalder et al. (2017 Finsterwalder, J., T. Yee, and A. Tombs. 2017. "Would You Forgive Kristen Stewart or Tiger Woods or Maybe Lance Armstrong? Exploring Consumers' Forgiveness of Celebrities' Transgressions." Journal of Marketing Management 33 (13–14): 1204–1229. 10.1080/0267257X.2017.1382553[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).5 Gunn Enli's concept of the "authenticity contract" (2014 Enli, G. 2014. Mediated Authenticity: How the Media Constructs Reality. New York: Peter Lang. [Google Scholar]) seems also relevant here. As Jerslev and Mortensen (2018 Jerslev, A., and M. Mortensen. 2018. "Celebrity in the Social Media Age: Renegotiating the Public and the Private." In Routledge Handbook of Celebrity Studies, edited by A. Elliott and R. Boyd, 157–174. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 172) claim, what matters is to construct "an image of self which is coherent and seems authentic, […] to manage the impression that one is sincere, genuine. […] To the extent that authenticity is not a being but a doing—to convincingly perform sincerity—authenticity is always up for negotiation."6 Some commentators trace a similar motive in the 2014 film Clouds of Sils Maria, see for instance Keating (2016 Keating, S. 2016. "Kristen Stewart's Complicated New Appeal." Buzzfeeds News, October 15. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/kristen-stewart-certain-women. [Google Scholar]).7 For more on the queer aspects of the film, see the essay by Barbara Braid (2020 Braid, B. 2020. "Mad, Bad and Dangerous: Queering Lizzie Borden in Lizzie (2018)." Neo-Victorian Studies 13 (1): 100–124. http://www.neovictorianstudies.com/past_issues/13-1-2020/NVS-13-1-3-B-Braid.pdf.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).8 The film was adapted from Savannah Knoop's own account of the six years she spent impersonating JT. See Knoop (2008 Knoop, S. 2008. Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy. New York: Seven Stories Press. [Google Scholar]).9 For more on Stewart's queer characters, see Bendix (2018 Bendix, T. 2018. "Kristen Stewart's Career Is Finally Explicitly Queer." INTO, January 22. https://www.intomore.com/culture/kristen-stewarts-career-is-finally-explicitly-queer/. [Google Scholar]).10 For more on that, see Staples (2021 Staples, L. 2021. "The Queer Mourning of Princess Diana." Harper's Bazaar, November 1. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a38092562/the-queer-mourning-of-princess-diana/. [Google Scholar]).11 For more on the representation of gays and lesbians on television, see Tropiano (2002 Tropiano, S. 2002. Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema. [Google Scholar]).12 Of the trio, only Happiest Season grossed more than $2 million at the box office. On the other hand, all films have been released on streaming platforms and digital discs which further extended their viewership. However, exact numbers are impossible to obtain.13 She, however, confessed to having a private Instagram account in order to stay in touch with her friends. See for example Mahajan (2017 Mahajan, V. 2017. "Kristen Stewart Has A Personal Instagram Account Which Fans Do Not Know About." Inquisitr, April 18. https://www.inquisitr.com/4155429/kristen-stewart-has-a-personal-instagram-account-which-fans-do-not-know-about/. [Google Scholar]).14 Lee Barron (2015 Barron, L. 2015. Celebrity Cultures: An Introduction. London: SAGE. Kindle edition.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], loc 1062) defines para-social relationships as bonds of intimacy stemming "from representations of a celebrity rather than actual physical contact."15 William J. Brown (2018 Brown, W. J. 2018. "Celebrity Involvement: Parasocial Interaction, Identification and Worship." In Routledge Handbook of Celebrity Studies, edited by A. Elliott and R. Boyd, 255–270. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) distinguishes between para-social interaction and identification, with the latter being a stronger and more enduring process (260). The circumstances of my research of YouTube comments, however, do not allow me to effectively distinguish between these two levels.16 Due to space, I do not focus here on fans' interactions with each other, a practice that Matt Hills (2016 Hills, M. 2016. "From Para-Social to Multisocial Interaction: Theorizing Material/Digital Fandom and Celebrity." In A Companion to Celebrity, edited by D. P. Marshall and S. Redmond, 463–482. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. [Google Scholar], 472) calls multisocial. However, it is clear from the many responses that this interaction is also important and contributes to cementing Stewart's status as an influential and inspiring public figure.17 There is even a thread on the website for social anxiety support where users debate whether Stewart indeed suffers from SA (Kristen Stewart Forum 2021 Kristen Stewart Forum. 2021. "Social Anxiety Support." https://www.socialanxietysupport.com/threads/kristen-stewart.217369/. [Google Scholar]).18 Stewart's ambivalence about her celebrity status and frequently manifested discomfort with her social visibility in the earlier part of her career can be reminiscent of the concept of the reluctant celebrity introduced by Lorraine York (2018 York, L. 2018. Reluctant Celebrity: Affect and Privilege in Contemporary Stardom. London: Palgrave Macmillan.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).19 One of Stewart's recent profiles (Stevens 2021 Stevens, D. 2021. How Kristen Stewart Went From Object of Mockery to Best Actress Front-Runner." Slate, November 5. https://slate.com/culture/2021/11/kristen-stewart-spencer-princess-diana-movie-oscars-twilight.html. [Google Scholar]) claims that "her tendency to stammer through interviews and slouch her way down the red carpet struck some observers as evidence of arrogance and entitlement, when in retrospect it looks more like a shy teenage girl's instinctive self-protection."20 Even though the comments are public, I have decided to hide the users' names to protect their privacy.21 For more on this phenomenon, see Bernard (2017 Bernard, L. 2017. "Twilight Haters: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Internet Popular 'Hatedom'." Hal Open Science, 2017. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01874904. [Google Scholar]).22 For an analysis of the star image of another star who does not use social networks at all or only sparingly, see Moya Luckett's study (2019 Luckett, M. 2019. "Dakota Fanning: (Good) Girl Star." Celebrity Studies 10 (4): 515–532. 10.1080/19392397.2019.1673005[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) of Dakota Fanning. Fanning starred with Stewart in three instalments of The Twilight Saga as well as in the music biopic The Runaways and the short Cutlass (2007).23 For more about her filmmaking ambitions, see Mumford (2017 Mumford, G. 2017. "Kristen Stewart on Her Directing Debut: 'The Best Female Film-Makers Are Compulsive Freaks'." The Guardian, May 22. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/22/kristen-stewart-come-swim-cannes-film-festival. [Google Scholar]).24 At the time of writing, the film is being cast. See for example Davis (2021 Davis, C. 2021. "Kristen Stewart Begins Casting for Her Directorial Debut 'The Chronology of Water' (EXCLUSIVE)." Variety, October 28. https://variety.com/2021/film/news/kristen-stewart-chronology-of-water-1235097928/. [Google Scholar]).25 Looking back further into history, the case of Kristen Stewart can be reminiscent of the way the gay community embraced the star image of Judy Garland, with the crucial distinction that Garland did not identify as gay. For more details, see Richard Dyer's classic account in Heavenly Bodies (2004 Dyer, R. 2004. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London and New York: Routledge.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 137–191).