The existence in modem industrial society of a category of persons who are the object of intense curiosity and admiration centring round not only their exceptional performance of expressive roles in the entertainment world such as film stars—and also others in sport or ‘show business’—but also their ‘private’ lives, which become articles of public consumption, is not satisfactorily accounted for by any of the current theories. Many of these theories draw attention to the latent (unrecognized and unpremeditated) function of the ‘star system’ and its equivalents in non-cinematic fields in hindering the growth of realistic perceptions of the structures of power in our societies and creating a fantasy world which displaces social tensions without solving the problems that give rise to these tensions. But this approach fails to account for the ambivalence and negative or critical components in public attitudes towards the ‘celebrities’, for the fact that fans in ordinary life-situations do not seem to behave in an unrealistic manner as far as, for instance, the logic of industrial conflict is concerned, and the fact that the celebrities in our society are typically without formal power, i.e. without institutional positions of power. Thus the celebrities form an ‘elite without power’ (although not without influence), combining maximum visibility or observability with the inability to impose sanctions or control the life-chances of the public.

There is a charismatic component in attitudes of fans towards idols in the sense of the recognition of a specifically extraordinary quality which commands admiration. But this charismatic component is rarely generalized to (for instance) political leadership and remains restricted to a specific sphere of achievement, to a specific role. The very fact that the professional role of the celebrity is so sharply segregated from other spheres and the standards of evaluation so differentiated as between the professional and other roles (political, economic, religious) indicates that there are built-in mechanisms in our societies to prevent the generalization of charisma. The fear of the generalization of charisma, of the possibility that celebrities with their access to the mass media of communications, and commanding a ready audience, might use their opportunities to gain effective power and seek to exercise charismatic leadership in the true sense by commanding a change in the outlook and conduct of the following, has often been expressed. Kazan’s film A Face in the Crowd explored this possibility although even there the star’s charisma was used to bolster a particular politician’s campaign in the first instance and not directly to win votes for himself. The James Dean cult showed something approaching true charismatic leadership, in that the way of life of the follower seemed to be moulded on the hero’s, but it only got going posthumously.