Popular knowledge of the star system comes to us through books and television shows on the history of Hollywood. Here we hear tell of Hollywood's morality codes and planted news stories. Recall Lucy, sitting on the couch, scheming up ways to redirect Ricky's publicity stunts into exposure for herself.

In his piece "A Star is Born and the Construction of Authenticity," Richard Dyer astutely points out that a tear in a star's costuming does not suggest falsification, but rather authenticity: s/he's true blue. In the wake of psychoanalysis and Marxism (the twentieth century's most prolific philosophical developments) to glimpse the "real" beneath the facade merely demonstrates the veracity of star identity. Thus, the endless exposés on stars' misdeeds (or their inability to remain true to their image) actually bolsters our belief in them. We both see them and experience ourselves as conflicted constructs.