Pop stars have provided audiences with performative moments that have become ingrained in popular consciousness. They are a lens through which deeper understandings about race, gender, politics, history and the artistic process can be understood. When combined with the most affective of mediums - cinema, the combination can be both thrilling and alarming.
From the relatively early days of cinema, figures from the world of popular music have made forays into acting and contributed cameo appearances. From Little Richard and Kylie Minogue to Nick Cave and Tom Waits, Pop Stars On Film: Popular Culture in a Global Market offers a collection of essays on some of the most influential international performances from a diverse range of cultural icons.

The book considers industry shifts, access and diversity, but also the notion of cultural appropriation, audience appeal, marketing and demographics. Perhaps most importantly, the publication will look at what happens when cultures collide and coalesce.

Kirsty Fairclough is Professor of Screen Studies and Head of Research and Innovation at the School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She is the co-editor of Prince and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury), The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop, The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment (Bloomsbury), The Legacy of Mad Men: Cultural History, Intermediality and American Television. , Music/Video: Forms, Aesthetics, Media (Bloomsbury) and author of the forthcoming Beyoncé: Celebrity Feminism and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury). She is the curator of Sound and Vision: Pop Stars on Film and In Her View: Women Documentary Filmmakers film seasons at HOME, Manchester and Chair of Manchester Jazz Festival.
Jason Wood is Executive Director of Public Programmes and Audiences at the British Film Institute. Having worked in the independent British film industry for over 25 years, he is also a filmmaker, whose last work, the co-directed Always (Crashing) screened at numerous international festivals. A contributor to The Wire, Wood has also written for The Economist, Time Out, Sight and Sound, Little White Lies (and others), Wood is also the author of several books, including Nick Broomfield (2005) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Mexican Cinema (2nd edition, 2021).

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Notes on contributors

Introduction
Kirsty Fairclough and Jason Wood
1 The boy can't help it: Little Richard's disruption and re-construction of black male screen performativity
Tom Attah
2 There Always Gonna Be Queens on The Rag: Madonna and Queer Intertextuality
Sarah Perks
3 Prince's Fashion During the Batman Era: Symbols, Silhouettes, and the Return of Purple
Karen Turman
4 Meet the Long-Lost Phillip Jefferies': The Elusive Cinema of David Bowie
James King
5 Where the popular meets the esoteric: Videodrome and Holy Motors
Ellen Smith
6 Translating Personas: French Singers on Film
Andrew Willis
7 Adam Ant, John Lydon, Jordan: Punk Stars on Film
Rachel Hayward
8 From the Street to the Dancefloor: Political Imaginings of the Pop Star in Popular Indian Cinema
Omar Ahmed
9 ...singing "Trouble of the World" in Imitation of Life
Benjamin Halligan
10 Cinema, Jazz, and Representation
Daniel Graham
11 Ryuichi Sakamoto: Behind the Mask
Jason Wood
12 Reframing Time and Space in Dogs in Space
Kristy Matheson