“Hollywood” Hulk Hogan: Stardom, Synergy, and Field Migration

• In Event: Thoroughly Mixed Bag: Consumption, Culture, and Celebrity

Abstract

During the late 1980s, World Wrestling Federation “superstar” Hulk Hogan embarked on a career as a Hollywood movie star. Based on archived trade press and related paratexts, this paper identifies key tensions in the wrestler’s star image during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and reflects on the difficulties celebrities face when attempting to transition from one (sub)field to another. The paper builds on recent examinations of “celebrity migration” between fields (Arthurs and Shaw, 2016; Driessens, 2012; Giles, 2015), but suggest that hitherto much of the scholarly discussion has focused on celebrities’ attempts to move from the media sub-fields to the field of politics or “high” culture fields. This paper is keen to develop this approach in relation to migration between sub-fields within the wider media field. Processes of synergy, the paper ultimately proposes, can be described as a streamlining of migration between networked industries.

Author

• Benjamin Litherland, U of Huddersfield