| This is an era governed by signs, which includes the governing of signs of movie and teleplay star idols. In the world of signs, stars are symbolized. Each star idol serves as a significant symbol in the eyes of audience.Star signs consist of an important sector of cultural context of daily life, thinking, artistic imagination and social criticism of the modern world. The sneers which our learned circle show specially at the stars in their chatting and writing indicates that it is the star phenomenon and star culture that have broken the tranquility of our beloved scholars. As star phenomenon and star culture are with us like air, we cannot help settling down our mind and think about them instead of turning a deaf ear to them or criticizing them emotionally."Going after stars" is a fashion of our current society. The media goes after stars. The movie producers, directors go after them and so do the fans. All media, ranging from newspapers, magazines to TVs and internet, have special sections, columns, programs and windows for stars, which can be classified as the media's going after stars. The producers and directors go after stars by advertising their movies with stars. And the fans' going after stars is shown in the fact that they step with enthusiasm into cinemas only when their star idols are on the screen. The media, producers and directors go after stars because the latter have sign value in terms of tuning rate and box hit. Fans go after stars just for the latter's symbolic significance, that is, they can have some kind of enlightenment of life and have imagined satisfaction realized. In a word, watching stars, chatting about stars, reading about stars, writing about stars, chasing stars and even cursing stars has become an indispensable ingredient of every day life for the public. Without these activities, many fans would feel a kind of vacancy not only in their every day life but also in the meaning of lifeAlthough one should not make the conclusion that there are not any stars without star system, commercialized stars are indeed the products of star system as a commercial device. Star system is closely related with the development of movie and teleplay commercialization. Chinese movie and Teleplay industry, as long as it intends to take the road of commercialization, cannot refusestar system, but has its own circle of stars. To cultivate markets for Chinese commercial movies and teleplays, one should not hurt the passion of fans, especially the passion of young audience, which they hold to their stars. Chinese football clubs cannot develop without the support of the large number of football fans and neither do the Chinese commercial movies without the backing of the fans. Therefore, for the advocating, development and prosperity of Chinese commercial movies and teleplays, the significance of stars, fans and idol worship should be affirmed.This paper attempts to present the author's own interpretation of semioiogy on movie and teleplay stars under the general conception of stars. People usually tend to define stars from the commercial perspective, and regard them as actors and actresses of great box hit. This paper, interprets stars from another perspective, that is, semioiogy, holding the idea that stars are a combination of practical individuals(objects) and the symbolic meaning attached(signified), and that stars are symbolic signs as well as idol signs. As a sign, the structure of the star falls into the triangle relationship of Peircean semiotics (representamen, object and interpretant). Saussurean semioiogy of signifier and signified, which is binary antagonistic relationship, cannot explain the symbolized stars. The difference between stars and ordinary actors lies in that the star consists of a trinity symbolic triangle relationship of signifier, object(star himself) and the signified(sign), that is, the Peircean semiotic structure while the ordinary actor, as his sign value is not yet confirmed, is only a binary antagonistic structure of signifier and object(the actor himself), that is, Saurrsurean semioiogy structure. In accordance with the triangle sign structure, the value structure of stars is also a triangle relationship — exchange value, applied value and sign value. The aims of research on the semioiogy of movie and teleplay stars are to explore the symbolic significance, find out its types, understand the generative mechanism of sign value, and furthermore, to confirm and positively analyze the sign meaning of individual stars. By the way, the generative mechanism comes from the successful play of a particular type of role in a movie or in a series of movies(embodying a cultural concept) and also from the character stereotype constructed by text material of the star outside the screen. The approach of this paper also goes deep into the symbolization development of stars and its mechanism, such as star advertisements, star biographies, star anecdotes and star beautification. Each era has its own movie masterpieces and also has its own stars. The stars of a particular era are the spiritual representatives of the era. Furthermore, the stars of an era embed themselves in the field of fans' every day life both linguistically and practically, and construct the meaning of fans' daily life. The mass of fans worship stars, and find some spiritual sustenance on them, which itself can be considered as a positive attempt of constructing the meaning of life for the fans. In the eyes of our traditional elite intellectuals, fans' going after stars means the loss of ego and the loss of the meaning of life. However, as far as the author of this paper is concerned, it is fans' pursuit and confirmation of their ego and the meaning of life. The so-called elite intellectuals are used toregarding themselves as spiritual instructors, and think that they are the only qualified ones, which turns out actually to be their arrogant or self-abased narcissism. The people have the right to choose their own spiritual instructors, for instance, choosing the great comedian "Nonsense Talker" Stephen Chow, or even choosing themselves. Because of this, we may safely conclude that the star family, with the changes of history, shows a red line along which the symbolic meaning changes. The line, being able to signify on the second level of signifier, in turn, exposes the historic track of people's psychological change and their experiences of the meaning of daily life. In a word, the author's research aims at the understanding of social life, the understanding of the world, and the understanding of us human beings, although stars are studied on the surface.The paper is divided into six chapter and a conclusion, the anterior three chapters of which is a research of the common features while the after three chapters deals with different characteristics in different historical eras.The first chapter, entitled Exploration into the Semiology Research of Chinese Movie and Teleplay Stars, explains the meaning of this topic, serving as an introduction of the whole paper. The author, although he knows his talent is slight and his scholarship is superficial and incapable of constructing a scientific system of star semiology research, is willing to try his best to include stars whom the traditional elite intellectuals consider as low-brow phenomenon into his research, open a window of semiology research, and find out a difficult yet passable passage towards the analysis of the current meaning of stars and star worship, that is, the worldly mythology in the era of a media-controlled, or visual media-controlled society. By "exploration", the author does not boast of his great and unique insight, but only a taste of adventures or a try of the path. Although it is almost impossible to find any systemic research achievements on stars and star sign meaning from our previous scholars, there are still some fragmentary research materials left, which have hardly attracted our attention. So, the author in this chapter gives an explanation when and why people started the research of Chinese stars and semiology research of stars, and the practical significance of the research. At the same time, the author also offers a detailed categorical introduction of research achievements of both Chinese and western scholars, and puts forward his design and hypothesis of the relevant research, trying his best to lay a realistic and theoretic foundation for the research. The second chapter entitled The Semiology Definition of Movie and Teleplay Stars focuses upon the author's basic ideas and understanding of stars from the perspective of semiology. In his opinion, "Stars" is studied as a concept and it exists. It is symbolic of a conception — a commercial movie conception, an entertainment movie conception and a current cultural consuming conception. When people associate "the stars" with those signs as "movie artists", "movie actors", "movie celebrity", its unique significance is revealed in front of us. When used and understood as "the movie star", it is not a meaningless signifier, but a sign full of meaning. As a matter of fact, a sign, only when it is not accepted andunderstood by people , is a vacant signifier, but turns a sign full of significance once it is accepted and understood. In the author's opinion, "the star", as a sign, is not an ordinary sign, but a special symbolic sign; it is not an abstract language symbol, but a concrete image symbol; it is not an ordinary image symbol, but an idol symbol that belongs to people. The author includes symbols into the category of signs with a challenging air, which is obviously anti-Saurrsurean. Moreover, the author is not only satisfied, as Peirce, to keep the name of "symbol of sign" but neglect the meaning behind it. After great thinkers like Bacon and Nietzsche voiced their strong criticism against idols and declared "the sun-set of idols", the author rediscovers "the idols", not in order to turn over the history, but to follow the cultural trend of the public consumption by remoulding "the smashed idol", which is nothing but a symbol of an image of god and people which people pursue in their life. The death of a traditional idol on one hand and the birth of a new one on the other measure the tide of public life. Undoubtedly, everybody has in his heart one or several idols, by which to set the direction, goal, ambition and realm of his own life. The only difference is that one may be crazier, or more open than the other, and some people's idols remain unchanged while the others' keep changing. No matter what, the idol in one's heart never collapses because once it does, the life has no direction and become aimless. Then some people will feel a spiritual vacancy and meaninglessness of life, and even turn to death. People mainly consume the sign value of stars, but not their use value when consuming them as goods. In a another word, audience, young audience in particular, although they are interested in stars' acting, pay more attention to the meaning of life idol based upon the character constructed by all the text signs of the stars. Chapter Three analyzes "The Semiology Engineering" of how stars are affirmed and produced, which includes those text signs, such as famous directors and movies, rate of screen appearance, rate of being shown, index of popularity, pay of acting and attending parties, box appeal, top-ten list, etc. Stars are produced by the combination of all those signs. Chapte Four "1920—40: Age of Rebellion" explores the commercialized development of early Chinese movies influenced by Hollywood and the adopted strategies of movie type and star system, intending to find out a traditional link for the transition of modern Chinese movie industry, based upon which the author outlines a star family of early movies and, taking two stars Yuan Lingyun and Hu Die as individual cases, analyzes the sign value of "rebellion", one common feature of the early stars. Chapter Five "1950—1970: Age of Holy Heroes" straightens out the developing tracks of Chinese movies of three areas-—Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and set up star families of the areas. The author also analyzes the sign value of "holy hero" of individual star characteristics, and individual cases of two stars Wang Xingang and Bruce Lee are studied. Chapter Six "1980—Early New Century: from the Commoner Hero to Commoner Age" offers an outline of a history of the gradual industrialization Mainland movies after the Chinese open and reform policy, and points out that the movies of the three areas are on the wav towards reunification.The author designs the star family of this period and analyzes the transition of the stars from commoner heroes to commoner signs,and the changes of hero narration of the public society. Individual cases of stars such as Liu Xiaoqing, Jackie Chan, Ge You and Stephen Chow are studied for their sign value. Conclusion "One new conception: star semiology" sums up the topic of this paper with one conception, namely "star semiology", tracks down several origins of theory on the presentation of "star semiology", and interprets a few sign meanings of movie and teleplay stars.The author does not follow a pure metaphysical speculation. Nor does he fall into a mere concrete illustration. The paper, not in the least an empty explanation or a fantasy, includes theory, analysis in illustrations and merges opinions with practical approving. Therefore, it is a combination of theoretical thinking and practical illustration, that is, a kind of moderate type of theory.The paper tries to make a break-through in different layers and different aspects, and has quite a few unique ideas. Some of the contents in the paper have been published in journals and reprinted by authentic journals, which proves that the author's ideas are taken seriously and affirmed by the learned world. It also confirms from one perspective the practical significance and academic creativeness of the research.
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