On-screen leadership models and beyond-the-screen celebrification processes in the Italian teen drama Mare fuori

This study explores the interplay between on-screen models of leadership and beyond-the-screen celebritization processes, focusing on the symbolic case-study of the Italian teen drama Mare fuori (The Sea Beyond), with the aim of understanding the typology of leaderships embodied by leading characters, and the different ways in which leadership deals with the ‘Four C’s model’, developed by Callahan and Grunberg in the field of military leadership and already effectively investigated from a gender perspective; the interconnectedness between celebrification and celebritization practices among teen drama actors, especially in relation to gender issues. The research shows that leadership models are deeply influenced by characters’ features (also in terms of gender, but especially concerning their socio-cultural and economic background), their development over the tale, the settings in which leadership takes shape. It also underlines the strong connection between the construction of leadership and the credibility-building process, in its three roots. The research highlights how on-screen models of leadership are intrinsically linked to the actors’ celebritization, as a meta-process that influences the celebrification of social behaviour in terms of the rise, democratisation and transmigration of celebrities across different media, as well as their potential to challenge traditional gender roles.