In popular culture. 1  The first biography of Lorraine, Lillian Lorraine: The Life and Times of a Ziegfeld Diva by Nils Hanson was published in October 2011 by McFarland Press. 2  Lorraine was portrayed by Valerie Perrine in the 1978 film, Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women (Columbia Pictures).
Ideal type. Written By: Ideal type, a common mental construct in the social sciences derived from observable reality although not conforming to it in detail because of deliberate simplification and exaggeration. It is not ideal in the sense that it is excellent, nor is it an average; it is, rather, a constructed ideal used to approximate reality by selecting and accentuating certain elements. 1  The concept of the ideal type was developed by German sociologist Max Weber, who used it as an analytic tool for his historical studies.
An ideal type is not a particular person or thing that exists in the world, but an extreme form of a concept used by sociologists in theories. For example, although there is not a perfectly modern society, the term modern is used as an ideal type in certain theories to make large-scale points. A form of leadership in which the authority of an organization or a ruling regime is largely tied to legal rationality, legal legitimacy and bureaucracy.