Hollywood Dreaming: Satires of Hollywood 1930-2003
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HOLLYWOOD DREAMING: SATIRES OF HOLLYWOOD 1930-2003 Thesis submitted by Greg Jericho, B.Ec. (Hons) Flinders, Grad. Dip. Arts (Distinction) James Cook in October 2004 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities Faculty of Arts, Education and Social Sciences James Cook University For Lara ii STATEMENT OF ACCESS I, the undersigned, the author of this thesis, understand that James Cook University will make it available for use within the University Library and, via the Australian Digital Theses network, for use elsewhere. I understand that, as an unpublished work, a thesis has significant protection under the Copyright Act. All users consulting this thesis will have to sign the following statement: In consulting this thesis, I agree not to copy or closely paraphrase it in whole or in part without the written consent of the author; and to make proper public written acknowledgment for any assistance which I have obtained from it. Beyond this, I do not place any restriction on access to this thesis ……………………………… …………………. Greg Jericho Date iii ABSTRACT This thesis examines film and literary satires of Hollywood 1930 – 2003 and asserts that such satires are attacks on the Hollywood Dream. The study reveals that these satires focus on two common themes: the artificiality of Hollywood, and the amoral and corruptive nature of Hollywood. The study examines the depiction of the Hollywood Dream within satires of the industry and demonstrates its increasing importance in American culture. The similarity of themes in film and literary satires highlights an interesting dialogue between the two modes which has not been thoroughly investigated. Although satirists’ approaches towards the artificiality of Hollywood vary greatly, the most significant treatment of the theme in both literary and film satires is one which gains much understanding through use of Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra and simulation. My examination also investigates the tendency of characters within satires of Hollywood to discard previous identities and create in their place a Hollywood identity. Such an identity is linked to the artificiality of Hollywood and is displayed by satirists as a prerequisite for one wishing to achieve the Hollywood Dream. While there have been numerous studies on novels on the Hollywood industry and its films, this study is unique in examining both literary and film satires of Hollywood together, and covering such an extended period of time. It hopes to show that satires of Hollywood have reached a critical juncture. The satire of many recent works has become moribund due to the public’s awareness of and apathetic attitude towards the amorality and hypocrisy of Hollywood, and because these satires fail to acknowledge the intrinsic artificiality of Hollywood. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Stephen Tore and Professor Peter Pierce, for their time, constant encouragement and advice. They conscientiously read my draft manuscripts and made numerous editorial suggestions to help sharpen my thesis argument. Their friendship and support over the past five years has been invaluable, and it must be said that were it not for their guidance this thesis would not have been written. I would also like to thank Dr Richard Lansdown, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, James Cook University (JCU), Cairns. His advice in the early stages of my research was invaluable in the choosing of my area of research. I also wish to thank the faculty and postgraduate students of the JCU School of Humanities for their advice and comments following my exit seminar, which helped me clarify some aspects of the structure and argument of the thesis. I am also grateful to JCU for the completion scholarship grant which considerably eased the financial burden during the final stages of the research. Finally, my greatest thanks go to my wife Gaynor. She helped proof read the manuscript, and without her love, encouragement and reassurance not only would this thesis not have been written, it would not have even been attempted. v CONTENTS Statement of Access iii Abstract iv Acknowledgments v Statement of sources vii Introduction 1 1. All that Glisters is not Gold: Satires of the Golden Years of Hollywood 17 1.1 Hollywood as Hell: The Day of the Locust and Barton Fink 20 1.2 F. Scott Fitzgerald and Budd Schulberg 40 2. The Stuff that Dreams are Made of: The Hollywood Identity and Crime Fiction in Hollywood 63 2.1 The Conscious Identity: The Little Sister 65 2.2 The Subconscious Identity: Get Shorty 88 2.3 The Complete Identity: The Player 97 3. Hollywood Simulacra 110 3.1 Myra Breckinridge and Myron 121 3.2 Sunset Blvd 132 3.3 The Truman Show 141 3.4 Mulholland Dr. 160 4. Intertextual Hollywood: Parody, Pastiche and Satire 175 4.1 Intertextual Parody: Spoofs 184 4.2 Intertextual Satire: Robert Altman’s The Player 195 4.3 The Simpsons 207 5. Everything Old is New Again: Recent Satires of Hollywood 229 5.1 S1m0ne and Hollywood Cemetery 231 5.2 Corrupt Artists: On Spec, Bowfinger, The Big Picture 243 5.3 I’m Losing You, Still Holding 249 5.4 Corrupt but Nice: State and Main 260 Conclusion 271 Films Cited 276 Works Cited 290 Works Consulted 307 vi STATEMENT OF SOURCES DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university or other institution of tertiary education. Information derived from the published or unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and a list of references is given. …………………………….. ……………….. Greg Jericho Date vii Introduction In 1925, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz sent his friend Ben Hecht a telegram from Hollywood: “Millions are to be made out here, your only competition is idiots. Don’t let this get around” (qtd in Hecht 466). Hecht might have kept the news to himself, however he was but one of many writers who went to Hollywood. Mankiewicz’s advice underscores the reason artists and others came (and still come) to Hollywood – the prospect of easy money. As Hecht was to write in his memoirs, his scripts for movies brought him “huge sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle”(467). Despite this, his memories of his time in Hollywood are bitter, and he states that there has only been “one basic plot” in any Hollywood film, “the triumph of virtue and the overthrow of wickedness”(468). Hecht’s opinion is similar to that of many artists who went to Hollywood. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, William Faulkner, Aldous Huxley, Raymond Chandler and others came to Hollywood for the easy money, but found the experience to be hollow. These early satirists of Hollywood saw no art in movies, and no virtue in the moviemaking industry. As Chandler commented: “If you go to Hollywood just to make money, you have to be pretty cynical about it. And if you really believe in the art of the film, it’s a long term job and you ought to forget all about any other kind of writing” (Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler 298). Regardless of how successful their time in Hollywood was, many of these writers did record their experiences in the American Babylon, in memoirs such as Hecht’s, or in satirical novels as did West, Fitzgerald and Chandler. It is a pattern which has repeated itself for seventy years. The greatest change over that time has been that those who now satirise Hollywood believe film is an artistic medium; many such as David Lynch, David Mamet and Robert Altman in fact are primarily 1 filmmakers. Despite the change in outlook, the satires of Hollywood from 1930 to 2003 reveal a number of similar themes. First among these is the artificiality of Hollywood, and second its hypocrisy. Its artificiality stems from the fact that since its beginnings, Hollywood has been a place where ‘image is everything’, and satirists detail the extent to which the artificiality of Hollywood infects the psyche of those within the industry, and those who would be a part of it. This artificiality does not suggest that Hollywood is an imaginary place, but rather because artifice is central to the filmmaking industry, Hollywood is viewed as a place where the artificial is superior to the real. Thus satires of Hollywood focus on how the artifice of film bleeds into the lives of those within, and on the fringes of, the industry. To this end, satirists, for example, not only depict filmsets but also the houses in Hollywood as artificial – fake Tudor style cottages, or faux Japanese temples. Similarly, not only do satirists portray the emotions and words of actors on screen as artificial, but they also depict the words, emotions and even appearances of people as mere examples of artifice. The hypocrisy arises from Hecht’s view of the industry’s product: Hollywood films often exalt the supremacy of virtue, yet, in the view of satirists, the industry itself is mired in amorality and corruption. Underlying both these themes is the very issue which brought the artists of the 1930s to Hollywood: the pursuit of the Hollywood Dream of easy money and fame recurs throughout all satires of Hollywood. This pursuit is linked to Hollywood’s artificiality and hypocrisy, and its presence in these works over the past seventy years highlights the Hollywood Dream’s increasing importance within American culture, and to this end, my study will examine how the Hollywood Dream has subverted the traditional American Dream. 2 The theme of the American Dream in Hollywood has been examined before. Carolyn See analysed it in her unpublished thesis, “The Hollywood Novel: An Historical and Critical Study” (1963), and her article “The Hollywood Novel: The American Dream Cheat” (1968) asserts that “artificiality is perhaps the most pervasive device [in Hollywood novels], and points to a dominant theme: that the whole American world is a cheat, that there is something wrong with the dream”(201).