Hollywood

In two weeks, we'll either be looked at as the smartest people in Hollywood, or we'll never work again. > To never working again. Haven't logged (or watched, for that matter) a thing in a while and I had the whole day to do nothing, so instead of making a good choice and watching something I hadn't seen (or better yet doing anything productive), I decided to rewatch this horrific Ryan Murphy show I binged last year because I saw the Superman trailer (looks great!) and David Corenswet is in this. Nothing like doing fuck all and watching Darren Criss come out as Filipino. Hollywood is a miniseries that makes grand statements about the powers of art which I generally agree with, and is essentially an alternate history narrative that poses the question: what if a group of moral young creatives and veterans fed up with the system in Golden Age Hollywood changed the course of human history and sped up the fight for civil rights by centring diverse stories of women, people of colour and (eventually) queer folk long before the modern push for Hollywood diversity? Unfortunately, I just really do not care for Murphy's direction here and most of it ends up feeling like "We Solved Racism and Homophobia With Movies: The Series". The ending of the show is a bit of a sore spot for me because I think it is quite a good representation of how much representation can do for an audience who feels like they have no voice, but it's so heavy handed and honestly feels a little manipulative when they cut to an Asian family reaction to Anna May Wong's win or an effeminate Black man for Archie's win. I can't say I didn't feel a similar way seeing Everything Everywhere All At Once sweep the Oscars as an Asian man, and I don't really know how else they would've gone about it, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Camille has a line in the final episode where she says "Thank you, but I don't need you to fight my battles for me" to Jack and Claire as an obvious way to stave off the White Saviour narrative, but it's so funny to me that this is from a Ryan Murphy joint. Ryan Murphy has somewhat of a penchant for campiness (I mean, he's best known for Glee and American Horror Story), and this show leans into that but doesn't seem to fully commit. I think it's fine to toe the line but ultimately I feel the show struggled to find a consistent tone. This is kinda a struggle with Old Hollywood because I think audiences expect a certain campy flair, but the series is so serious in its subject matter that it just becomes really hard to balance things. The cast is generally great. Patti LuPone is a verifiable icon and I love that she got to chew so much scenery here. David Corenswet is very good and seems to be a star on the rise, Darren Criss is good, but really needs to find more TV and film work outside of Ryan Murphy stuff. He got an Emmy for Versace and is looking like a Tony frontrunner for Maybe Happy Ending, but I feel like I've been expecting more from him for a long while now. Similar sentiments for Jeremy Pope, who's film adaptation of The Collaboration (the Broadway play where he starred as Basquiat alongside Paul Bettany's Warhol) seems like it's been "in the works" for ages. Laura Harrier has a lot on her shoulders for this, and while I think she has a few stumbles (honestly, her Peg audition tape felt underwhelming) she really pulls it together by the end with a highlight scene playing Meg on the Hollywoodland sign. Samara Weaving, Jake Picking and Holland Taylor are all good. Joe Mantello feels like a highlight to me, he's probably one of the most interesting characters in the show. Dylan McDermott is relentlessly charming and is also a big highlight. Jim Parsons. I think he's a good actor. Henry Willson on the other hand is just kinda annoying, but in a way that isn't "I love to hate you, what a well written complex character" and more "please get off my screen before I pick up the remote and scrub to the next scene". I get it. He's meant to be the representative of Hollywood's seedy underbelly, of sexual exploitation, of mobsters and actors giving favours of any kind, but it's so weird that he seems to be one of two whole people with any pull at Ace Studios who is a pretty clear cut bad person (alongside Ace himself, who has a brief moment of moral clarity before literally dying anyway). Are you telling me he's the only morally reprehensible guy in all of Hollywood? And then they give him a moment of redemption at the end? He hasn't earned any of it, and while he's not exactly had a good time in Hollywood as a closeted man who feels the need to lock everything behind closed doors, he's also a man who quite literally abuses his clients for sexual favours. This is not a character you give even a sliver of moral redemption to. This is also quite literally a real person who was known for doing these things (though apparently in a more reciprocal manner from what I've read)! Weird weird ending for him. This is a show that needed a creative team with teeth and it felt like they didn't have it. It's an interesting and fun concept that ultimately ends up feeling too cheesy and unsatisfying. This is no matter of "realism" (and I know there's been plenty of criticism of the artistic licence on some of the realities of Hollywood at the time), as the very concept throws it out the door, but the story feels too "polished" to be very interesting. The show brings up these complex topics of racism, homophobia, sexism, sexual abuse and exploitation and they're all defeated in such a seamless way that it feels like the show is still based on the elevator pitch. Hollywood wants you to think it's characters are complicated, interesting and morally flawed, but they all feel hollow at their core and are very poorly handled. Jack is a serial cheater and a World War II veteran but doesn't feel like it at all. Maude Apatow's character is handled even worse. She understandably gets mad at Jack cheating on her, but then turns around and reveals that she thought he knew that SHE also cheated and is pregnant with someone else's children. It honestly feels like Murphy and Co. forgot she existed half the time. This is the White Liberal's idea of cultural revolution. A show from Glee's own (DEROGATORY) Ryan Murphy that poses the incredibly compelling questions of "Why didn't gay people in the 40s simply just stop being cowards and come out the closet so that a sexual abuser played by Sheldon Cooper could get the first gay film greenlit?" and "What if Black creatives in the 40s simply just stopped being lazy and made a big Hollywood movie starring and written by Black people so that they could stop institutional racism with the power of art?", but in a way that is apparently supposed to make you want to say "wow, what a brave and morally admirable television show". Hollywood is gutless, toothless, spineless self-fellating slop that's ultimately more concerned with aesthetics than anything. I can't believe I put myself through this AGAIN. This is my favourite miniseries ever.