Hollywood

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/11/2021
  

  How to Think About Classic Hollywood’s “Problematic” Movies

  by Richard Brody

  Critic Richard Brody asks whether efforts to put problematic Hollywood movies into context is adequate; there is a systematic lack of attention to characters of color in classic Hollywood that is much tougher to fix. 

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• SOURCE: Bright Lights Film Journal
  2/23/2021
  

  A Star Is Shorn: Thanks to Woefully Underinformed Campus Activists, Acting Legend, Badger Alum, and Civil Rights Champion Fredric March Is Suddenly “Off Wisconsin”

  by George Gonis

  In 2018, the University of Wisconsin stripped actor Fredric March's name from a campus theater because of his brief affiliation in 1919 with a campus society called the Honorary Ku Klux Klan. The author argues that this misconstrues the nature of the society, which was not affiliated with the "Invisible Empire" KKK, and erases March's steadfast support for civil rights and opposition to Nazism.

• 
• SOURCE: Medium
  12/9/2020
  

  The Other ‘Mank’: Joe Mankiewicz and the Wildest Night in Hollywood History

  by Greg Mitchell

  The Netflix film "Mank" provides an opportunity to remember the civil liberties stand taken by Frank Mankiewicz's brother Joe, who opposed the imposition of loyalty oaths on the Directors' Guild at the height of the postwar red scare. 

• 
• SOURCE: USA Today
  12/5/2020
  

  Historians Fact-Check 'Mank': Who Really Wrote 'Citizen Kane?' And Does 'Rosebud' Have A Hidden Meaning?

  Film historians suggest the new Netflix drama overstates Frank Mankiewicz's influence over the final form of "Citizen Kane" and takes some other liberties with the facts. 

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• SOURCE: KERA
  9/14/2020
  

  Hollywood’s Colorblind Illusion (audio)

  American Studies professor Justin Gomer, author of "White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights" discusses the political impact of Hollywood's treatment of race. 

• 
• 9/13/2020
  

  Native Actors Outside the Frame

  by Liza Black

  Liza Black's new book traces the lives of prominent and anonymous Native actors, examinng the way that Hollywood films exploited their labor and images while spinning narratives that justified the historical conquest of Native lands.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  8/6/2020
  

  'And The World Went Crazy': How Hollywood Changed After Hiroshima

  Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s wrestled with the idea of a planet without humanity. After "Dr. Strangelove" satirized any effort to treat nuclear war seriously on the big screen, Hollywood viewed the bomb through schlock and horror, until the 1980s revival of sentiment for disarmament and "The Day After."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/12/2020
  

  In Netflix’s ‘Hollywood,’ One Movie Fixes Racism. Hooray!

  Ryan Murphy’s revisionist series is laughably self-satisfied and willfully naïve about complex real-world problems. I also kind of enjoyed it.

• 
• 8/11/19
  

  The Cultural History Behind Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

  by David L. O'Connor

  Like most folktales, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is filled with interesting characters, events, and messages from a bygone era.  

• 
• 4/14/19
  

  When Women Ran Hollywood

  by Juliette Fay

  Their names may no longer be widely recognizable, but women built and ran early Hollywood, shaped the industry in myriad ways, and influenced what we see on the silver screen even today.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/5/19
  

  Lois Weber, Hollywood's Forgotten Early Pioneer, Has 2 Films Restored

  As Hollywood continues to struggle with the underrepresentation of women behind the camera, most people have forgotten that 100 years ago, one woman ruled.

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  3-10-18
  

  In Winston Churchill, Hollywood rewards a mass murderer

  by Shashi Tharoor

  Words, in the end, are all that Churchill admirers can point to. His actions are another matter altogether.

• 
• SOURCE: WSJ
  12-28-17
  

  The Lies of ‘The Crown’ and ‘The Post’

  by Peggy Noonan

  When people get history from entertainment, Hollywood’s obligation to the truth is heightened.

• 
• SOURCE: The Daily Beast
  10-15-17
  

  The Casting Couch Perverts Who Peddled Fairy Tales

  by Gil Troy

  Hollywood always has, still is, and likely will be full of predators. But two of the most prolific were also two men who dramatically changed the industry.

• 
• 6-4-17
  

  One of Hollywood’s Leading Directors Made a Documentary about a WW2 Fighter Aircraft. But the Air Force Refused to Release It.

  by Robert Huddleston

  This is the backstory.

• 
• 1-17-17
  

  Artists Haven’t Been This Outraged by a President Since LBJ

  by Robert Cohen  

  They’re furious with Trump and showing it.

• 
• 2-19-17
  

  The Decline of the American Empire – And Hollywood’s

  by Dennis Broe

  The reason the old Hollywood spectaculars declined.

• 
• 7-29-16
  

  Review of Brian J. Snee's "Lincoln Before Lincoln: Early Cinematic Adaptations of the Life of America’s Greatest President "

  by Ron Briley

  There's Spielberg's Lincoln and then there's all the rest.  His featured the Great Emancipator.  The others mostly focused on Lincoln's role as the savior of the Union.

• 
• 3-3-16
  

  Pop Culture Roundup: This Week

  This week ... Samantha Bee on Black History Month, CNN series on past campaigns, Clarence Thomas movie, documentary about the last man on the moon, and more. 

• 
• 2-24-16
  

  Pop Culture Roundup: This Week

  This week ... Spielberg, Van Gogh, Trumbo, the movie "Race" and more.