Hollywood: The Dream Factory An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie Makers docx

Powdermaker Web Page Hortense Powdermaker Hollywood: The Dream Factory An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie Makers London : Secker & Warburg, 1951 Page 1 HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 1 of 233 Hollywood: The Dream Factory Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1 - Habitat and People, Mythical and Real Chapter 2 - Mass Production of Dream Chapter 3 - Taboos Chapter 4 - Front Office Chapter 5 -Men Who Play God Chapter 6 - Lesser Gods, but Colossal Chapter 7 -The Scribes Chapter 8 - Assembling the Script Chapter 9 - The Answers Chapter 10 - Directors Chapter 11 - Acting, in Hollywood Chapter 12 - Stars Chapter 13 - Actors are People Chapter 14 - Emerging from Magic Chapter 15 - Hollywood and the U.S.A. Index HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 2 of 233 page 124 A Review of Hollywood-The Dream Factory: An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie- Makers. By Hortense Powdermaker. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1950. 342 pp. $3.50. "Hollywood as 'Dream Factory' just Nightmare to Femme Anthropologist"-so runs the headline over the Variety review of this book. The Variety reviewer, Herb Golden, goes on to call it a "dull and tedious tome," remarks that it gets "downright silly" at times, and says that 11 Most of it could have been put together by any hep Hollywood correspondent in two weeks." He dismisses the author as naive and the book as a gimmick. Mr. Golden, no dope, has hit the nail squarely on the head. The gimmick, of course, is anthropology and the anthropological method. The notion, for some time suspect, that previous investigation of a primitive tribe uniquely qualifies a person to study a sophisticated society, or any part of it, is now revealed to be absurd. The anthropological method here consists of little more than a series of inane analogies. Item: The Stone Age Melanesians of the Southwest Pacific have a taboo on sex relations before a fishing expedition. For the same reason Hollywood has a taboo on indicating in a movie that a marriage has been consummated. Observance of the taboo insures against hostile forces interfering with the "catch." Item: Power has its perquisites. The aboriginal Australian has his choice of women and food. The Hollywood executive gets money. Item: It is impossible to discover the net profit on a picture because this figure is a closely-guarded Hollywood secret. The Melanesians also have their secrets. Item: South Sea island chiefs are sometimes chosen for reasons other than their ability. So are Hollywood executives. Item: Nepotism occurs fairly frequently in the film industry. Among, the Maori, too, kinship is important. Item: The relationship between producer and writer in Hollywood is like that of man and wife. In parts of Africa, however, "where the bride price, or lobolo, is customary, the bride has far more freedom and rights than the average Hollywood writer." Item: In Hollywood actors are portrayed as "passive creatures" and "spiritless zombies" who rarely register an emotion. This is an inversion of primitive animism. Item: Actors give autographed photographs to their fans. Among the primitives "hair combings and fingernail parings have an even deeper symbolic quality." Item: Primitives divine the future by examining the entrails of chickens or the gall bladders of pigs. In Hollywood polls are used for this purpose. All these, and more, the author reels off in dead-pan. Miss Powdermaker never refers to herself as "the writer," but always as "the anthropologist." It is "the anthropologist" who "sees any segment of society as part of a whole." It is "the anthropologist" who knows that in no society is there ever a complete break with the past. And it is "the anthropologist" who can predict that there will be new technological developments in film-making. HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 3 of 233 It is the anthropologist too who twice tries to use sociological concepts (symbiosis and in-group) and who twice comes a cropper with them. And it is the anthropologist who commits more solecisms than a college professor should. Miss Powdermaker never decides whether "data" is singular or plural-she is, in fact, quite impartial on this issue-and it would be impolite to count the number of times a singular subject is followed by a plural predicate. If the anthropologist has her fetishes, literary style does not seem to be among them. Many of the sentences are awkward ("The character actor could be described as a brassiere for the star, literally holding him or her up.") and some of them ("Advertising both uses and abuses man's basic need for love to sell its ware.") could use the services of a grammarian. When Miss Powdermaker stops pretending that she is an anthropologist and begins to express her personal opinions, her remarks assume some cogency. She sees, for example, that Hollywood represents an uneasy and unsuccessful compromise between business and art, she considers the Production Code to be more than a little ridiculous both in its inception and in its operation, and she believes that the movies are not nearly as good as they ought to be in view page 125 of the array of talent available in the film community. But these opinions are shared by all literate adults, including those who have never studied the Melanesians. Miss Powdermaker is morally outraged by the power structure of Hollywood. Creative artists, especially the actors and writers, are held in virtual slavery by "ignorant" executives who have no idea how to make a good movie and who lack the "Planning ability, acumen, and common sense of executives of other industries." jockeying for position in this system is also much too vicious for the author's taste. To regard it, as she does, as something which occurs only in the film industry, however, shows an unusual innocence of the facts of life. Has Miss Powdermaker never worked in a business office, a bank, a factory-or a university? We are told, finally, that Hollywood is a totalitarian community and has a totalitarian view of man. This proposition, if true, requires explanation. Shrill indictment is no substitute for measured analysis. If we ask whether Miss Powdermaker, on her one-year "expedition to Hollywood"-her expression, not ours-has managed to dredge up any new information we must again, and somewhat monotonously now, answer in the negative. Aside from some truncated case histories, which add interest if little significance to her enterprise, most of her information comes from the pages of Variety and the New York Times. These are her principal, and almost exclusive, sources. Whatever may be the merits of this book as journalism or as criticism, its publication is a disservice to American social science, and especially to anthropology. It will increase the suspicion of those who view anthropology as more of a cult than a science. And it will strengthen the, skepticism of those who view anthropologists themselves as people who use more magic than do the primitives they purport to study. Robert Bierstedt University of Illinois from the American Sociological Review, vol. 17. 1951 HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 4 of 233 page 382 REPLY TO BIERSTEDT'S REVIEW OF HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY To the Editor: Mr. Bierstedt's rather violent review of my Hollywood, The Dream Factory in the February 1951 American Sociological Review (pp. 124-125) is a phenomenon which evokes certain questions. Is it not rather unusual for a sociological reviewer to take both his cue and his general and specific points of view, even to quoting a headline and first paragraph, from a trade paper devoted to the interests of the industry which has been studied? The book is a critical analysis of the social system of Hollywood and certainly no one would expect an editor of Variety or any other entertainment trade paper to have either knowledge of, or interest in, the concept of social system as used by anthropologists and sociologists. Nor would one expect any trade paper to be particularly objective about a book which analyzed the power structure of its industry. Why was Mr. Bierstedt unable to understand-or perhaps the question should be rephrased, why did he not mention in his review the major premise of the book, namely, that the social system of Hollywood influences the nature of the movies it produces and the many implications developed from this premise.? The premise is clearly stated in the first paragraph of the Introduction and the implications discussed in every chapter. It would be possible to differ from the premise and its implications, or to think that the author had not given conclusive data on them. It seems to me that no serious sociological reviewer should have completely ignored both premise and implications. They were sufficiently clear to a large number of newspaper reviewers (outside of the trade papers) for their comment. Mr. Bierstedt likewise followed the contention of the Variety review that the author regards the power structure as unique to Hollywood and he says this "shows an unusual innocence of the facts of life." Mr. Bierstedt shows an unusual innocence of the facts in the book which he reviews. The Hollywood power structure is concerned primarily with the conflict between business and art, and in the first chapter is the following paragraph: The conflict between business and art in Hollywood is a reflection of the conflict within our culture, but is more sharply focused there than elsewhere. It is not inherent or necessary in the production of movies, but rather a point of view culturally determined and exaggerated there. (p. 29) In Chapter IV, "Front Office," the point is made: Among the crucial problems of modem democracy are those which center around power, as it functions in both economic and political areas of living. (p. 82) Comparisons are made with the power structure in other industries, in colleges, in the pre-Civil War South, as well as among the Australian aborigines. The last chapter, "Hollywood and the U.S.A." (pp. 307-332), is mainly devoted to showing that Hollywood and its power structure are not unique and an attempt was made to relate them to certain general trends in modem culture, one of which is the totalitarian view of man. Mr. Bierstedt says this requires an explanation. It certainly does, and can be found in considerable detail in the last chapter and running through the book. It is, however, not to be found in the Variety review. The reviewer again missed the point, which is made over and over again throughout the book, that the Hollywood power structure affects the content and quality of movies, while the power structure of the steel industry does not in HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 5 of 233 the same way affect the quality of steel. Furthermore, Mr. Bierstedt writes, "Most of her information comes from the pages of Variety and the New York Times. These are her principal, and almost exclusive, sources." This is likewise the contention of the Variety review with which Mr. Bierstedt is in such complete agreement. Now, it would, indeed, be remiss for any student of Hollywood and its product to ignore trade and any other papers which gave data concerning it, and it would page 383 be easy for either the Variety reviewer or Mr. Bierstedt to catch these references since they are all documented in footnotes. But, one would expect a sociological reviewer to also recognize the results of 900 interviews and other sources such as the files of the Motion Picture Production Association on the implementation of the Code of Production. (Chapter III, "Taboos," is based mainly on these files.) All these sources are described in a section on Method in the Introduction, including the types of Informants, how they were secured, and methods in interviewing. Does the reviewer not know that the anthropologist generalizes from the accumulated results of many interviews and then selects the most typical data as examples? Actually, a serious reviewer with a knowledge of sociological and anthropological field work methods might have made some interesting comments on differences in interview methods and interpretation of data. The rest of the review is mostly concerned with Mr. Bierstedt's objections to nine items, consisting of analogies with primitive peoples, taken from different parts of the book. It is likely that a reviewer could find, in almost any book, nine sentences or items to which he objects. It is Mr. Bierstedt's privilege not to like the particular sentences he quotes, and not to like anthropology in general. However, as a reviewer, it should have been his responsibility to have mentioned and discussed the major thesis of the book. This Mr. Bierstedt never does and none of the nine items has any connection with it. In view of all the above, it might be relevant to inquire whether it is not an effrontery for Mr. Bierstedt to talk so glibly in the name of "American social science"? Queens College HORTENSE POWDERMAKER American Sociological Review, vol. 16, 1951 HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 6 of 233 page i HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY HOLLYWOOD is a place of ritual, a place where the secrets of power are of magical significance, a place where superstition, sex and money mingle, where human values are distorted and sometimes lost. It is, in short, a part of that modern cultural continent we all inhabit, a place where in exaggerated form we can see our own communities. The readymade daydreams at the neighborhood movie do not spring from thin air they are made by the natives of Hollywood, and they in turn wield great power over us. What Dr. Powdermaker gives us is a reliable, sharp-eyed guide to that system of power. Here are some samples of her hard-hitting observations: "In Hollywood primitive magical thinking exists side by side with the most advanced technology." "Almost no one trusts anyone else, and the executives, particularly, trust no one, not even themselves." "Hollywood people seem more at home with the inanimate, with property which can be measured in dollars and which can be manipulated to increase itself human values have to struggle hard to exist at all." "Hollywood represents totalitarianism In Hollywood, the concept of man as a passive creature to be manipulated extends to those who work for the studios, to personal and social relationships, to the audiences in the theaters and to the characters in the movies." "Escape, per se, is neither good nor bad The real question is the quality of what one escapes into Hollywood provides ready-made fantasies or day dreams, and the problem is whether .these are productive or nonproductive, whether the audience is psychologically enriched or impoverished by them." page iii By HORTENSE POWDERMAKER A LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY EDITION GROSSET & DUNLAP page iv COPYRIGHT 1950, BY HORTENSE POWDERMAKER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK IN EXCESS OF FIVE HUNDRED WORDS MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 7 of 233 BY ARRANGEMENT WITH LITTLE , BROWN AND COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA page v TO DR. PAUL FEJOS page vi Acknowledgments AN ANTHROPOLOCIST incurs so many obligations in the field, and in the course of writing, that it is impossible to list all those to whom he is indebted. However, I do want to express my deep gratitude to the literally hundreds of people in Hollywood who so generously gave me of their time and interest, and without whose cooperation the field study could not have been made. Many scholars have contributed to my intellectual orientation, through personal contact or writings, or both. Among these, I should like to particularly mention the late Bronislaw Malinowski and Edward Sapir; Ralph Linton, Alfred Kroeber, Theodor Reik, Erich Fromm, and the late Harry Stack Sullivan. I am much indebted, likewise, to friends and colleagues in Los Angeles and New York for stimulating and helpful discussions and special thanks are due to Carl Withers, Geraldine Emily Smith, Paolo Milano and Ian Watt. The project was sponsored by the Viking Fund. I am exceedingly grateful to the Board of Directors for making it possible and for their generous support. The dedication to Dr. Paul Fejos does not adequately express my appreciation for his contributions of time and critical interest and for his unique qualities of insight. HORTENSE POWDERMAKER New York, 1950 page vii Contents Introduction: Why an Anthropologist Studied Hollywood 3 I Habitat and People, Mythical and Real 16 II Mass Production of Dreams 39 III Taboos 54 IV Front Office 82 HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 8 of 233 V Men Who Play God Ioo VI Lesser Gods, but Colossal III VII The Scribes 131 VIII Assembling the Script 150 IX The Answers 170 X Directors 185 XI Acting, in Hollywood 205 XII Stars 228 XIII Actors Are People 254 XIV Emerging from Magic 281 XV Hollywood and the U.S.A. 307 Index 333 page 1 HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie-Makers 3 I N T R 0 D U C T I 0 N Why an Anthropologist Studied Hollywood I SPENT A YEAR in Hollywood, from July 1946 to August 1947, a more normal year than those which followed. I went there to understand better the nature of our movies. My hypothesis was that the social system in which they are made significantly influences their content and meaning. A social system is a complex coordinated network of mutually adapted patterns and ideas which control or influence the activities of its members. My hypothesis is hardly original, although it has not been applied before to movies. All art, whether popular, folk or fine, is conditioned by its particular history and system of production. This is true for Pueblo Indian pottery, Renaissance painting, modern literature and jazz as well as for movies. These are a popular art concerned with telling a story. They differ from folk art in that while consumed by the folk, they are not made by HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 9 of 233 them; and they are unlike the fine arts, since they are never the creation of one person. But although movies are made by many people in the setting of a big industry, certain individuals have power to strongly influence them, while others are relatively powerless. My field techniques had some similarities to and some differences from those I had used on an island in the Southwest Pacific and elsewhere. As in other communities, I had to establish and maintain the same role: that of a detached scientist. While in Hollywood I was a part-time visiting professor of anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles, a useful local sanction for this role. More important, however, was the absence of any desire on my part to find a job in the movie industry or to become a part 4 of it. This was unique for anyone living in Hollywood for a year. Then, too, I had no ax to grind in a situation where everyone was very busy grinding his own; instead, I was trying to understand the complicated system in which they worked and lived. I saw people neither as villains nor heroes, but as playing certain roles in this system. I took the inhabitants in Hollywood and in the South Seas seriously, and this was pleasing to both. To me the handsome stars with their swimming-pool homes were no more glamorous than were the South Sea aborigines exotic. All, whether ex-cannibal chiefs, magicians, front-office executives, or directors, were human beings working and living in a certain way, which I was interested in analyzing. In Hollywood there were the great advantages of a well-documented history and of not having to learn a new language or work through an interpreter. The matter of a "sample" selection of people to study was more difficult. That problem had hardly existed in the South Seas, since there I lived in a village of about two hundred and fifty people and knew them all well. In Hollywood this was obviously impossible. I arrived there with a few letters of introduction, and during the first month I met everyone I could. Gradually I became better acquainted with key people who were helpful in making necessary contacts as well as giving me data. My sample was approximately three hundred people, and was representative of the various functional groups such as producers, writers, directors, actors and so on, and included the very successful, the medium successful and the unsuccessful. Since political opinions may influence attitudes, the sample also cut across left, right and center groups. It was not the ideal random sample of the statistician, which while theoretically perfect would have been impossible to use in this type of field work. Taking every nth name in a directory would simply not have worked. But I endeavored to make the sample as representative and as complete a picture of working relationships as possible. A producer would tell me how he worked with his writers, and this would be supplemented by interviews with five or six writers who had worked with him. A director would talk about his 5 relationships with actors; later I would interview a number of actors with whom he had worked. HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY - Hortense Powdermaker - Page 10 of 233 [...]... clearly not the end of the question All entertainment is education in some way, many times more effective than schools because of the appeal to the emotions rather than to the intellect "Precisely because they wear the warmth and color of the senses, the arts are probably the strongest and deepest of all educative forces." Any consistent patterning in the mass communications of human relations, of attitudes,... both the kiss-kiss and bang-bang movies, the roles are played with little emotional impact Only the exceptional movie conveys any deep emotion underlying either a love relationship or a murder Love is usually limited to an immediate infatuation, and murder is committed by automaton-like actors The importance of the motion picture in our society is not confined to the darkened cathedral-like theaters: movies... of the profound influence of the movies than members of these organized groups Their propaganda has two themes, both negative: (1) No member of their group must be portrayed in an unflattering manner, or as the "heavy." (2) No movie should emphasize drinking, delinquency, divorce, or immorality (on the premise that movies are the cause of these social ills, or at least of their frequency) The State... which both the annexes and the ways of meeting them leave their marks on the movies is seen in the more detailed discussions of writing, acting and directing in later chapters Frustrations and anxieties are not unique to Hollywood They occur in every industry and society, and each society provides its compensations too Among the latter, in Hollywood, are the satisfactions which accompany any creation,... exploitive and manipulative level, that production resembles in some ways a modern factory assembly line and is at the same time characterized by constant crises, and that there are many controls-among which are big business, big profits, big salaries, censorship, the star system, "what the audience wants," and the ever-present fear and anxiety All these leave their marks on the movies There is nothing... about and lived with the problems of the study, and I was constantly getting new ideas, reformulating hypotheses on the basis of new data, and clarifying ideas through discussion This is the background of any intensive research The data are not all of the same order A large part of the material is a factual account of the mores and the way they work An equally important part is concerned with attitudes... emotions and values just as advertising can and does promote anxieties to increase consumption, movies may increase certain emotional needs which can then only be satisfied by more movies In a time of change and conflict such as we experience today, movies and other mass communications emphasize and reinforce one set of values rather than another, present models for human relations through their portrayal... state of mind, and it exists wherever people connected with the movies live and work The studios are scattered over wide distances in Los Angeles, and are not particularly impressive-looking They combine a bungalow and factory in their appearance, and many give the feeling of being temporary The homes of movie people are found in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Westwood Village, the San Fernando Valley, the. .. relationship with directors; all these are interrelated with front-office executives, agents, publicity writers, and many others While each group recognizes the collaborative nature of the medium, and gives it frequent verbal obeisance, each thinks its own function the most important There is an obvious dependency of each group on the other, and at the same time a constant struggle for control and... to the assembly-line analogy So also does the breaking up of the writing of the script into many separate and seemingly disconnected elements One man adapts from the novel or play, another rewrites this adaptation in the form of a script, another supplies gags or comedy touches, still another adds some characterizations, and finally the dialogue is polished by several more All these work "under the . Hollywood: The Dream Factory An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie Makers London : Secker & Warburg, 1951 Page 1 HOLLYWOOD: DREAM FACTORY . 307 Index 333 page 1 HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie- Makers 3 I N T R 0 D U C T I 0 N Why an Anthropologist Studied Hollywood I