Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism
2011; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 37; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2161-430X
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoBook Reviews Frost, Jennifer. Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism. New York: New York University Press, 2011. 304 pp. $35. Hedda Hopper, a Hollywood gossip whose column ran in Los Angeles Times and dozens of other newspapers from 1938 to 1966, was famously unforgiving of celebrity adultery, a staunch supporter of Hollywood blacklist, and impatient with complaints about cinematic racism. An active Republican, she used her column to oppose intervention in World War II and to promote a jingoistic Americanism that had no room for films criticizing status quo. For decades, she and her cross-town rival, Hearst gossip columnist Louella Parsons, were Hollywood's guardian furies, in rhe words of playwright Arthur Miller. They were the police matrons planted at portals to keep out sinful, unpatriotic, and rebels against propriety. Jennifer Frost's new book draws on Hopper's columns, published letters from readers, and fan mail preserved in her papers at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to explore columnist's political views and her readers' response. Extant mail from Hopper's readers shaped content of this book more than events from Hopper's own life, although two together can tell us much about American popular and political culture, Frost writes. In contrast with traditional biographers, who try to explain an individual's entire life story, she identified with historians reimagining biographical form by seeing through life to larger historical contexts and processes. Through this approach, she used Hopper's career and correspondence to illustrate die political, racial, and social views of her time as well as cultural role of a Hollywood gossip columnist. Frost's extensive use of letters from readers to shed light on columnist's ideology and her relationship with her audience is most innovative aspect ofthe book. Quotations from fan letters are used to give voice to Hopper's audience, providing a perspective that is neglected or overlooked in most journalism biographies. The insight is useful, even if it only represents reaction ofthe small proportion of audience members who felt moved to write and whose letters Hopper or her staff felt moved to save. Frost acknowledges some limitations of this resource, but it would be helpful if she mentioned number of letters that were preserved in Hopper's papers and what proportion of her daily mail that they represented. Hopper's upbringing, work habits, and relationships - stuff of traditional biography - are briefly dispatched in book's introduction and first chapter. …
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