After premiering on Netflix, the mini-series Hollywood, created by Ryan Murphy, generated a fair amount of controversy. While given modest praise for its depiction of the racism and homophobia in old Hollywood, it was also criticized for being naïve and overly simplistic in its portrayal of how its characters deal with those problems. In The Atlantic, Shirley Li wrote that the series “treats such systemic issues as simply failures of imagination” and criticizes the way these issues are described towards the end of the series as “melt[ing] away.” Similarly, The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan wrote that by its end, the series “becomes a mere wish-fulfilment fantasy that, whether it intends to or not, suggests that if a few people had just been that bit braver, then movies – and therefore the world! — would be a glorious, egalitarian Eden.”
While there are parts of the series to criticize as these writers do, I do not think it can simply be written off as naïve wish-fulfillment fantasy. Through its contrast between the world it begins in, namely the status quo of post-war Hollywood, and the world it portrays by the end, Hollywood sends a political message about the power of collaboration between people from different backgrounds and marginalized groups. While the creators of the show frame the series as a statement about what could have been done in the past to change film history’s course, it is as much about that past as it is a statement about Hollywood’s present failings.
In the first few episodes, the series portrays Hollywood’s status quo of the time. The movie studio at the centre of the story, Ace Studios, is headed by a white man, Ace Amberg (Rob Reiner). He isn’t interested in changing the sexist and white supremacist tendencies of Hollywood film production and representation, since he fears “scandal” could affect profits. This system undervalues talented people who don’t fit Hollywood’s narrow view of whose stories are worth telling. Anna May Wong (Michelle Krusiec), one of the real-life characters in the series, tells one of the other characters, the mixed-race film director Raymond Ainsley (Darren Criss), about her struggle for good roles and the lack of recognition her talent receives. Camille Washington (Laura Harrier), as a Black woman, is relegated to playing bit parts as domestic workers, as was often the case for Black actresses of the time. Even when she does get a chance to audition for the title role in the film Peg, she and white actress Claire Wood (Samara Weaving) are in fierce competition with each other. Claire is initially chosen over Camille despite Camille’s superior audition, a portrayal of how Hollywood’s racism can favour white mediocrity over Black excellence.
Meanwhile, gay directors, executives — such as Dick Samuels (Joe Mantello), who works for Ace — agents, and actors hide their identities because of the danger of being out. They only seek relationships or connections at secret parties or other covert settings, such as the gas station run by Ernie West (Dylan McDermott), based on real world figure Scotty Bowers, where the code word “dreamland” gains one access to male prostitutes. These characters worry about being found out, and their secrecy leaves room for powerful men to take advantage of them. The agent Henry Wilson (Jim Parsons), focused on having power and money, molds Roy Fitzgerald into Rock Hudson (Jake Picking) and exploits the actor (as well as his other clients) for his own gain.
Despite this landscape of competition, exploitation, and racism, gradually things change as the characters shift from seeing each other as rivals for fame and money to working together in an attempt to change their industry. While, as Li notes, some of these changes comes from external influence and circumstances, such as how Avis Amberg (Patti LuPone) fully takes the reins of the studio only when Ace has a heart attack and goes into a coma, when the opportunities arise for the characters to do something different than what was typically done in Hollywood, they take those opportunities and run with them. The team behind the film recognizes that their industry needs to change, citing examples of racist films like Song of the South that are part of their current film landscape. The production hires Camille to play the lead role, changes the title from Peg to Meg, and transforms it from a simple story of a woman losing hope, to that of a Black woman who finds reason to keep going in the face of adversity.
The characters’ commitment to producing the film Meg is distinguished by teamwork between groups: a woman studio head (Avis), a Black gay screenwriter, Archie Coleman (Jeremy Pope), a mixed race director (Raymond), an interracial lead couple, Camille and Jack Costello (David Corenswet), and supporting actors that include Anna May Wong and gay actor Rock Hudson. Even Henry Wilson collaborates with the production in order to prevent scandal surrounding Jack’s past working at Ernie’s gas station that could thwart production. These characters, once competitors in the Hollywood system, choose to come together and create something that most of the other people around them would never attempt. Change happens when people work together.
There is also intergenerational support and collaboration portrayed through the way the executives and creatives of Meg span different generations and through specific relationships between other characters. Anna May Wong shares her experience of Hollywood with Raymond, which inspires him to make Hollywood a more diverse and accepting place; Raymond casts her in Meg to help her talent reach a greater audience in a new way. Hattie McDaniel (Queen Latifah) is also a mentor for Camille, sharing her experience with Hollywood’s racism and giving Camille advice about how to further what Hattie had hoped to start when she entered Hollywood and earned acclaim for her performance in Gone with the Wind. The younger members of the cast and crew personally offer Ernie a role in Meg, thanking him for supporting the film, the achievement of their goals helping him to also achieve his lifelong dream.
Audiences are familiar with portrayals of Hollywood that depict different generations at odds with each other, or older generations unwilling to challenge Hollywood’s often-competitive system to help younger people struggle less with the difficulties they faced when they themselves were young. Another familiar portrayal is that of the young actor who ruthlessly works to supersede the older generation. Through its various portrayals of relationships between people of different generations proving mutually beneficial, the series says that it is better for all when generations work together and support each other to try to change the system.
The characters face obstacles to getting their film made and exhibited, including disagreements within the creative team, but it is their choice to unite that gets them through those challenges. These decisions speak to problems that continue in Hollywood today. Meg’s production is threatened when racist protests erupt in Southern states over the interracial relationship depicted in the film and Camille’s lead role. Many theatres pull other Ace releases and threaten not to exhibit Meg, either. Boycotts of the film would harm the studio’s bottom line and the studio’s lawyer is against taking this risk. However, the other characters push against this, prioritizing the importance of their work challenging racist ideas over a single-minded pursuit of financial gain. Even if they have to make cuts to Meg’s budget and provide the actors lodging and security on the studio lot to protect them from violent racist protestors, it is more important to champion change than to give in to outside pressure and prejudice. Avis even celebrates the possibility of never working again because of her involvement in the film, and gambling on a wide release, because if they give in they cannot ever hope to change their industry. The financial motivation not to represent minorities for fear of loss of revenue in certain regions is one that continues to this day. Marvel’s casting Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange as a character previously depicted as Tibetan in order for the film to play in China, or Disney’s “gay characters” paying lip service to representation without actually representing minorities in a meaningful way for similar reasons are but two examples. Hollywood points out why this is a flawed approach to filmmaking and, through the series’ 1940s setting, demonstrates how backward it is. Any financial cost is not as great as the cost of backing down from pushing for better representation and support of diverse creatives.
When Meg’s production reaches points of conflict, the way the characters resolve these conflicts is in the spirit of collaboration. When Raymond makes changes to one of the film’s sets, which results in an increase to the budget, Dick Samuels is initially furious. But instead of firing Raymond, as often occurs in the context of profit-centred Hollywood filmmaking, he gives him a chance to find the money to cover his mistake. He still believes in Raymond and the value he brings to the production. In fact, only the studio’s lawyer gets fired by Avis since he is against the production’s entire existence and acts in support of the status quo. While he would have been considered frugal and conscientious in the Hollywood establishment, he is removed from the team. The series’ portrayal of how these different characters are treated states that a person’s value in a team should not primarily be measured in financial terms, even if that is how the capitalist system usually operates.
When a studio executive destroys the film’s negative near the end of post-production, all seems lost until the editor, Harry Golden (William Frederick Knight), reveals he saved a copy of the film in case of an emergency. While this has been described by some as a deus ex machina, it represents how the collaboration between crew and other creatives is also an important aspect of the film industry. As the recent IATSE strike and the death of Halyna Hutchins show, much more needs to be done to recognize and support those working on film sets who don’t usually make headlines, as they are vital to the success of a filmmaking team. This scene demonstrates how there is no movie without these skilled individuals who care just as much about film as the players onscreen and the other names at the top of the credits. Films only happen when these members of the team support the film, and are supported, as much as everyone else does.
As the series draws to a close in its final episode, it challenges the audience’s ability to suspend disbelief in the face of what seems unrealistic. In doing so, it questions why its events aren’t what we expect in reality. At the Academy Awards, the creative team of Meg, including Raymond, Archie, Camille, and Anna May Wong, win awards for their work on the film. The perceived “risks” that the team take on pay off as their challenge of the status quo leads to the recognition of the talent of Black, Asian, and queer Hollywood creatives. The awards sweep by this diverse team still seems unattainable today with frequent criticisms of award shows like #OscarsSoWhite. But in challenging us to believe that this could be a reality, the series asks us to consider what isn’t being done to ensure diverse talent gets the attention and acclaim it deserves. If the series’ ending seems revolutionary for the 2020s, let alone the 1940s, then what does that say about any perceived progress between then and now? Once the awards are on a roll, they even begin to seem too predictable and inevitable. It seems too easy, since such a result would not be so in reality. But, knowing that there are Black, Asian, and queer creatives deserving of such recognition, these results should be as predicatble as awards show results already often are when a film’s cast and crew produce notable work.
The series’ denouement further challenges our perception of the difference between the past and present. A year after Meg’s Oscar sweep, Henry Wilson meets with Rock Hudson to make amends for his cruelty towards the actor. Henry apologizes for how he treated Rock and accepts that Rock doesn’t think he can forgive him, which demonstrates the real harm of Hollywood exploitation while also stating that those who are a part of it can and should change their ways. Henry demonstrates that he is no longer power-hungry, as he used to be, and that he wants to help Rock, who has faced a lack of opportunity for good roles and death threats since being open about his relationship with Archie on the Oscars red carpet. In response to his desire to change the industry in which he works, which continues to be homophobic, Henry wants to produce a film about a love story between two men. He is further inspired to do so in the wake of Dick Samuels’ death, in the spirit of the barrier-breaking that Dick helped foster. Jack, Raymond, and Ernie all become involved in the film, along with Rock and Henry, continuing the collaboration they began with Meg. The prejudices they fight are not gone, but they can continue to push against them together.
The final scene of the series depicts the film shoot beginning at Ernie’s gas station, where gay men seek sexual favours from the station attendants. This explicitly queer subject matter is essentially unheard of in films of the real-life version of the time period of the series, but is more frequent today. In the final shot, we are left with the onscreen text, “The Beginning.” The onscreen diversity of representation that the series ends with, seen in both Meg and Dreamland, is closer to the film landscape of today, but the series tells us that we are still only at the beginning of what is possible for supporting and depicting a greater diversity of people in Hollywood film. The series asks us: if we do more to challenge assumptions of what is marketable and who is worth supporting, throughout Hollywood, what could we accomplish that we have yet to see? The series is both a possible blueprint and a challenge.
While I wouldn’t dare to entertain the notion that the late Leslie Feinberg would like Hollywood (or even have a Netflix subscription), the collaboration between the characters of various marginalized groups mirrors a message to the reader towards the end of the novel Stone Butch Blues, itself both a moving and political novel about queer life in postwar America. In a passage near the end of the book, the protagonist, Jess, speaks to a gathering of people at a protest about how they often lose battles they fight alone, then adds: “I don’t know what it would take to really change the world. But couldn’t we get together to try to figure it out? Couldn’t the we be bigger? Isn’t there a way we could help fight each other’s battles so that we’re not always so alone?”
Netflix’s Hollywood portrays one way of doing this, in the context of Hollywood filmmaking. It portrays stronger collaboration allowing everyone involved to achieve more than before and take steps towards making the world a more habitable and accepting place. This is depicted in the poignant metaphor of the opening credits’ sequence, as the characters struggle to climb the Hollywood sign. They only reach the top to appreciate the beautiful sunrise when they all help each other to reach their goal, even when they sometimes risk falling. In this sequence, as in the series itself, they achieve more than they could alone, for themselves and for each other. This is a political message in the context of capitalism, where individuals are constantly pitted against each other in competition instead of aligned with each other towards mutual benefit.
While film is supposed to be a collaborative art, the series’ imagined world portrays how this is not always the case in Hollywood, through the way its ending contrasts with its established status quo at the beginning, as well as its contrast with our current reality. Hollywood has failed to reach beyond occasionally and slowly challenging its status quo. The series portrayal of some of its members doing so is not simply wish-fulfillment, but a call to do better. One film by one studio alone cannot completely change the world or make racism and homophobia melt away forever, but every time people come together they can work towards making positive change, laying the groundwork for more people to do the same. By standing together and trusting each other, systemic issues can be faced even if they cannot be completely erased. Working together, instead of always acting alone for individual interests, groups of people can create more opportunities for each other and innovate, even if the entire industry does not immediately become more welcoming to all.
Through its suggestion that more could have been done in the 1940s, the series states that more should be done now. Minorities are still often placed in opposition to each other in a zero-sum-game where one group’s gains are seen as another’s loss. But Hollywood’s plot carries the message that their triumphs can be mutually beneficial, and challenges Hollywood filmmakers and its audience to do more to make supporting each other the norm. This is a powerful, political message under a system that discourages such partnerships, since it is by dividing people against each other that the same oppressive system remains in place. A few people cannot make a complete change in the industry, but it is not naive to suggest that they cannot make any change when the alternative is to do nothing at all.
