Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between LA and DC Revolutionized American Politics

In this study of the nexus of Hollywood fame, political influence, and the huge amounts of cash that sustain both spheres, journalist Stanley (The Crusader) rarely passes up an opportunity to deploy blustering populist rhetoric. He asserts that Hollywood has dumbed-down politics and given the impression that “the presidency is far more powerful than it either is or constitutionally should be.” But he makes his argument in scattered and confusing fashion, jumping from a description of an Obama administration fundraiser thrown after he announced his support for gay marriage (when “stars paid $40,000 each to shake his hand and call him brave”) to the liberal 1960s, then WWII and the conservative 1950s, followed by the Nixon-Kennedy campaign and the harnessing of visual imagery in national politics. The cynical, cash-lubricated relationship between actors and politicians, and studios and political parties, is certainly troubling, but Stanley obscures his main objection until quite late, when it finally becomes clear that what most upsets him is Hollywood’s “tendency…to put style before substance.” From a writer with a tenuous grasp on American politics and the movie business, this is a muddled polemic. Agent: Fredrica Friedman, Fredrica S. Friedman & Co. (May)