Hooray for Hollywood
That screwy, ballyhooey Hollywood
Where any office boy or young mechanic
Can be a panic, with just a goodlooking pan
Where any barmaid can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan
it ends with
You may be homely in your neighborhood
But if you think that you can an actor
See Mr. Factor, he'd make a monkey look good
With a half an hour, you'll look like Tyrone Power
Who is Mr. Factor? He made custom wigs and make-up in Los Angeles. In the year 1909, he is selling the next best thing to cosmetic surgery called "Max Factor's Antiseptic Hair Store".
Anyways, the gist of the song is, come over to Hollywood, any Joe can be a star. Hollywood puts you right in an area which is both central to all 4 studios scattered in western L.A.
This song was made a long time ago, and a lot has changed. I’m sure you’ve heard stories of famous people getting their big breaks by moving to Hollywood and playing/performing/auditioning until a talent scout gave them their big break in the industry. I had imagined a place where it might not necessarily be glamorous, but was full of life of people trying to enthrall people passing by, with a lot of local music, posters on poles of every street corner, and just generally dressing and acting like they want to be noticed. Throw in some street performers, street preachers, salesmen handing out flyers for shows and tours, and some general mental illness, and I had figured it would be self-sustained around the clock street level entertainment and overcrowding that would wash over me any time I left my hotel room.
What ended up finding was very little of that, with the actual street space divided into major areas, noticeably defined by the walk of fame spanning about a 10 block area as well as some of the intersecting streets in the very core. On the east side it very noticeably ends with car dealerships, and becomes clearly separated as you cross the L.A. Expressway.
Past here is a run-down looking area with plain looking apartment buildings and small houses with plain functional architecture from maybe the 60’s or 70’s with strip malls and chain stores you find anywhere in the US. Hollywood also borders with little Thailand, with more Thai restaurants than you could possibly need, even if you lived there your whole life.
Back in Hollywood proper, entertainment levels are still pretty much at a minimum. At any time of the day the tourists are at ever increasing levels as you walk the glassy cement stars with celebrity names arbitrarily placed, likely some egomaniacal lottery of time, space, good genetics and nepotism. I could write a physics dissertation on what The Walk could tell us about chaos theory, but that isn’t really relevant. What this is supposed to be about, is Hollywood’s cultural relevance, and let me tell you, at least at this point in time it isn’t.
Unless you
go a few blocks north of the strip, you won’t see much local life, just
tourists. The highest concentration of tourists is at the Chinese Theatre,
where people literally clog the streets and entrance with their unflattering,
bland and baggy clothed bodies as they take pictures with the biggest named
celebrities feet and hand prints in the cement, take pictures of the 10 ‘street
performers’ dressed as spider man, take pictures of themselves at the entrance
to the Hard Rock Café, and take pictures of themselves in front of the
Hollywood sign wallpaper at the entrance of the Hollywood Wax Museum (hey guys the actual Hollywood sign is just over there).
That’s
right, if Hollywood has a culture, the summation of the culture is Tourists, give us your money. Not that
it’s any better or worse than touring anywhere else, say China, where they have
basically the same idea of getting as much out of tourists as possible, while
actually providing surprisingly little content – everyone I have heard who has
visited China says the same thing - the food is great, but not much else going
on.
And well, while
we found a few tasty places to eat, Hollywood doesn’t even have that going for
them.
What they
do have going for them is a hundred years of mythology; fables
of glitz, glamour and celebrity; film making; cutting edge music and wealthy
lifestyles. Mind you, none of those things are there (at least not anymore), except for the signs and symbols of those
things.
Sure, there
are still film studios in the area, but they aren’t the film and TV epicenter they
once were. Movies are filmed all over the world now, and the industry has
dispersed to new pockets internationally, due to globalization and cost cutting
by everyone after the big boom finally subsided combined with plummeting costs
of electronics.
When I say
signs and symbols, I’m talking about the obvious things, such as attractive
neon, big, blinking or oscillating in color. But more importantly are the ideas
seeded in our culture, ideas of wealth, power, fame and importance, associated
with this very specific and relatively small space. The Hollywood Stars are a
great example of this. Is it a physical location you can go to, where you can
see something unique? Yes! But do you need to go there to experience what this
unique thing has to offer? Not at all.
Walking
along the stars, I found myself asking myself: do I look down at the stars, so
I don’t miss a particular celebrity I know or admire? But if I look down, I’ll
look like an obvious tourist instead of the locals who act like the stars don’t
exist, like anyone who lived there long
enough would do. When I happened to look down and see Jerry Lewis, I
thought Ohhh, this is important! Now
what? Do I take a picture? I couldn’t conceive of anything else I could do
to commemorate the event. I didn’t end up taking a picture. All I thought of
was: who cares? I mean, I think the
guy was a talented performer, but did the star change my relationship with him?
Nope. I could just write his name on a piece of discarded cardboard, and take
my picture with that. There was no real difference. But the important thing is
that moment of confusion, where you think it’s significant or important.
Meeting or befriending a celebrity would feel like an accomplishment, and
taking a picture with a celebrity would commemorate that, where you could point
at the picture, the way you would at a graduation ceremony or after running a
marathon, and you can point to that picture and say “yeah! I did that!” What is important is that the walk is the smoothest thing I have ever walked on, and so still holds importance for being a skateboarder's dream.
Finding a
star on a sidewalk is nothing like an actual event. You didn’t accomplish anything, other
than making your way to a famous locale. It’s nothing to look at, just a cookie
cutter star with cookie cutter font that is in the arrangement of a name you
happen to recognize (trust me, there are plenty of names in stars on the walk
and you will have no idea who they are). But instead of stalking and bothering the
celebrity, you can go to this star on the sidewalk that has no relation to the
celebrity themselves - other than the name – and stand on it, stand beside it,
take a picture, natter on with your friends about all the great or shitty
things the celebrity did, all the while, the actual famous person is removed
from the process.
From the
celebrity perspective, then, I can see it as a great tool in the quest for
being left the fuck alone. It can at least deflect the most pedestrian celebrity
fans, giving them a sign that they can shower with strange affection, comments,
and other dull mechanical aspects any famous person has to struggle with. In
that sense it is a brilliant invention, a kind of social technology to deal
with the less glamorous aspects of fame.
But, back
in Hollywood, yeah, there’s not much going on. Mind you, there are still some
legitimate places for entertainment, like The Fonda Theatre, which had a lineup
around the block on a Tuesday night to see Mac Miller, or the Pantages Theatre
doing yet another run of the blockbuster musical Annie (but was closed
when I was there). I’m sure there were smaller places off Hollywood with local
music, I just couldn’t find them in the limited time I was there. And there was
some more local life if you are willing to walk a few blocks north of Hollywood,
such as Franklin, where there is a bit of local city life.
As for the
main strip, I can only imagine anything resembling local culture such as
artists, musicians and real performers had picked up and moved elsewhere. Music
venues shut down, replaced by stores selling bongs, fake emmy’s and California
Republic t-shirts. Wherever tourists are in high concentration there is money
to be made, but tourists are less interested in real culture, but rather in
their after effects or cultural artifacts. Anyone producing real cultural products
or experiences would likely go out of business or move to another part of town
with more reasonable rent or a more interested audience. Only the kitchy
remnants of past glory are what draws people there, and will fill the desires
of visitors, because it’s what they have come to expect.
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