9/23/2020

The "Hollywood" Ending, and a profound uneasiness



Having watched the "Hollywood" mini-series from Netflix, I came away being both very impressed by many aspects, but uncomfortable --very uncomfortable-- with how the series was concluded.

[MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD]

I watched "Hollywood" without having heard much about it. Caught a trailer, looked good, and How-Hollywood-Sausage-Gets-Made is one of my own interests, so went into it fairly cold, almost like catching a sneak preview of a film.

"Hollywood" is set in Post-WW2 Hollywood...but not quite. My first impression was that it was a story overlaying fictional characters, set in a fictional studio, onto actual Hollywood history. But then real people from Hollywood history (Rock Hudson and his agent Henry Wilson, in particular) entered the story line as prominent characters...

...and the story became an alternate history of Hollywood, rather than a fictional overlay. Or an uncomfortable mashup of both. (In real life, Hudson was first signed as a contract player by Universal, not the fictional Ace Studios depicted here.) Or something. I wasn't certain where the plot was heading.

[AGAIN, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. SPECIFIC PLOT POINTS! DETAILS! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!]