WHAT other critics find despicable in the Netflix series Hollywood is what saves this seven-episode grand memorialization of the golden age of the film industry in America.
It is the end of war. Men—and women—are back in the normal safe world threatening to go full-blast with wealth and conspicuous consumption. Actors who fought in the European front and in the Pacific islands are home. At the time, the medical condition of PTSD had not yet been clarified, so these male warriors who have proven their real bravery in real war and battle are heroes ready to share their boon with the common communities.
But not all is gloss and glory. Simmering—and shimmering—deep are dreams and ambitions to make it big in dreamland, which is Hollywood. If you feel you are good enough, you stand at the gate of the big studios each day. A casting director walks up to the crowd of dreamy-eyed hopefuls, and picks 3 or 5 chosen people for the day, candidates for stardom or doomed to be bit-players or extras for the films churned out as fast as each dream is dissipated.
Jack is one of those at the gate. He stands there but he is not chosen, until one day a woman enters his life. She is an assistant casting director who enjoys the sex she had with Jack even though she had to shell out some amount for it.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves here.
Let’s backtrack a bit: Jack, despondent, looks for other jobs. In between the search for livelihood, he stays in bars until a middle-aged man spots him and offers him a job in a gas stations. It is not your regular gas station; it dispenses not gas but good, paid sex. A car goes in for a refill. A male attendant rushes to meet the car. The customer has a password: “Dreamland.”
Jack is hesitant at first but his wife is pregnant—with twins. Jack soon services an elderly lady, who happens to be the wife of one of the biggest film producers in the land. But not all customers are ladies, some are gentlemen. One day, it is the great composer, Cole Porter. Yes, you heard it, the character is named “Cole Porter.” On another day, the good-looking chap behind the wheels introduces himself as “Roy Fitzgerald.” Isn’t that the real name of matinee idol Rock Hudson? Well, yes. In fact, Roy is discovered and is soon given the screen name, Rock Hudson.
Therein lies what critics call the unabashed artistic license that the miniseries indulges itself in.
In Hollywood, creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan name their characters George Cukor, Tallulah Bankhead, Vivien Leigh and many others with names that were real in those gilded years. After doing so, the media releases proceed to append the word “fictional” to the said character. In Hollywood, the character named Rock Hudson also bears the additional label “fictional.” This Rock Hudson is homosexual, gay, and so with the rest of talent managers and big bosses of production outfits.
This Hollywood, however, saves itself, because the Rock Hudson in the series comes out of the closet, dismisses the gay manager who exploits him, walks the red carpet holding the hand of his male lover, a “colored” writer. There is more: a movie mogul goes into a coma and his wife takes over. The woman makes radical decisions including the making of a film where the lead actress is colored and ends triumphant after all the threats of white supremacists.
What comes out is not so much a licentious artistic license but a proposal for the new audience stating the what-ifs of that golden age.
The gilt and glamor of the post-war Hollywood hides all kinds of bigotry and discrimination. We see how this huge hunk of man named Roy becomes a putty in the sweaty hands of a manager out to debase all men because he himself has become an elegant monster.
What happened in those years is now getting a cleansing in a series that unabashedly exploits but also explores the many possibilities that were eschewed by an industry then believing its own lies. A louse of a manager repents; a pimp regains his dreams; and a screenplay escapes censorship and triumphs despite the threats on the lives of its makers.
All the events that happen in Hollywood happened in the Hollywood of yore. But where the past rendered sad endings to all the events that have unfolded, the series is making up for the evil and narrowmindedness of history. Sounds unreal, yes, but contemporary.
The series Hollywood may be taking place in the past but its resolutions are imbued with the daring politics of the present.
But what is a miniseries from Ryan Murphy without the diamond and rhinestone performances from actors of all filmic ranges.
David Corenswet as Jack has all the air of the 1950s idol. When the camera is trained onto him, the portrayal he previews in a rehearsal for the scene remarkably becomes like a recital piece, a final paper. Darren Criss has a subtle presence but the fact of his character being half-Filipino in an age when Asians were not represented in what we now call culturally and politically correct imaging is significant. Dylan McDermott as the owner of the gas station that offers a most unique refill is Errol Flynnish without the swashbuckling act.
Being an ensemble, it is not fair to point out the superstars in the film. Just for the heck of it, Jake Picking’s Rock Hudson gets our major sympathies for being vulnerable and, later, valiant when the screenplay allows a rainbow to arc over what was a sad life for the real Rock Hudson.
Holland Taylor as Ellen Kincaid, a studio executive who tutors men how to act and love is warmth in chilly film studios, and I am not talking of prime air-conditioning. But I reserve my bouquet for Patti Lupone who hides her claws this time as she fleshes out the role of a woman who realizes it is time to change Hollywood. With the diva in her now closeted, Patti Lupone is Mother Earth turbaned and bejeweled outside, proto-feminist inside declaring that all lives and loves matter.
Hollywood was released on Netflix on May 1. The series has received 12 nominations at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards. Singled out are Jeremy Pope (who plays the role of the scriptwriter falling for Rock Hudson), Holland Taylor, Dylan McDermott, and Jim Parsons (known for his role as Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory) as the evil stepmother of a talent manager who later repents and becomes an enlightened sinner.