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163 reviews for:
Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema
Anne Helen Petersen
3.53 AVERAGE
163 reviews for:
Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema
Anne Helen Petersen
3.53 AVERAGE
It's fine as an intro to the subject but I knew all the stories already.
As somebody who doesn't know a lot about the subject I felt like this was a great and informative book! I've always been partial to Petersen's writing and really enjoyed her piecing together of classic Hollywood drama.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A good introduction to the stories of some of the most famous (and infamous) stars of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Misogyny, Racism, Suicide
Felt a lot like a less snappy rehash of Petersen's Hairpin column. Entertaining, and only informative if you know nothing about the era. Otherwise, it feels breezy and maybe a little loose with the details. Where Scandals shines is in its dissection of the studio publicity spin machine, though each chapter's conclusion tends to read like an afterthought. A bit frothy overall.
I've been waiting for this book for six months-- and, like any Hollywood movie, it was bound to struggle to live up to the anticipation. Don't get me wrong; for any lover of classic hollywood, this is a good read, and I'd probably have loved it if I hadn't been devouring Anne Helen Peterson's online articles--whether through Hairpin, Buzzfeed, her blog, or other media--for a couple years now. But I have and therein, I think, lies the slight disappointment with the book.
While the promos promise the chapters are not repeats of the Hairpin articles, that is a bit disingenuous. The articles aren't transplanted verbatim, but many of the stories (Fatty Arbuckle, Clara Bow Dorothy Dandridge, Montgomery Clift, and others) are repeats and cover familiar territory.
Still, a good story is always worth rereading. What I miss most in the book is the lively, irreverent, voice Peterson uses in her online pieces, which often read like a personal email to you, the reader. SHE IS FUNNY. Her side remarks on Hollywood hypocrisy and comments on the plethora of images that populate her online text are vastly entertaining and sadly missing in this text
Read this comment on a still of Lana Turner in a turban from the Postman Always Rings Twice:
"I mean, THIS IS IT, right? Like there’s no need for another seduction scene ever? And the high-waisted white shorts and the knotted crop top ... does Urban Outfitters carry those in my size? Can someone teach me how to make my towel topknot look like that? Do I need to live in the South, seduce some guy who comes to the diner owned by my old boring husband, and get him to kill said husband? "
Isn't that great? Doesn't it make you want to just hang with her, watching old movies and debating whether Joseph Cotton or Melvyn Douglas would be better movie star boyfriends?
Unfortunately, there's too little of that in the book. While it's not academic, one can feel the influence and the self-restraint (believe me, I've written enough deadly literary analyses myself to know). There is an occasional glimmer of the old style, as in this sly comment on Marlon Brando's engagement: "And as she [his fiancee] told the press, she didn't love Brando because he was a star, but as a man like any other. Plus, she was a 'sloppy dresser' with 'odd manners,' and the two had first met at his analyst's office--clearly, they were meant for each other."
I snorted latte out my nose at that one, and it made me long even more for the AHP of Hairpin.
Now, it's doubtless a monetary/copyright thing, but there's also an odd dearth of photographs--especially in the Kindle version that I read, which delegates the few images to the back of the book, where I only found them after I'd finished reading. A good part of the power in her online writing lies in the plethora of accompanying imagery, whether movie stills, shots of gossip mags or whatever. They not only allow the reader to visualize the commentary, but also engage in the analysis with AHP. Plus, as I said, her comments on the images are darned funny. That interaction is lacking in the book.
Nevertheless it says something that I started reading this Tuesday night, and finished by 11 am Wednesday morning. And that I'm actually bothering to write a Goodreads review, which I don't usually do. It's a good and enjoyable read. AHP has really carved a niche for herself in her analysis of Hollywood semiotics and what it means for the rest of us. She takes gossip and makes it respectable.
I'd definitely encourage you to head over to the Hairpin though, and spend a day reading the articles.
UPDATE: I just finished reading some of the other reviews. In AHP's defense, I think many of the readers missed the point of the book, when they complain the incidents she cover aren't "scandalous." As she states herself, the point of the book is Hollywood's manipulation of lives and media to its own interests, not just the relating of "gossip." Moreover, it's not about whether we see these events as scandalous now, but about views and values THEN.
While the promos promise the chapters are not repeats of the Hairpin articles, that is a bit disingenuous. The articles aren't transplanted verbatim, but many of the stories (Fatty Arbuckle, Clara Bow Dorothy Dandridge, Montgomery Clift, and others) are repeats and cover familiar territory.
Still, a good story is always worth rereading. What I miss most in the book is the lively, irreverent, voice Peterson uses in her online pieces, which often read like a personal email to you, the reader. SHE IS FUNNY. Her side remarks on Hollywood hypocrisy and comments on the plethora of images that populate her online text are vastly entertaining and sadly missing in this text
Read this comment on a still of Lana Turner in a turban from the Postman Always Rings Twice:
"I mean, THIS IS IT, right? Like there’s no need for another seduction scene ever? And the high-waisted white shorts and the knotted crop top ... does Urban Outfitters carry those in my size? Can someone teach me how to make my towel topknot look like that? Do I need to live in the South, seduce some guy who comes to the diner owned by my old boring husband, and get him to kill said husband? "
Isn't that great? Doesn't it make you want to just hang with her, watching old movies and debating whether Joseph Cotton or Melvyn Douglas would be better movie star boyfriends?
Unfortunately, there's too little of that in the book. While it's not academic, one can feel the influence and the self-restraint (believe me, I've written enough deadly literary analyses myself to know). There is an occasional glimmer of the old style, as in this sly comment on Marlon Brando's engagement: "And as she [his fiancee] told the press, she didn't love Brando because he was a star, but as a man like any other. Plus, she was a 'sloppy dresser' with 'odd manners,' and the two had first met at his analyst's office--clearly, they were meant for each other."
I snorted latte out my nose at that one, and it made me long even more for the AHP of Hairpin.
Now, it's doubtless a monetary/copyright thing, but there's also an odd dearth of photographs--especially in the Kindle version that I read, which delegates the few images to the back of the book, where I only found them after I'd finished reading. A good part of the power in her online writing lies in the plethora of accompanying imagery, whether movie stills, shots of gossip mags or whatever. They not only allow the reader to visualize the commentary, but also engage in the analysis with AHP. Plus, as I said, her comments on the images are darned funny. That interaction is lacking in the book.
Nevertheless it says something that I started reading this Tuesday night, and finished by 11 am Wednesday morning. And that I'm actually bothering to write a Goodreads review, which I don't usually do. It's a good and enjoyable read. AHP has really carved a niche for herself in her analysis of Hollywood semiotics and what it means for the rest of us. She takes gossip and makes it respectable.
I'd definitely encourage you to head over to the Hairpin though, and spend a day reading the articles.
UPDATE: I just finished reading some of the other reviews. In AHP's defense, I think many of the readers missed the point of the book, when they complain the incidents she cover aren't "scandalous." As she states herself, the point of the book is Hollywood's manipulation of lives and media to its own interests, not just the relating of "gossip." Moreover, it's not about whether we see these events as scandalous now, but about views and values THEN.
As an avid reader of the Hairpin column, I loved this. I would have loved it more if it were longer though, I just want to read all of the gossip! I enjoyed the way Petersen places the stories within a larger context and her writing is academic without being stuffy. I certainly added to my to-watch list from it. I do wish it had a slightly larger photo section, and would have liked to see more topics that were a larger diversion from the column. It was also a great companion read to Rachel Shukert's Starstruck series.
i was reading this as an e-book so i didn't realize until i finished it how much is just the reference notes--30%! it's very interesting though, even if you're not that familiar with all the old hollywood names (i'm not, most of my knowledge at this point comes directly from these chapters), because Peterson writes about more than just the details of the scandals. she delivers analysis for the way they were perpetuated, or covered up, or why certain actors resonated with the public at the time. it's sort of a historical social commentary that makes you wonder about our current age of internet tabloid gossip and celebrity culture and how people will analyze it in the future, but at the same time it shows that this stuff is nothing new and has been going on since the beginning of hollywood in one form or another. In the introduction Peterson says, "If our stars are reflections of our values and ourselves, then the way we elevate, denigrate, and dispose of them also functions as a sort of cultural mirror, however distorted, clumsy, and unbecoming." Each chapter focuses on a different celebrity, with mini-chapters giving a summary overview of the next two or three stars to be compared, so it's really easy read just one or two at a time without losing track of what's happened. (that's what i did, i just read it during my lunch breaks). if you like reading modern-day celebrity gossip, you'll probably appreciate this book too and the context that it gives.
and i kind of want to go watch a bunch of the classic movies mentioned in this book now.
and i kind of want to go watch a bunch of the classic movies mentioned in this book now.
medium-paced
Call me late to the game, but I have been eating up Anne Helen Petersen’s “Scandals of Classic Hollywood” series over at The Hairpin. Petersen has a PhD in media studies, and recently left academia for a full-time writing gig at Buzzfeed (sadly discontinuing her Hairpin series, but luckily for us readers, still churning out great articles on media and celebrity culture.
She adapted and expanded her “classic Hollywood” series into a full-length book, which I read on a recent plane ride (along with Gavin Edwards’s Last Night at the Viper Room). Unless I’m misremembering, all of the chapters are based on pieces from the Hairpin series. The book version felt a little pared down and scanty, and I was disappointed that some of the lesser-known figures (like Pola Negri, Hedy Lamarr, Thedra Barra) were omitted. It seems like Petersen was encouraged to organize the book into thematic chapters, which is fine theoretically but came across as half baked and didactic. The writing style in the book is also much more conventional and straightforward than the chatty, conspiratorial tone of the online columns, which makes sense but also makes for drier reading. Overall, I found the online series to be richer than the book, both in content and style.
She adapted and expanded her “classic Hollywood” series into a full-length book, which I read on a recent plane ride (along with Gavin Edwards’s Last Night at the Viper Room). Unless I’m misremembering, all of the chapters are based on pieces from the Hairpin series. The book version felt a little pared down and scanty, and I was disappointed that some of the lesser-known figures (like Pola Negri, Hedy Lamarr, Thedra Barra) were omitted. It seems like Petersen was encouraged to organize the book into thematic chapters, which is fine theoretically but came across as half baked and didactic. The writing style in the book is also much more conventional and straightforward than the chatty, conspiratorial tone of the online columns, which makes sense but also makes for drier reading. Overall, I found the online series to be richer than the book, both in content and style.
dark
informative
fast-paced