Table Of ContentStardust Monuments
I N T E R F A C E S
Studies in Visual Culture
Mark J. Williams & Adrian W. B. Randolph, editors
Dartmouth College
This series, sponsored by Dartmouth College Press, develops and promotes the study of
visual culture from a variety of critical and methodological perspectives. Its impetus
derives from the increasing importance of visual signs in everyday life, and from the
rapid expansion of what are termed “new media.” The broad cultural and social dynam-
ics attendant to these developments present new challenges and opportunities across
and within the disciplines. These have resulted in a transdisciplinary fascination with all
things visual, from “high” to “low,” and from esoteric to popular. This series brings to-
gether approaches to visual culture — broadly conceived — that assess these dynamics
critically and that break new ground in understanding their eff ects and implications.
For a complete list of books that are available in the series, visit www.upne.com.
Nancy Anderson and Michael R. Dietrich, eds.,
The Educated Eye: Visual Culture and Pedagogy in the Life Sciences
Shannon Scott Clute and Richard L. Edwards,
The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism
Alison Trope, Stardust Monuments: The Saving and Selling of Hollywood
Steve F. Anderson, Technologies of History: Visual Media and the Eccentricity of the Past
Dorothée Brill, Shock and the Senseless in Dada and Fluxus
Janine Mileaf, Please Touch: Dada and Surrealist Objects after the Readymade
J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film between Two Worlds,
updated and expanded edition
Erina Duganne, The Self in Black and White:
Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography
Eric Gordon, The Urban Spectator: American Concept-Cities from Kodak to Google
Barbara Larson and Fae Brauer, eds., The Art of Evolution:
Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture
Stardust Monuments
The Saving and Selling of Hollywood
(cid:275) A L I S O N T R O P E (cid:275)
Dartmouth College Press(cid:2)(cid:275)(cid:2)Hanover, New Hampshire
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Trope, Alison.
Stardust monuments: the saving and selling of Hollywood / Alison Trope.
p. cm. — (Interfaces: studies in visual culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-61168-045-4 (cloth: alk. paper) —
isbn 978-1-61168-046-1 (pbk.: alk. paper) —
isbn 978-1-61168-195-6 (ebook)
1. Motion picture industry—California—Los Angeles—History. 2. Hollywood
(Los Angeles, Calif.)—Description and travel. 3. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—
History. 4. Popular culture—California—Los Angeles—History. I. Title.
pn1993.5.u65t68 2012
384’.80979494—dc23 2011040628
5 4 3 2 1
For my father
• S o r r e l l•
• Contents •
INTRODUCTION
Spotlight Hollywood:
The Power of Place 1
1
Essential Hollywood
Curating Motion Picture History in the Museum 11
2
The Great Whatzit?
Self-Service Meets Public Service in the Hollywood Museum 45
3
Out of Bounds
Remapping Hollywood as Themed Experience 89
4
Hollywood in a Box
Channeling Hollywood through Home Entertainment 127
5
Handheld Hollywood 171
Acknowledgments 191
Notes 195
Bibliography 225
Index 233
INTRODUCTION
Spotlight Hollywood
The Power of Place
In 1950, anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker published Hollywood, the Dream
Factory: An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie-Makers, the result of a one-year fi eld
study surveying the inner workings, power dynamics, and social system that
fueled Hollywood’s fi lm industry in the postwar period. In it, she observes,
“Hollywood is a unique American phenomenon with a symbolism not limited
to this country. It means many things to many people. . . . Rarely is it just a com-
munity where movies are made.”1
Around the same time as Powdermaker published her anthropological sur-
vey, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce produced a tourist brochure claim-
ing, “Hollywood is . . . an entity which cannot be contained by street boundar-
ies; for, in the fullest sense, Hollywood’s boundaries are the world.”2
Some forty years later, Michael Eisner, then chairman of Walt Disney Stu-
dios, commented on the allure of his corporation’s latest venture — a Holly-
wood theme park called Disney-mgm Studios. For Eisner, the theme park rep-
resented “the Hollywood that never was and always will be.”3
Anthropologist. Tourist guide. Industry heavyweight.
All off er remarkably similar descriptions of Hollywood, yet none concretely
defi ne it. Instead, all of them capture what it is not — a neighborhood and in-
dustry hub — while hovering around Hollywood’s more symbolic and ineff a-
ble qualities. Hollywood is placeless, timeless, and emblematic, and if as Pow-
dermaker suggests, “it means many things to many people,” then Hollywood is
also multifarious, if not contested.
• 1 •
