hi everyone um good morning good afternoon good evening or good night whenever you are hearing this I hope that you're doing okay this week we are talking about the significance of California for Hollywood and we're going to talk about Hollywood boosterism mass culture uh Pioneer mythology the paradise myth Lois Weber who's a famous director for her time but kind of lost to a historical memory the Central Casting Bureau you'll also learn about this in the short film Noir and film Grace which is all in the reading for this week so without further Ado let's get started so at first I just quickly want to go over why La for Hollywood um this was not kind of a pre-ordained location so we'll talk a little bit about why Los Angeles why Hollywood and then more about this idea of California being a paradise because on Thursday we're going to talk about or I'm sorry not on Thursday for lecture two we're going to talk about um this counter Narrative of film Noir and film Greece um so we're going to kind of go over Hollywood itself of why it was in LA but then also then what Hollywood was producing and how that shifted and changed mass culture in the United States and the impact on an emerging American identity in the early 20s early to mid 20th century we'll also kind of touch on celebrities in consumer culture and I'm also going to provide a link for you to watch a very short Felix the Cat cartoon so you can see in silent film how Hollywood and California are represented in this Felix the Cat cartoon so why Los Angeles in the 19 teens and 20s this is touched upon in the article but I just wanted to kind of go into it a little a little bit more um part of the reason that this place was appealing was because of the climate and the Very topography Within California a lot of places to shoot films this region also had a history of open shop and anti-union labor practices we'll see more of this with Disney wanting to come to Orange County in the 1950s because he wanted to get away from unions and then another reason was for people from the east coast to escape high costs and Thomas Edison had a kind of a monopoly on the movie industry so the idea was to come here and get away from that there's also speculation that they that filmmakers could then flee to Mexico if Edison's lawyers tried to go after them and sue them for using Edison technology so that's another reason why they wanted to be in Los Angeles but kind of a more cultural reason was that La offered this kind of romantic Frontier and a vision of um this new West which was um a kind of the idea that you could come out here to California from the East Coast or the Midwest and make a new life for yourself uh and this is very appealing to not only audiences which we'll find with the Pioneer mythology but also to Hollywood directors and and producers and other people who are really starting up this industry in this region so um Charlie Chaplin this is a quote from him for those of you who don't know who Charlie Chaplin is um it is a very famous actor in Hollywood he has a little mustache and carries a cane and he said in 1915 that La appeared to be the land of the future a paradise of sunshine Orange Grove Vineyards and palm trees and this is a moment when um the oil industry in Southern California and movies and also Aeronautics so the building of airplanes are replacing the orange trees and lemon Groves um and the agricultural industry in Southern California with these factories and motion picture studios so there's a shift in industry in this region um and it's interesting because a lot of the people who are coming out here um to kind of take part in this industry are displacing these agricultural Southern California at the time um for those of you who are interested Charlie Chaplin opened his own Studio to imitate Stratford upon Avon which was Shakespeare um Shakespeare's home and um kind of locations so you created kind of this English cottage style um kind of facade of his Studios and these are now the locations for Jim Henson Studios you can see the address there now so um Hollywood is is buying into and perpetuating this idea this myth of California being a paradise a Garden of Eden a land of sunshine and we learned before about how boosters promoted this myth and Hollywood really takes that and just makes it for everybody in a big way um it doesn't mean that it was only Hollywood that did this in the next next slide I'll talk to a little bit more about other things that were doing this at the same time music um railroad companies advertisements newspaper articles that sort of thing but Hollywood's really blowing it up in a big way um so that people are being more and more people are being exposed to this myth other myth that's kind of overlapping with this is more what's in your your reading and this is this Pioneer mythology um that then kind of feeds over and as I said overlaps not the exact same thing but it's related to it of California being a place to go and start over again is kind of tied in with um American ideas of Frontier um and the west and again Dana Poland writes about the Smith and then Dana Poland he'll he'll provide you with some examples of different films that perpetuate this Pioneer mythology that's related to the paradise myth it's not exactly the same but related so again as I said it wasn't just that Hollywood was doing this out of nowhere it was really building on three phases of the pioneer Paradise myth kind of all being tied together we talked about the Gold Rush being one of those in the 1849-1850s but then it really then gets picked up by the railroad industry and you can see this in this advertisement here it says sunsite limited to California the sunset route and what I want to point out I think I may be overlapping my little oops let's see if I can move myself um maybe not um but what you can see here is these little the archway here there's a palm tree here that's what I'm blocking right now and then a red towel roof um we've talked about how this relates to the Spanish fantasy past but also kind of this creation of of um kind of a a cultural imagery of what California is supposedly supposed to look like and a really Regional culture for Southern California and you know the sun sets in the west that's why it's called the sunset route Sunshine all the way there's a lot of that um tie-in with climate um being a big part about of what it means to come to California to visit California or move out to California um and so again this is the late 1880s to 1920s is when the Spanish fantasy pass emerges as well and then you have the 1920s when Hollywood is picking up on this and California becomes a place to get rich quickly become famous and also live in the land of the future and all this I should say is for anglo-americans really it's centered on that particular group um so I just wanted to point out that it wasn't just films that are doing this it's also music um and one of the things about the paradise myth is it's not limited to just film um and so this is an example of um a song called I Love You California and I wanted you know point out it says I love you California you're the greatest state of all I love you in the winter summer spring and in the fall I love your fertile valleys your dear mountains I adore I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged Shore that's the first part of it and um you know this is a way to kind of um make it a p sound like this location the state is really um the place to be um but also a place to escape all of the things that may be going on in your region uh whether that be the East Coast the South or the Midwest so what does this have to do with something called mass culture the Hollywood Productions um tie into kind of a major cultural shift within American culture and um this is when film becomes part of mass culture so mass media entertainment prior to film included popular books newspapers magazines popular music Leisure Goods household items clothing and mechanically reproduced art what happens in the 20th century the 1900s is that film becomes a major part of that and a major part of kind of replicating those things and and making it so that people um see all of those things on the screen and [Music] um and it becomes kind of a new aspect of mass culture and um so audiences come out they want to see this now um new thing which is film um and then theaters become a major Urban institution become major facets of towns and cities all over the country um it becomes where the communication industry uses these films and uses newsreels in front of these films in order to communicate what's going on in the world um so outside of newspapers people did not have televisions at this point this is all pre-television and at pre-internet pre all those things so really before it was all about print media and radio this is when it becomes a visual experience for people and the thing is is that American identity starts becoming solidified by this mass culture and American identity shaped and these films but it also was shaped by these films and movies serve not only as texts that document who we think we are or were but they also reflect changes in our self-image tracing the transformation from one kind of America to another and um I want to kind of emphasize that and give provide an example um and so about how film does this of how it um both reflects American identity um formation and um and also reflects American culture and cultural constructions of race gender cultural norms that then are formulated reinforced or challenged by film and mass culture so an example is from a catchphrase that um it was the catchphrase was I'm free white and 21. and um This Racist catchphrase originated in 1828 so it did not originate in Hollywood at all um but then it was replicated and popularized in films um particularly during the 30s and and early 40s and um but as soon as kind of also with silent films in the 20s so um there's an author who writes about this and I'll provide the link if you would like to read more about this phrase but I'm actually going to provide you a link to watch um how this catchphrase is replicated over and over and over and over again and then when there's a shift in the 1960s in the Civil Rights Movement you can see that shift in um and I'm blinking on the author or the um oh my gosh I'm blinking on the actor's name um you will see the actor um Harry Belafonte there we go um he pushes back in the film and kind of expresses the feelings that so many black Americans had about this catchphrase and its use and its overuse um and so one author says every time a movie character uttered this phrase so casually they were giving Black America a glimpse into the real character of American democracy decades before it came to a head they inadvertently fed the Civil Rights struggle so again this is these these um Parts Hollywood becomes this huge part of mass culture and expression of um what who Americans are and who they want to be and but also the um the racism or misogyny that existed uh within the United States racism particular in this example because you'll actually see a lot of white women expressing this phrase as a way to kind of declare um well I'm this and and therefore you can't tell me what to do so um please watch it's a it's I think it's a minute long uh this short film you click next you can watch it and then after you watch that I will finish up my lecture after that