Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — The ^Madness of Movietone stimulated, no doubt, by the Worcester Sauce of advertisement. But from the moment of complete saturation it will become much more like the stuffing process by which geese produce pate de foie gras. Only so many cars can be properly pushed in at the upper layers of society in proportion as others are excreted by the lower. In fact, already a glut of unsold cars has caused a serious stoppage of the car-digestive tracts of the country. Yet, with their factories at full blast, manufacturers were clamouring for greater and greater sales. A similar reasoning was rampant in every branch of commerce. More and more products were being forced on to the public by spendthrift maxims, by gradual-payment systems, and by advertisement. The golden age was predicted for the very near future. The slump now grinding the country, a slump not only inevitable, but to the least perspicacious eye already overdue, is the natural result. But two years ago one would have almost been assassinated had one dared to suggest the danger. The slump that was affecting the movies was of a different, though of an allied, nature. The mind of the everyday American is in some ways a novel phenomenon. It is a mind that is being bred with very few internal resources, and with a blank background instead of the old unconscious folk-lore tradition. America is concentrated on success. The boy or girl goes to school and college with the main idea of securing thereby a better place in business. Success in its most materialistic shape has been elevated into the position of religion, and, with cleanliness, has long superseded godliness. In wider matters the popular outlook is local and incurious. Its farther resources are the newspaper — grotesquely filled with grotesque crimes — the car, bootleg, and the movies. Boys and girls are concentrated on their own physique, on vanity, and on sexual curiosity to an almost unbelievable extent. There is little interest in art, [271]