Hollywood reckoning with violence against women before #metoo
I recently discovered The Last Tycoon (2017), a one season TV show (Warning: there are many spoilers in this article). Not unlike Feud (2017-), a story about ageing actresses fighting against Hollywood’s sexism, it takes on the history of cinema with a pretty critical lens. It discusses the lack of racial diversity in a bar scene. It addresses antisemitism in individual and collective actions. It shows the struggle for workers’ rights, the small hands behind the glitter. But maybe more strikingly, it tackles sexism every chance it gets. Every new actress it introduces has a back or developing storyline about sexual exploitation and harassment. They are all modelled on more or less famous Hollywood stories. Shot before #metoo or #timesup took on, before the Weinstein revelations, it shows the systematicity of abuse and violence against women in the film industry — though it was supposed to be a modern Amazonia, ruled by women. It maybe is a show that came out at the wrong time, however, before anyone talked about. Don’t get me wrong: the show had issues. I just thought it could have resonated a lot more.
So let’s talk about these story lines. A number of them focus on unhealthy work practices and drugs. It opens with the death of Minna, the actress everybody loves, in a fire at her home. We never see her alive, but we’re told she was struggling with Hollywood using pills and alcohol. It begins early too. A child star, modelled after Shirley Temple, is given benzocaine spray by the very person supposed to take care of her, until the head of production intervenes to stop it. Substance abuse might not be personal, the show tells us.
Then there’s a lot of emotional abuse. We see Fritz Lang getting mad at his lead actress, again and again. Terrorizing everybody on set. Behind the curtains, the secretaries get yelled at for no reason. Situations other women have to deal with. When they are not emotionally abused, women are the ones who have to chip in the emotional labour necessary to change things ‘around the block.’ When it’s not at work, it’s at home. The studio head, Pat Bray (written of Louis Mayer) flirts and cheats on his wife under her nose. Despite the agreement they have that he should stay discreet. She keeps supporting him, telling him she loves him no matter what. She has a lover too — until she does not and finally realises that nothing in these marital agreements is working for her, that nothing justifies him scolding her around this way, that she has no duty of keeping the house together.
The show does not forget intersectionality and the specific plight of being a woman of colour either. We meet Margo, a biracial actress who keeps her mother close to her… by pretending she’s her maid. A storyline based on Merle Oberon. In the show, she is not even immediately told when her mother died, because no one thinks she’ll care. She does. We watch her trying to find ways for her mother to be acknowledged, her life celebrated. It ends on a positive note.
A lot happens that we only hear about, that is never shown. Pretty clever narrative device, if you ask me. Sexual exploitation is everywhere. We see a prostitute working at a movie theater at the beginning of the season, hinting at the heightened economic fragility of women. Then we meet Kitty, a woman Mrs Brady care after when volunteering at the hospital. She regrets having to prostitute herself because of the Great depression. Kitty gets better, but disappears. The spectator will never know what happened to her. The show does a great job hinting at the continuum of sexual violence without turning it into constant spectacle. The studio head certainly can’t keep his hands to himself , and we see him putting his hands on knees he should not touch. Otherwise we only see the aftermath of his sexual abuse —when he is confronted a few times by his head of production about it, to no avail. Similarly, we see a photograph alone with a young woman who wants to be an actress, who suspiciously ask her to show her shoulder— but nothing else happens on screen.
One violent storyline is shown throughout the season though, one for all the others. The new studio star, Kathleen Moore, and the man who got her there and intend of profiting from it for the rest of his life, Rupert Vajna. He is a conman, and he has been training her so that she would catch the eye of the head of production by reminding him of his dead wife. Desperate, she took the offer. They have a financial deal. But then of course he wants more. He wants her to have feelings for him. He does not just want money from her, he wants power over her. That’s what it really was about. He loses this battle, but not without stalking, threatening, and beating her up first.
Every woman has a story to tell about her life before Hollywood. We hear about “a song-plugger. The only thing he didn’t let people put into [her] mouth was music.” We hear about a professor who wanted favours because he had been kind. It suggests that Hollywood is built on, and fueled by, abuse. Women leave their home and try their luck because of it, they are exploited when they arrive and try to fit in, which continues on the job. It is just one aspect of a much larger issue. A little before the end of the season, in episode 9, a discussion between the studio head, Pat Brady, and his wife, Rose, goes like this:
Do you have any idea what it’s like not being the hero of your own life story?
Pat, I’ve known that my whole life. Every woman has. Don’t you want better than that for our daughter?
Spoiler: No, he does not want it to be better for his daughter. There is no seat for a movie woman at the table of movie men. The show ends up on a positive twist for that one. Celia Brady will produce the film she wanted to produce. But it feels like we have progressed so much and so little since that time.
The show might sometimes be a mess, but it said something that resonates more than ever. Whose stories are told or shown, and why? The main character is always trying to recut and reframe to tell the perfect stories. These stories need to show the seemingly endless cycle of violence, but also that it can get better — without forgetting to show the price paid for the happy ending.
Thanks to Anne for proofreading, as always.
