Negotiating Hollywood

Author: Danae Clark

Publisher: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Publication date: c1995


   Before studying in the States, I had had a fantasy of Hollywood major studios that they achieved full employment, nurturing not only stars but other surrounding laborers such as extras, technicians, and so on. Such fantasy stemmed from unstable job security of current film industry. However, this book helped me realize that even stars could not secure their job stability in the studio era.

   Danae Clark's goal is to identify star subjectivity and whereas escaping from conventional star studies that pays attention to star image and spectatorial reception. Combining theoretical and historical aspects of actors' labor, the author reveals how actors gradually acknowledged themselves as workers and struggled to attain their rights in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

   It is surprising the major studios' tyrant and cunning treatment of actors (mostly of extras, but also of stars). The only thing they concerned was exchange of commodities, not basic human needs such as adequate rest or timely supply of food. By divorcing acting profession and labor - in other words, nominating acting as an artistry instead of working - they created an oppressive hierarchy of star system. More dubiously, even though it was the studios that made such structure, they either hailed or criticized stardom according to their contemporary interests.

   What is more striking to me is that the tyrannies described in this book resemble what is happening in Korea. A plethora of anonymous players are still trying to gain stardom, but most of them realize how their hope is reckless, sooner or later. Without any change of political regime or social activism, what will be left is only "an accumulation of facts and anecdotes regarding extras' working conditions". (Clark, 113)

Clark opened possibilities of future star study that will enhance understanding of actors' labor and subjectivity. She also mentioned that many studies, including film studies will further articulate uncharted aspects of the topic. This gave me a clue to consider what to do with my learnings in Cinema Studies.