Today’s Pop Culture Linked to Yesteryear Hollywood

Between 1917 and 1941, Hollywood studios, gossip columnists and novelists featured an unprecedented number of homosexuals, crossdressers, and adulterers in their depictions of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle.

Actress Greta Garbo defined herself as the ultimate serial bachelorette. Screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta engaged in multiple lesbian relationships with the Hollywood elite. Countless homosexual designers brazenly picked up men in the hottest nightclubs, building Hollywood's image as a place of sexual abandon.

In a significant contribution to film studies, Hollywood Bohemians shows how both the studios and the press used images of sexually adventurous characters to promote the movie industry and appeal to the prurient interests of mass media audiences.

Each chapter examines a chunk of Hollywood real estate, from stars' residences to the hippest nightclubs, and through national media coverage and iconic imagery, we learn how the studios inspired a worldwide fascination with old Hollywood. The Hollywood bohemians of the ‘20s & ‘30s, with their elicit activities and interests, added titillation to the Hollywood Dream.

Abrams brings out several notable points.
• The Hollywood bohemians usually managed to be depicted in a favorable manner.
• The Hollywood bohemians acted out a dream that audiences may have secretly held to experience the taboo or perhaps engage in adventurous sexual activity.
• The Hollywood bohemians inform how our entertainment media operates today, presenting images of culturally controversial behavior to attract audiences.

Hollywood Bohemians: Transgressive Sexuality and the Selling of the Movieland Dream (McFarland & Company, 2008) features the forerunners of today’s highly sexualized celebrity culture. Hollywood Bohemians demonstrates how studios and the media made celebrity and sex life synonymous by flaunting their controversial behavior and pushing the media envelope.

McFarland is a leading publisher of scholarly, reference and academic books. Founded in 1979 by Robert McFarland Franklin, the firm is located in Jefferson, North Carolina and is especially known for its performing arts and film titles. McFarland releases are part of library collections throughout the world.

Brett L. Abrams is Historian in Residence at American University and Archivist at the National Archives. Hollywood Bohemians grew out of his doctoral research on gender politics. The author’s second book, Capital Sporting Grounds: A History of Stadium and Ballpark Construction in Washington, D.C., will be released next month.

For more information on the book, visit
www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3929-4