{"id":10851,"date":"2017-12-27T05:59:47","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T05:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=10851"},"modified":"2017-12-28T06:05:18","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T06:05:18","slug":"literature-has-long-been-sounding-the-alarm-about-sexual-violence-in-hollywood-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/literature-has-long-been-sounding-the-alarm-about-sexual-violence-in-hollywood-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Literature has long been sounding the alarm about sexual violence in Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy J. Stratton<\/a>, University of Denver<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Recent revelations about Hollywood\u2019s culture of sexual harassment and violence might come as a surprise to many Americans.<\/p>\n

After all, Los Angeles \u2013 home of what some call \u201cthe American image factory\u201d \u2013 has long carried the allure of glamour, wealth and fame. Beckoned by the iconic Hollywood sign in the Santa Monica Mountains, the city, in many regards, has become synonymous with the American dream. <\/p>\n

People familiar with the industry might tell a more complicated story. That group includes writers who have made Los Angeles and Hollywood their subjects: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, Evelyn Waugh, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. All have chronicled a seamier side of the California dream, a world awash with drugs, sex, violence and abuses of power. <\/p>\n

So how did so many of us miss this? Could it have anything to do with the fact Americans who read literature recently fell to a three-decade low<\/a>?<\/p>\n

At the very least, the works of these writers show that literature can play an imperative role in our culture \u2013 that novels can give us a means of facing difficult issues that many of us may prefer to ignore, or don\u2019t want to believe exist. <\/p>\n

A city of vampires<\/h2>\n

In numerous novels since the 1930s, Hollywood\u2019s underbelly has been revealed as a landscape rife with peril. And while many writers have explored the vice, corruption and disillusionment at the heart of Hollywood, few have gone deeper into the shadows than Nathanael West and Bret Easton Ellis. <\/p>\n

West\u2019s 1939 novel, \u201cThe Day of the Locust<\/a>,\u201d depicts the struggles of Faye Greener, an aspiring actress in pursuit of Hollywood fame and fortune \u2013 a dream laid waste by the men she meets along the way, who see her as little more than an object of their desires.<\/p>\n

Pursued and stalked throughout the novel, Greener eventually turns to prostitution to make a living. Worse yet, to the novel\u2019s protagonist, she\u2019s the subject of disturbing rape fantasies. The story ends in a frenzy of violence at a Hollywood movie premiere \u2013 West\u2019s ultimate denunciation of a culture and a city.<\/p>\n

More than 40 years later, the characters of Bret Easton Ellis\u2019s fiction are subjected to almost unspeakable forms of trauma and sexualized violence in \u201cLess Than Zero<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Informers<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

In \u201cLess Than Zero,\u201d billboards emblazoned with the words \u201cDisappear Here\u201d loom over the landscape. They\u2019re apparently advertisements that invite a blissful escape to some far-off resort. But for the novel\u2019s main character, they become a menacing warning of a city that devours all who live and work there.<\/p>\n

The novel\u2019s main character, Clay, descends into the darkest recesses of this world \u2013 a journey to, as he puts it, \u201csee the worst.\u201d And indeed he does. <\/p>\n

Although some of the horrors he witnesses occur in back alleys and basement clubs, the most shocking forms of violence \u2013 rapes, the viewing of snuff films<\/a> \u2013 transpire at ritzy hotels and posh homes in Malibu, Bel Air and Beverly Hills. We are led to the realization that self-destruction, dehumanization and violence are built into the very fabric of Hollywood\u2019s being. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the young characters in \u201cThe Informers\u201d live in a Los Angeles \u201cswarming with vampires.\u201d Many turn to alcohol, drugs and sex to cope with the depravity of lives that are hopelessly artificial and empty. For some, entertainment has devolved into watching videos of women being terrorized by \u201cnear-naked masked men.\u201d <\/p>\n

At one point, a main character, the son of a movie executive, meets a struggling actor. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you\u2019re willing to do some pretty awful things,\u201d the actor says, \u201cit\u2019s hard getting a job in this town.\u201d The reader can almost anticipate the despairing surrender conveyed in his final words: \u201cand I\u2019m willing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other novels, set outside of Hollywood, speak to what can be seen only as an epidemic of sexual violence: Toni Morrison\u2019s \u201cBeloved<\/a>,\u201d Louise Erdrich\u2019s \u201cThe Round House<\/a>,\u201d Frances Washburn\u2019s \u201cElsie\u2019s Business<\/a>,\u201d Jessica Knoll\u2019s \u201cLuckiest Girl Alive<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

All hold a mirror to a world that many would prefer not to face. <\/p>\n

Literature as \u2018equipment for living\u2019<\/h2>\n

Novels cannot replace the immediacy of the testimony offered by the courageous women who, in recent months, have publicly shared their experiences with sexual violence. <\/p>\n

Nonetheless, such works can function as a vital corroboration for the heartbreaking truths that these women have revealed. They give a voice to perspectives that are marginalized and silenced. <\/p>\n

The critic Kenneth Burke<\/a> viewed literature not just as a form of amusement or intellectual reward, but as a way of addressing social problems by teaching, as he put it, \u201cstrategies for dealing with situations.\u201d <\/p>\n

An implicit element of all literature, he argued<\/a>, is that it gives readers opportunities to imagine how they\u2019d respond to complicated scenarios, from \u201cwhat is promising\u201d to \u201cwhat is menacing\u201d \u2013 all from the relative safety of our homes. He observed that readers can gain what he called an \u201cequipment for living<\/a>,\u201d a means to help navigate our daily experiences.<\/p>\n

Recent studies reveal other benefits. One found<\/a> that deep reading makes us \u201csmarter and nicer,\u201d while another showed that reading literary fiction (as opposed to mass market fiction) helps people develop a greater sense of empathy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"TheIn a country whose people have become increasingly isolated<\/a> from and suspicious<\/a> of one another, it\u2019s something we need now more than ever.<\/p>\n

Billy J. Stratton<\/a>, Professor of American Literature and Culture; Native American Studies, University of Denver<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy J. Stratton, University of Denver Recent revelations about Hollywood\u2019s culture of sexual harassment and violence might come as a surprise to many Americans. After all, Los Angeles \u2013 home of what some call \u201cthe American image factory\u201d \u2013 has long carried the allure of glamour, wealth and fame. Beckoned by the iconic Hollywood sign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[272,3349,1409,1740,2031,2225,3506,3382,2131,3681],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10853,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10851\/revisions\/10853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}