THB #554: Where The Jews Are
I have been critical of the Academy Museum from the start.
It’s actually gotten worse.
But this newsletter is about the latest controversy… one that became a controversy all the way back in 2021, when it opened, but that I did not deeply embrace.
I am Jewish. But my objections to the content of this museum have always been about the overall focus. I don’t need any kind of special Jewish focus. In fact, there is nothing about this museum that would not be improved if there was little to no focus or any specific segment of the community.
I am completely at peace with the idea that the museum should not be 90% about white men. I embrace the idea that elements of the museum should be about reflecting the flaws of un-inclusion in Hollywood’s past and present.
The Academy Museum should be a living, breathing discussion about the 130 year+ history of the motion picture. That’s a lot of history and choices must be made.
The disaster of this museum really started with the choice of retrofitting the old May Co store on the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax instead of building a museum from scratch that uniquely fit the subject, presumably on the land that The Academy had bought up quietly in Hollywood and has now sold or leased to a wild range of projects. There would also be a garage for 500 - 700 cars and could facilitate buses.
So… this is what you walk into when you walk into “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital.”
This dominant piece of the section combines the one screen in the museum that most closely emulates an actual movie screen, albeit one that is bend more severely than a Cinerama screen. On that screen, there is a movie/slideshow about the early years of Los Angeles and what would become “Hollywood.”
In front of the screen is a table with raised mountains and the shape of the west side of Los Angeles and part of the valley to the north, aka Burbank.
The history is told with both elements, as it leans on locations and things that happened at them to tell the story. Here is the spot where the original Mack Sennett Studios were set up, what it was called then, what year, what it looked like, and some factoid.
This is something that should have been in the museum from the start, with modifications. The big problem is that it is about a 20 minute show, from start ot finish, and maybe 10 people can comfortably watch it standing and there is no seating at all. I don’t suspect bad intentions… just bad design. And that problem design starts with the May Co, which doesn’t allow for any kind of even slightly raised seating which would allow people to sit down and really focus on the show.
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