'Hollywood' trailer spotlights the many biases of showbiz post-WWII, excited fans declare it an Emmy winner
“We’re not making just a movie, we’re making history,” is heard in the trailer for the upcoming Netflix limited series, ‘Hollywood’, and it somewhat sums up what we can expect. The more than three-minutes-long extensive trailer provides a long glance at the show created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, and it’s both intriguing and visually pleasing.
The show follows a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers in post-World War II Hollywood as they try to make it in Tinseltown. Each character, per Netflix’s synopsis of the series, offers a unique glimpse behind the gilded curtain of Hollywood's Golden Age, spotlighting the unfair systems and biases across race, gender and sexuality that continue to this day. The show aims to expose and examine decades-old power dynamics, and what the entertainment landscape might look like if they had been dismantled.
Alternative history has become something of a popular flavor in the last couple of years, but nothing as ambitious as ‘Hollywood’ has been taken on so far in a genre that has mostly seen the hypothetical effects of different political power structures.
Series director and writer Janet Mock told IndieWire, “We turned to the past for direction, uncovering buried history to spin an aspirational tale of what-ifs: What if a band of outsiders was given a chance to tell their own story? What if the person with greenlight power was a woman? The screenwriter, a black man? What if the heroine was a woman of color? The matinee idol openly gay? And what if they were all invited into the room where the decisions are made, entering fully and unapologetically themselves to leave victorious and vaunted, their place in history cemented.”
And that is what the trailer shows us. The possibilities. And, of course, the repercussions of challenging the existing structures and dynamics. “I want to take the story of Hollywood, and give it a rewrite,” says Jeremy Pope at the beginning of the trailer, providing a meta-commentary on the series. The trailer for ‘Hollywood’ has generated a lot of excitement. Many on Twitter could not stop gushing about the show’s cast and visuals, and the core concept. One user went so far as to say, “This series just shouts 'Emmy’.”
Fans of Ryan Murphy’s work were obviously stoked about it. A Twitter user wrote, “F**k you Ryan Murphy *added to watchlist*.” Another wrote, “Cannot wait to binge this, I love this cast, I love the period setting, I hope it's as good as Feud (Ryan Murphy's best work). The production values look incredible. This looks like so much fun!”
Even the YouTube comments section was filled with praise. One user wrote, “Me before trailer: probably gonna be another boring Hollywood show. Me after trailer: You son of a b***h, I’m in.” Another said, “This is classic Ryan Murphy: Excellent cast, intriguing plot, older actresses in starring roles, and gay af! I’m so excited for this show.”
There were some unusual expectations for the trailer as well. A YouTube user commented, “Where's Harvey Weinstein's cameo as a child?” Yet, another user said, “I was expecting a Tarantino TV series like a continuation or alternative stories of ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ but instead I got this. I was not disappointed. Not in the slightest.”
‘Hollywood’ stars David Corenswet, Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, Laura Harrier, Samara Weaving, Dylan McDermott, Holland Taylor, Patti LuPone, Jim Parsons, Jake Picking, Joe Mantello, and Maude Apatow. It is produced by Murphy, Brennan, Mock and Alexis Martin Woodall. ‘Hollywood’ will drop on Netflix on May 1.
