Okay, now I've seen the whole thing and I didn't like it better than I did halfway through. Ryan Murphy doesn't understand how to build to a dramatic reversal; he simply turns day to night, black to white, the film is on, the film is off, they burned the print, a minor character kept a copy! Yes, these are reversals, technically, but they are robotic and give his series (again, other than ACS and AHS) the feeling of a Nancy Drew (or Dan Brown) book written on crack cocaine.
Over on HBO there is a better (not great, maybe, but much better) adaptation of Phillip Roth's THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA. It, too, is an alternative history, but if focuses more on the non-famous characters.
There's something about rewriting history with so many characters whom we know from real life--or at least biographies and news reports--that bothers me. Turning Rock Hudson and (especially) Henry Willson into pre-Stonewall gay rights heroes is just offensive, somehow! Perhaps because there is no context for the revisionism. Yes, there were always a few people in Hollywood who were out and proud, damn the torpedos and full speed ahead; but nothing about the lives of Hudson or Willson suggests they would have made such a stand.
(BTW, I said above I worked briefly with Hudson in the 1970s. I only had a few conversations with him, but while he may not have been Einstein, he did not come across as border-line **** like the HOLLYWOOD character.)
And the posters here who reassure us that HOLLYWOOD is nothing serious, just go along for the ride, baffle me! Because the series VERY MUCH PRETENDS to be a serious comment on racial prejudice, sexism, homophobia, corporate cowardice and courage, and--most of all--the power of cinematic representation! Ryan Murphy must have dislocated his own shoulder patting himself on the back every 7 minutes!
So I think it's entirely fair to evaluate the work, and itemize its myriad failings, on the basis of the serious themes it claims to highlight.
Fun to binge watch-terrific cast-Lupone is sublime!
