Twilight of the Idols revisits some of the sensational scandals of early Hollywood to evaluate their importance for our contemporary understanding of human deviance. By analyzing changes in the star system and by exploring the careers of individual stars–Wallace Reid, Rudolph Valentino, and Mabel Normand among them–Mark Lynn Anderson shows how the era’s celebrity culture shaped public ideas about personality and human conduct and played a pivotal role in the emergent human sciences of psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Anderson looks at motion picture stars who embodied various forms of deviance–narcotic addiction, criminality, sexual perversion, and racial indeterminacy. He considers how the studios profited from popularizing ideas about deviance, and how the debates generated by the early Hollywood scandals continue to affect our notions of personality, sexuality, and public morals.
Twilight of the Idols: Hollywood and the Human Sciences in 1920s America
Related 1920's Resources:
- Idols of Modernity: Movie Stars of the 1920s (Star Decades)
- Hollywood Singing and Dancing: A Musical History – The 1920s
- Hollywood Singing and Dancing: The 1920s, The Dawn of the
- Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary: Her Private Letters from
- Hollywood Singing & Dancing: Series 1920s-2000s
- Cartoon Rarities Of The 1920s
