"So often in alternate universe/history, the norm is to go for the most extreme negative version of reality," says Princess Weekes. "What if Nazis won WWII? What if the South won the Civil War? Well in Ryan Murphy’s latest endeavor, Hollywood, he instead asks: What if Hollywood had been more progressive following WWII?" Weekes adds: "I know a lot of people have taken issue with the historical fictionalization of the events, and Slate’s Sam Adams argued that the show 'inadvertently suggests that their predecessors might have had the same success if they’d only just worked up the nerve.' I don’t think the show attempts to do that, although its flattening of the history might make a less informed viewer think so. I think Hollywood is a fairy tale, and it’s a fairy tale cowritten and created by a white gay man and a Black Hawaiian trans woman. It reflects a desire to illustrate what movies and television could have been like if there wasn’t always a struggle in being 'the first'—if there had been this template for Asian women, Black women, gay men, and women that appreciated their humanity. It is painfully optimistic, and while I do understand that perspective, I was also moved by Jeremy Pope’s speech as Archie, declaring himself to the world, because Jeremy Pope is a Black gay man, so he, of all people, would have an idea of what that representation would have meant."
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TOPICS: Hollywood, Netflix, Laura Harrier, Ryan Murphy, Disabilities and TV, Nudity