The first notable aspect of Jordan Brower’s intensely researched book is that it mentions Theodore Adorno only twice, in passing, and Max Horkheimer not at all (poor Max). We get it by now: the culture industry qua oligarchy of the Hollywood studio system qua corporate personhood was propaganda, and scholars need to get on with more detailed work. As I write, the emergent rallying cry of “Stop the Oligarchy” analogizes more to the Gilded Age than to Classical Hollywood. Yet today’s anti-oligarchy sentiment is often directed at Silicon Valley tycoons, who have consumed much of Hollywood itself through streaming services, wrought a new kind of culture industry by commodifying our very attention beyond ideological propaganda, and are now trying to deaccession government itself. Brower’s account of the studio system provides an important analysis of how such oligarchical sausage once got made at the nexus of entertainment, art, and anti-trust law by charting how literary authors, the publishing industry, and classical studios adapted to each other, in every sense, for better or worse.
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