Where Is Hollywood

Hollywood used to be the taj of most young people interested in acting. Los Angeles was the destination to star watch, tread the sidewalks adorned with glitterati names and hand prints and perhaps catch a peek of some successful actor in the Hollywood area. Maybe even be discovered and become one of them, too. Now, with the crazies who grab at actors or throw things and yell at them, or bug them to take selfies, those days are over. They've ruined it for themselves as well as others and don't care. The body guards get more star time than anyone else. I come from times where there were "movie mags" now replaced with a thing called People. In its pages, we see reams of face shots of the rich and famous who look unbelievable and are, with their nips and tucks and lifts and shots. In my day, as a child I saw older teens with rooms papered in colourful pages filling their walls with  favorite stars and signed photographs of their heart-throbs in frames on their flouncy, skirted dressers or bureaus. There were dolls and paper dolls and dishes and yes, cutlery, sporting the faces and forms of Hollywood's latest. The stars were to dream on. Glamour was key and the sparkling, beruffled, gargantuan musicals we thrilled over, filled the movie theatres so that fans could watch them over and over, speak the lines, sing the songs and try to dance the dances. It was all flash and film and glamorous fantasy. Some of it had stars talking to actual people on the street, who went to their movies. Today, in some of the best films chosen, young actors take on roles that must be physically excruciating to play or fun or tense or those calling for deep commitment. It's now a private, often secret and serious business, one closely guarded and supervised and cultivated. It is no longer simply fun and it wasn't all back then either. The darker roles then, became later, the drama icons for actors today. Much of the glamour is found now, in style. It seems that fashion and film have fused into one big runway show every time the red carpet is rolled out. The big fashion magazine that glazes the stands, is now a movie star publication. The cover borne actors are first groomed to lose weight (which seems to be, sadly, part of a current resume requirement in spite of health first) and then made up and adorned with garb that costs as much as a year's rent. None of them think it up themselves. Most of the Hollywood darlings, male, female and so on, are groomed by a highly competitive crew who run about frantically adorning the dollies of Hollywood. If we, the real people, saw them as they are, we would likely not recognise them even if they dared to trod our public sidewalks. Many fly in and out of drug addiction at some point, marry grandly but temporarily, are ridiculously rich, can't appear in public places even to bag a burger or remotely hope to step onto the sidewalks of their own towns. Where is Hollywood? Inside behind bars. Their own.