The Star System: Hollywood's Production of Popular Identities (London: Wallflower, 2000) by Paul McDonald is the best short synthesis I have seen on the economics and symbolic economy of the Hollywood studio system and the Hollywood star system from its beginnings in the early 1900s, to its zenith in 1930s and 1940s, and finally to its transformation in the 1960s and 1970s. McDonald does an excellent job of introducing readers to the workings of the Hollywood studio system and its transformation in the wake of the US government's anti-trust suit against the Hollywood studios forcing them to divest of exhibition arms and practises in the United States in the post-World War II period. He also does an excellent job of exploring Hollywood's stars as forms of labour and capital in the vertically integrated Hollywood of the 1930s and 1940s, as forms of labour and capital in the horizontally integrated world of corporate Hollywood in the wake of its divestment of its theatre chains, and as images and brands, forms of symbolic capital, in both eras.
I highly recommend McDonald's book to anyone interested in the economy and symbolic economy of Hollywood and in the Hollywood star system. I do have a few minor quibbles. There is no bibliographic entry for Janet Staiger or Richard Dyer though McDonald references the work of both on several occasions. The Staiger references have been subsumed under Judith Stacey while the Dyer reference is under Paul McDonald. Still, a great book.
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