Thursday, July 24, 2003

Hollywood Keeping Immigrant Stories At Arm's Length

When this nation of immigrants began flocking to the movies, they went to see stories about themselves. From 1905, when nickelodeons first appeared, to the end of the 1920s, when Hollywood began to create a star system, innumerable romances, comedies and melodramas featured immigrants and working-class laborers as their central characters... [But] in recent years, Hollywood has shied away from exploring the immigrant experience, in part because it's become such a political hot potato, in part because well-heeled studio executives find it hard to identify with the subject.
· Immigrants [Los Angeles Times 07/22/03]