Hollywood and the Consumption Culture in the Roaring Twenties - A thesis on the evolution of American consumer culture in the early 20th century on the example of a synergetic business cooperation between the media, the film and the cosmetics industry

Abstract

This new focus on beauty in films then, together with the establishment of fan magazines and the expansion of the cosmetics industry, accelerated the idea that one could actively improve, alter and play with their social identity, that already began to surface in the wake of the emergent beauty culture some years earlier. Rising up to the status of major industrial branches at the exact same time, it seems not surprising that the film and the make-up industry at some point began to actively promote and accelerate each other in significance. Just as make-up, films and Hollywood both carried connotations which allowed the individual to play with ones role in society which, as previously mentioned, due to new social mobility on all levels was not anymore perceived as fixed and the idea that anybody could rise to stardom under the right circumstances was planted into the heads of especially young flapper girls. Make-up and the movies then, both became leading, crucial factors in the process of 'becoming someone' and climbing to the highest steps of the social ladder. A form of systematic collaboration then, can be traced as both industries utilized 'the pervasiveness of the medium, which generated needs and desires of the consumer, coupled with product endorsement of movie stars'28 to 'fuel the growth of consumer culture' in the way they appropriated the same icons for their business strategies: Beauty, perceived as a prerequisite for stardom, stardom being understood as something generally worth striving for and stars (through the media and the movies), consequentially showed the ordinary woman how, with the help of cosmetics and other goods, they can become beautiful and as such, get the chance to become stars themselves. A win-win for both industries and movie magazines consequentially formed the third, binding factor in that collaboration. Movies cued ideals and wishes in the consumer and accelerated the active (re)creation of the individuals identity, which then could be satisfied through the advertisements and products in the magazines, which -again- in turn, cued new interest in movies through synopses and insider information about starts and new productions. A certain circular motion seems to have established from the movies, to the magazines, to the products and back to the movies.