As we were walking around the back lot of Warner Brothers the other day, a thought occurred to me. These façades, or sets that are simply fronts for stores, houses, etc., but are hollow inside, are a good metaphor for Hollywood. When you think of Hollywood, or you think of it the way we have these past three weeks, you start to see cracks in the façades and you begin to look behind the fronts that Hollywood has literally constructed. What you find is not pretty. Rather it is four shallow walls, empty, and incredibly dangerous in an earthquake. This is Hollywood. This is glamorous Hollywood.

The sets they construct for the movies are the perfect metaphor for Hollywood. It is a façade; a front for something that seems real and looks tangible, but in real life, it is hollow and not real at all. The stories and myths that Hollywood perpetuates seem so real because they resonate with some yearning deep inside of all of us. Thus what is so difficult to realize is that it is an industry of pretending: The actors are not really in love, the two-story house in Connecticut is a one-story set in Burbank, and when it all comes down to it, Hollywood is a business trying to make money.

To quote the Avett Brothers: “So you want to be in love like the movies/But in the movies they’re not in love at all/And with a twinkle in their eyes/They’re just saying their lines /So we can’t be in love like the movies./ Now in the movies they make it look so perfect/And in the background they’re always playing the right song/And in the ending there’s always a resolution/ But real life is more than just two hours long.”