Hollywood on Netflix: and the Oscar goes to … Rock Hudson’s gay lover – 1948 Academy Awards recreated but with Chinese, black, and homosexual winners
- Real-life characters Anna May Wong, Hattie McDaniel and Rock Hudson mingle with fictional ones at the 1948 Academy Awards, where the winners are a surprise
- Writer Ryan Murphy says he wanted to give happy endings to film industry players of the era who missed out on Oscars due to their race or sexual orientation
Soon after presenter and screen star Ernest Borgnine takes the stage at the 1948 Academy Awards, a few attendees depart to another corner of the venue for a brief intermission. One is using the lull to fiddle with a crossword puzzle app on his mobile phone.
“Oh, this is a good one … ’cause here we are at the Oscars,” David Corenswet says. “Eight letters. The clue is ‘snub’. It ends in I-N-G.”
“Ignoring,” Samara Weaving replies, without hesitation. (She’s right.)
This is the time- and mind-warp taking place as new has a break from the old on the set of the finale of Netflix’s Hollywood.
Written by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the TV drama imagines a more progressive history for Hollywood’s Golden Age. The seven-episode season explores the racist, sexist, homophobic past of show business through a parallel universe in which its underdog cast of characters, who are working to get a feature film off the ground, get their fairy-tale ending – or close to it.