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Jun 20, 2006 02:20 PM
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Hollywood, 10:58 PM
Sun Mar 14
19 posts in the last 24 hours
Those who've been watching Entourage because they enjoy the girl-crazy, high-fiving sitcom adventures of the pretty guy, the tall dumb guy, the shorter dumb guy, the somewhat street-smart guy, and the hyperactive, foul-mouthed guy in the suit are apparently missing out on the multilayered charms of the "cult" HBO series. Fortunately, the LAT has charged a UCLA professor with revealing the Hollywood-decoding subtext behind the moments when Ari Gold drops the name of a real-life movie executive while an indifferent Vince floats in the pool at the Standard:
The show underscores the outsider, working-class origins of Turtle, Eric, Vince and Drama. They alternately stand gaga-eyed or jaded in the face of celebrities, as fans would. They learn the ropes and traps of public relations, from inside and outside. They continually venture into and out of the fame bubble. Each episode shows the posse pressing the flesh with fans, gawkers, the unemployed and sundry wannabes.
In these ways, "Entourage" dramatizes the porous borderlands of the business, not its inaccessible centers. More than dramatic premise, teaching fans to travel to and from those centers is good business. The many multimedia sites where fans interface with "Entourage" show how fan activities drive it. As a cultural road map, "Entourage" front-loads useful information for fans and aspirants alike on managing, agenting, pitching, packaging, casting, marketing and distribution. It also provides a handy lexicon of employee rhetoric needed to work a room and survive inside or outside of the business: acting out, hooking up, networking, negotiating, intimidating, and conspicuous faking-it-until-you-make-it consumption.
Indeed, Entourage's "cultural road map to Hollywood" finally dispels the illusions about the difficulty of achieving success in the entertainment business. Armed with nothing more than three pussy-chasing pals, a good head of hair, and a couple of key pieces of industry jargon transcribed from one of Ari's shouted cellphone conversations, nearly any fan of the show can be well on his way to becoming the biggest star in the world.
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