Movie Towns and Sitcom Suburbs: Building Hollywood’s Ideal Communities

279 Pages·2015·2.928 MB·English

by  Stephen Rowley (auth.)

MOVIE TOWNS AND SITCOM SUBURBS
SCREENING SPACES
Series editor: Pamela Robertson Wojcik
Screening Spaces is a series dedicated to showcasing interdisciplinary books
that explore the multiple and various intersections of space, place, and screen
cultures.
Cinema, Gender, and Everyday Space: Comedy, Italian Style
Natalie Fullwood
The US-Mexico Border in American Cold War Film: Romance, Revolution,
and Regulation
Stephanie Fuller
Movie Towns and Sitcom Suburbs: Building Hollywood’s Ideal Communities
Stephen Rowley
Cinematic Geographies and Multicultural Spectatorship in America
Amy Lynn Corbin
Movie Towns and Sitcom
Suburbs
Building Hollywood’s
Ideal Communities
Stephen Rowley
MOVIE TOWNS AND SITCOM SUBURBS
Copyright © Stephen Rowley 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-50161-5
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First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
The author has asserted their right to be identifi ed as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS.
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ISBN 978-1-349-56711-9 ISBN 978-1-137-49328-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137493286
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Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rowley, Stephen, 1973–
Movie towns and sitcom suburbs : building Hollywood’s ideal
communities / Stephen Rowley.
pages cm.—(Screening spaces)
bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-56711-9 (alk. paper)
1. Suburban life in motion pictures. 2. Suburban life on television.
3. Suburbs in motion pictures. 4. Suburban life—United States.
5. City and town life in motion pictures. 6. City and town life on
television. 7. Cities and towns in motion pictures. 8. Cities and towns
on television. 9. City and town life—United States. I. Title.
PN1995.9.S74R69 2015
791.43962—dc23 2015016088
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments i x
Introduction
Visions of Community 1
Chapter 1
Movie Towns 1 9
Chapter 2
Sitcom Suburbs 5 1
Chapter 3
The Bad Suburb 77
Chapter 4
The Fake Town 115
Chapter 5
Constructing the Movie Town 1 51
Chapter 6
Deconstructing the Movie Town 175
Conclusion
The Perpetual Suburb 203
Notes 2 15
Bibliography 2 49
Index 263

Figures
I.1 From material context to notional place (adapted from
Hunt, “Representing ‘Los Angeles’”) 8
1.1 R esidential streetscape from M eet Me in St. Louis 32
2.1 U niversal studios backlot as seen in collage of frames
from A ll I Desire 64
2.2 Warner Bros residential backlot 73
2.3 R evised Colonial Street, Universal Studios backlot 7 5
3.1 “ Somewhere That’s Green,” L ittle Shop of Horrors 7 8
4.1 M ain Street USA, Disneyland 122
4.2 O utside Disneyland (corner West Ball Road and Harbor
Boulevard, Anaheim—approximately 400 meters beyond
the park’s edge) 145
5.1 T upelo Street in Seaside 163
5.2 Market Street, Celebration 168
5.3 L ongmeadow Street, Celebration 170
5.4 H ousing in sitcom suburbs and Celebration. Top row
shows the opening titles of Father Knows Best (left)
and house at Celebration (right); bottom row shows
house at Universal Studios (left) and house at
Celebration (right) 1 72
6.1 Seahaven Town Centre, T he Truman Show 1 90

Acknowledgments
I
t is hard for me to adequately acknowledge the value of the contri-
butions to this project by Angela Ndalianis. Her judicious combination
of encouragement and constructive criticism has been invaluable, as has
her uncanny ability to point me in useful directions. No matter what
seemingly obscure intellectual byway I found myself pursuing, it seemed
Angela could make informed suggestions, and I am enormously grateful
for her invaluable contribution to this work.
I am also thankful for the help of other scholars who provided assis-
tance despite never having met me. Michael Kassel, whose definitive study
of Leave it to Beaver deserves wider exposure, generously responded to
my queries and provided useful suggestions and encouragement, while
Michael Fitzgerald showed a similar academic generosity in unhesitat-
ingly providing me some of the source data from his study of sitcoms.
Similarly, the sections of the study relating to backlots would have been
far sketchier had it not been for the community of enthusiasts who col-
late and share archival material about these sets online. In particular,
Dennis Dickens, Kipp Teague, and Mischa Hof all generously responded
to specific queries.
When undertaking my visits to the real and fictitious places that I have
discussed, I was greatly aided by the hospitality of my friends Amanthi
Chandraratna, Margaret Bennett, Chris Bennett, Alisa Kahn Ridruejo,
and Carlos Ridruejo. Without them my research would have been both
far costlier and much less enjoyable. Going right back, Kristin Beers was
my tour guide on my first trip to Disneyland, and graciously suppressed
her skepticism as I mused about some day combining my interests in
urban planning and film.
My colleagues in the Victorian planning industry have informed this
project in ways too numerous for me to ever appropriately acknowl-
edge. I would like to collectively thank all the colleagues with whom
I have discussed this work, both within the broader planning industry
and amongst my colleagues at RMIT University. Phillip Priest, my boss
for most of the time I was undertaking this work, deserves particular