| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity. By Samantha Barbas. (New York: Palgrave, 2001. vi, 218 pp. $27.95, ISBN 0-312-23962-9.)

In recent decades, social and cultural historians have developed sophisticated understandings of the ways in which movie audiences used theater space to shape class, gender, and ethnic identities. Samantha Barbas's study of movie fans and fan clubs from 1910 to 1940 represents another avenue of research along a well-trodden path. 1

Barbas challenges conceptions of movie fans as passive, giddy, teenage girls deluded by Hollywood fantasy. Her fans were active participants in the creation of the star system, star on- and off-screen personae, and cultural products. Responding to fan pressure, Carl Laemmle revealed the names of the personalities in his IMP (Independent Moving Picture Company) films, which led to the star system. Fans, not studios, created fan clubs in the 1930s. Through aggressive letter-writing campaigns, club members shaped the careers and screen images of Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and Greta Garbo. Refusing to be duped by fictitious studio publicity, fans actively sought true stories about the stars they admired, and they used their knowledge to challenge studio contrivances. . . .

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