Los Angeles Adult Entertainment: ‘Shocking True Story’ by Henry E. Scott
Only Hollywood was shocked by the breakdown of the gentlemen’s agreement that had preserved a facade most Americans knew to be a crock. The movie industry was important enough to California that the state attorney general got the grand jury indictment that eventually drove Confidential out of business.
Still, the magazine’s imitators kept publishing, and its legacy is alive in today’s supermarket scandal sheets and tabloid TV shows. Scott takes note of this, but again does not consider the wider issues, such as the way Confidential’s coarse, knowing tone and obsession with behind-the-scenes dirt has infiltrated even the coverage of national elections.
Instead, he confines himself to an entertaining, if somewhat skimpy history of the magazine’s five-year heyday. It’s hard not to be amused by the excerpts that precede each chapter, rife with such ur-1950s characterizations as “double-standard dollies” (lesbians) and “cuddle-for-cash cuties” (prostitutes).
See the full article from “Los Angeles Times”