Old School with Shilo Brooks Joan Didion Knew What Hollywood Would Become
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Mar 12, 2026 Peter Savodnik, editor and cultural critic, discusses Joan Didion and her novel Play It as It Lays. He traces Didion’s prophetic view of Hollywood, the emptiness of modern celebrity, and how her precise detail and skepticism toward 60s feminism still cut through contemporary culture. Short, sharp takes connect the book’s mood to today’s red carpets and social media spectacle.
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Mariah's Drift Mirrors Fragmented Storytelling
- Play It As It Lays follows Maria Wyeth, a 31-year-old former model/actress drifting through Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
- Savodnik notes Didion distorts chronology and uses vignettes to mirror Mariah's fractured inner life and complicity in a friend's death.
Hollywood Emptiness Intensified By Corporate Media
- Savodnik argues Hollywood is emptier now than in the 1960s because it's become corporate and subsumed by Silicon Valley and media economics.
- He sees celebrity's mystique eroded by constant coverage and geographic dispersion of fame.
Celebrity Lost Its Mythic Function
- Celebrity once served as a quasi-religious conduit in America between masses and the sublime.
- Savodnik says cultural and technological shifts have sapped celebrity's preternatural aura and made it routine.
