Hollywood that inflationary environment

In Thomas Mann's novella Disorder and Early Sorrow, Mann depicts one of his characters who thinks he will one day 'make it' in the 'movies'.



"The flight from the world of reality is evident in Xaver’s fanciful escape into the world of the cinema: 
With his whole soul he loves the cinema. . . . Vague
hopes stir in him that some day he may make his fortune in that world . . .—hopes based on his shock of
hair and his physical agility and daring. He likes to
climb the ash tree in the front garden. . . . Once there
he lights a cigarette and smokes it as he sways to and
fro, keeping a lookout for a cinema director who might
chance to come along and engage him".


Here Mann anticipates what was to become the Hollywood myth
of being discovered in Schwab’s drugstore. Such dreams are bred
by an inflationary economy, which corrupts the ambitions of
youth. The young man fantasizes about making his fortune in the
movies because he can imagine becoming wealthy only by making one big killing. In an inflationary environment, one must dream of becoming an overnight success because the slow steady
way of amassing a fortune by working hard and saving simply
will not work.


The inflationary environment is just as evident today in the instant success lure of the X Factor and other similar
toe curdling talent show drivel. 




English lessons on Skype at: http://tutoringexcellence.blogspot.co.uk/