You Must Remember This

Pretty Baby and a Playmate Murder (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 6)

A Star is Born (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 5)

Orson Welles, What’s Up Doc, Paper Moon (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 4)

Last Picture Show Love Triangle (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 3)

Peter Bogdanovich and the Woman Behind the Auteur (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 2)

“It wasn’t sexism, then” (Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1)

Sneak Peek: Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman, Episode 1

Season Trailer: Polly Platt, The Invisible Woman

159: Vanessa Williams, Whitney Houston and Hollywood’s Misogynoir Problem (Make Me Over, Episode 8)

158: The Hemingway Curse? Mariel and Margaux (Make Me Over, Episode 7)

157: Cass Elliot, Carnie Wilson and Fat-Shaming in Rock and Pop (Make Me Over, Episode 6)

156: Esther Williams and the Birth of Waterproof Makeup (Make Me Over, Episode 5)

155: Passing for White: Merle Oberon (Make Me Over, Episode 4)

154: Marie Dressler, the First Female Star to Conquer Hollywood’s Ageism (Make Me Over, Episode 3)

153: Hollywood’s First Weight Loss Guru: Madame Sylvia (Make Me Over, Episode 2)

152: Hollywood’s First Weight Loss Surgery: Molly O’Day (Make Me Over, Episode 1)

Hollywood’s rigid beauty standards in the 1920s transformed actresses into commodities, where any deviation from the "streamline" ideal invited professional ruin. Silent film star Molly O'Day’s career trajectory illustrates this era’s cruelty, as studios enforced "facial and physical disfigurement" clauses to police he...

Sneak Peek: Make Me Over

151: Splash Mountain (Six Degrees of Song of the South, Episode 6)

Disney’s strategic management of the controversial film Song of the South during the 1980s reflects a calculated effort to sanitize problematic intellectual property for a modern audience. By leveraging the film’s 1980 and 1986 re-releases within the politically charged climate of Reagan-era America, the studio capital...

150: Blaxploitation and the White Backlash (Six Degrees of Song of the South, Episode 5)

Song of the South achieved unexpected commercial success in the 1970s by functioning as a nostalgic retreat for white audiences unsettled by the civil rights movement and the rise of black political consciousness. This resurgence occurred alongside the emergence of Blaxploitation cinema, which Hollywood utilized to pro...

149: White Allies and the Blacklist: Maurice Rapf (Six Degrees of Song of the South, Episode 4)

Disney’s production of Song of the South in the mid-1940s highlights the inherent limitations of white allies within a segregated Hollywood system. To navigate the controversy surrounding the film’s depiction of African Americans, Walt Disney hired Maurice Rapf, an avowed communist, to balance the screenplay written by...