But these opinions are shared by all literate adults, including those who have never studied the Melanesians. Miss Powdermaker is morally outraged by the power structure of Hollywood. To regard it, as she does, as something which occurs only in the film industry, however, shows an unusual innocence of the facts of life. We are told, finally, that Hollywood is a totalitarian community and has a totalitarian view of man. This proposition, if true, requires explanation.
Shrill indictment is no substitute for measured analysis.
Aside from some truncated case histories, which add interest if little significance to her enterprise, most of her information comes from the pages of Variety and the New York Times. These are her principal, and almost exclusive, sources. Whatever may be the merits of this book as journalism or as criticism, its publication is a disservice to American social science, and especially to anthropology. It will increase the suspicion of those who view anthropology as more of a cult than a science. And it will strengthen the, skepticism of those who view anthropologists themselves as people who use more magic than do the primitives they purport to study.