Stars on sale!

From June 28, 2011 to January 29, 2012 – Museu del Cinema

Hollywood in american advertising (1930-1970). Roger Biosca Collection

The film and advertising industries came together in the late nineteenth century and since then have worked at creating the signs that shaped much of the imagery of the twentieth century. Their messages encouraged viewers to get involved in the consumer society, a world that went hand in hand with new ways of understanding the economy, politics, society and culture.

Hollywood had invented the star system so as to have a powerful advertising tool to publicize its movies. Why not also use it to advertise the other signs of the contemporary era? Cinemas, streets, shop windows and supermarkets were filled with images in which actors revealed their beauty secrets or what presents they gave their partners for Christmas. Why waste time looking for a suitable product if our favourite star has already found it for us?

In this exhibition you will see a select number of adverts, taken from the Roger Biosca Collection, illustrating this facet of the relationship between film and advertising and mostly spanning the period between 1930 and 1970. They have been taken from large-circulation general-interest American magazines, such as Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Lady's Home Journal, Colliers and Esquire. These are adverts aimed at a general audience, at readers who whether they were great cinema fans or not lived under the influence of the gods of this Olympus known as Hollywood.