The Hard Sell of Paradise: Hawai'i, Hollywood, Tourism

Jason Sperb

Mar 2022 · State University of New York Press

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The Hard Sell of Paradise examines how mid-twentieth-century Hollywood, negotiating the rhetoric of the tourism industry, offered a complex and contradictory vision of "Hawai'i" for its audiences. From the classic studio system and elite tourism of the 1930s to a postwar era of mass travel, TV, and new leisure markets, the book explores how an eclectic group of populist media reflected the language of tourism not only through its narratives of leisure, but also through its complex engagement with larger cultural and historical questions, such as colonialism, world war, and statehood. Drawing on rare archival research, The Hard Sell of Paradise also explores the valuable role that tourism partners such as United Airlines, Matson Cruise Lines, and the Hawaii Tourist Bureau played in directly and indirectly influencing such films and television shows as Waikiki Wedding, Diamond Head, Blue Hawaii, The Endless Summer, and Hawaii Five-O.

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Jason Sperb teaches English at Oklahoma State University. His previous books include Disney's Most Notorious Film: Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South; Flickers of Film: Nostalgia in the Time of Digital Cinema; and Blossoms and Blood: Postmodern Media Culture and the Films of Paul Thomas Anderson.