Brave

The story of a Hollywood film star told through the eyes of Rose McGowan.

After reading this book you will never be able to watch some of the scenes in movies the same way again.  She reveals all the hurt and horror female actresses have to suffer through to bring you the few hours of enjoyment you experience in a darkened movie theatre.

This is an amazing book.  It is a reveal of the behind the scenes look at Hollywood that I have long questioned and suspected.  Rose shows us a side of the silver screen that is very tarnished.  She not only acts very bravely looking deep inside herself and saving herself from a life of abuse and degradation, she peels back glitter of the red carpet and uncovers all the abuse and just plan belittling behavior that has been thrust on women in the industry by dominant and powerful men probably since the beginning of the film industry began.

One of the most powerful lines in a book with so many gut wrenching and incredible stories, I think is, when Rose says, "...I was repeating an emotional scene I'd already played.  Your entertainment comes at a cost to us performers.  You should know that and acknowledge it."   She is talking at this moment about acting out marriage scenes.  Where as an actor she is getting married, the most important day in a women's real life and she at this point has never experienced it herself in real life.  Then by the time she does have her own experience it is cheapened.

There are many times in the book Rose describes scenes like this and even more horrific ones involving sex.  All these behaviors had become accepted as part of the Hollywood mystique.  We the adoring public are mesmorized by the fame of actresses, but we never realize what that fame cost each woman.  McGowan represents Hollywood as similar to a cult.  Those at the top with the money and power controlling the others, with abuse, belittlement and fear

Also Rose points out that the movies we watch influence our behavior in society as a whole.  If men watch women be degraded in a film they think that is the way they can also treat the women in their lives.  If women see that only the skinny and most beautiful women are singled out in a film, they change their view of their own bodies and looks.  Our behavior and feelings about ourselves are being dictated by a small group of very disturbed, abusive men who wield the power.

Rose McGowan has started to shine a spotlight on the unpleasant behavior that was running rampant in Hollywood, calling our attention to the horrors the country ignored and swept under the carpet.  We have pulled back a corner of the rug and peaked underneath but I am not sure we yet ready to pull back the red carpet and clean out all the dirt that has been hiding underneath for years.