Earlier this summer I thought for a minute of adopting The Great Gatsby for a few of my English classes, but this choking feeling came upon me when I saw all the online websites available to support student writing for this novel.  How do you compete with that in the classroom? My students would just be shoveling “it” on me night after night from outside resources.  Jean Harlow once said, “When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”  Who’s Jean Harlow?  What does that quote mean?  Why should anyone care? On my shelves here in Mexicali, I have 3-4  books that feature the tragedy of Jean Harlow, but I was unable to pinpoint where and when she said this.   I couldn't find analysis of it on the internet.  Jaja.  This quote would be cool to share on our class discussion board.  I'll ask my students for their own interpretations.

I just finished reading Karina Longworth’s Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood.  Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald makes an appearance in this book when he is contracted to write a screenplay for a Jean Harlow picture.  Jean Harlow (see above)  is one of the many starlets victimized in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood.  At the age that many of my students are now, Jean came to California with the dreams of becoming a serious actor, but Howard had other ideas.  Howard was a Texas millionaire – maybe he could be called the Donald Trump of the day –  a maverick, a movie producer focused more on image than craft.  Sound familiar?  He lived to be seen with a beautiful woman at his side.   In 1920's Hollywood, rich men had all the power.  Aspiring actresses had all the vulnerability. This was a long, long time before the emergence of what we now  refer to as the "Me Too" Movement.  Howard Hughes found his niche, but Seduction is the story of strong and defiant women – Ava Gardner, Ginger Rogers, Kate Hepburn, Joan Crawford -  who dared to call their own shots.  I would love to read parts of this book with my students.  These brave young women paved the way for the independence of their modern day counterparts. 

I discovered Karina Longworth from her Hollywood podcast “You Must Remember This.”  I listen to her whenever I can.  In the kitchen, the car, or  riding my bike.  Many of her episodes parallel the times and tragedies of The Great Gatsby.  Jean Harlow arrived in Hollywood, maybe at the same time The Great Gatsby did (the year of publication: 1925). Karina writes about Jean as if she was a character in a novel.    Jean, like many of the women in Karina’s book arrive in Hollywood with the biggest of dreams, only to be used, abused and tossed to the side.  Karina paints a sad picture of what it must have been like for an ambitious woman in the classic Hollywood era.  Howard takes credit for giving Jean her big break in his first film Hells Angels. He’s the one that first called her “The Platinum Blonde,”  for he recognized it was the color of her hair that could make her stand out in the crowd of Hollywood beauties.  He constructed an image for her that would make them both rich and famous, but his interest in her wasn't sustainable.  All the time he had her under contract, he had talent scouts searching for the his next bombshell.  Money (and Jean's career)  was no object. 

Later, Howard did the same with Jane Russell.  He discovered her in a dentist office and transformed her the most popular/desired “pin-up” girl ever.   He utilized his engineering talents to design Jane a special bra to emphasize her what he believed to be her most impressive features.  To publicize his new film The Outlaw, Howard obsessed with giving Jane as much "exposure" as possible.  Jaja.  Many of his publicity shots for the movie became best-selling centerfolds and calendar covers. He discovered he could make more money off her image than he could off her acting.  

If Gatsby is a story about the American Dream, so is Karina Longworth's Seduction. I'm not  writing a book  report here, but I like reading about the diversity of life stories in this book. Jean is much different than Jane.  Jane is much different than Joan Crawford.  Everyone is different than Bette Davis.  I believe in the American Dream, and so do my students.  I mean, we are all immigrants.  Together, we make this country great.  After I share my bit with Jean Harlow in the classroom, I would hope to see many of my students research the origins of todays "Me Too" Movement.  They just might find a few photos of the women discussed in Seduction.  Jean Harlow was a very courageous woman who fought relentlessly against the pressures of Hollywood movie moguls.  I hope there is a lesson here to be learned.  This Fall 2021, many of my students should have something to say say about Diversity and Equality and the American Dream.

I’m very sad to rule out The Great Gatsby, but I tell myself the choice of a class novel could make or break a student’s college experience.  Sadly for many of them, it will be the first novel they ever read.  Even sadder, for many it will be the last.  These websites that provide students everything they need to know,  they also deny students everything they need to think critically.  I would be happy to see them read The Great Gatsby, but I know in reading the book, they never will fully engage.  It’s too easy to substitute the information they glean on websites for their own ideas.  The  information stunts their growth.  That’s where I derive meaning from “to lie down with dogs.”

But clearly, Jean Harlow was talking about Howard Hughes.