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

Traces the complex and contradictory representations of Hawai'i in popular film and television programs from the 1930s to the 1970s.
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,
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
.