George Gallup in Hollywood is a fascinating look at the film industry's use of opinion polling in the 1930s and '40s. George Gallup's polling techniques first achieved fame when he accurately predicted that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be reelected president in 1936. Gallup had devised an extremely effective sampling method that took households from all income brackets into account, and Hollywood studio executives quickly pounced on the value of Gallup's research. Soon he was gauging reactions to stars and scripts for RKO Pictures, David O. Selznick, and Walt Disney and taking the public's temperature on Orson Welles and Desi Arnaz, couples such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and films like Gone with the Wind, Dumbo, and Fantasia. Through interviews and extensive research, Susan Ohmer traces Gallup's groundbreaking intellectual and methodological developments, examining his comprehensive approach to market research from his early education in the advertising industry to his later work in Hollywood. The results of his opinion polls offer a fascinating glimpse at the class and gender differences of the time as well as popular sentiment toward social and political issues.

本書は、統計学という理性の光がハリウッドという欲望の迷宮を照らし出した、知的なスリルに満ちた一冊です。著者は、ギャラップの分析が映画製作の根幹をいかに変容させたかを鮮やかに描き出します。クリエイターの直感と大衆の数値を巡るスリリングな攻防は、単なるビジネス書を超え、創作の神秘に迫る文学的な深みを湛えています。 さらに、数字の背後に潜む階級やジェンダーといった当時の社会像への洞察が見事です。不朽の名作群が、実は緻密に計算された大衆との対話の上に成立していたという事実は、私たちの映画史観を根底から覆します。マーケティングの枠を超え、時代精神の深淵を覗き込むような本書の情熱的な筆致は、読者の知的好奇心を激しく揺さぶるでしょう。