MovieChat Forums > Bombshell (1933) Discussion > Lola's life was kind of miserable, wasn'...

Lola's life was kind of miserable, wasn't it?


Lola surrounded herself with the wrong people. Everyone in her life was just there for the money. Her publicist was a terrible human being who constantly lied about her to the press and ended up ruining her life. He rubbed salt in the wound by having her get her heart broken to get her to come back to Hollywood. Even her stalker turned out to be an actor that he hired.

This is supposed to be a comedy, right? I can't see the humor in it. I just feel really bad for Lola. And it's even more depressing when you realize that Lola's life wasn't all that different from Jean Harlow's real life.

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The audience at the time probably thought Harlow was living a happy and glamorous life and that this was just a funny parody of movie stars and Hollywood in general. It's ironic that just before this movie was made, Harlow's career benefitted greatly from the MGM press agents who preserved her popularity by managing the coverage of her husband's suicide (or murder). But like you I didn't find much reason to laugh at Lola. I don't laugh at people when bad things happen to them unless they are the cause, and Lola was mostly a victim. She's a tragic figure more than a comic one - abused by the press, the studio, her boyfriends, her family, her secretary, and by most men who treated her only as a sex object, when all she wants is to be loved and to raise a baby. Hollywood looks really rotten in this picture. The only people who treat Lola with respect are the film crew and her maid. Actually, the line about the maid's lingerie getting torn up on her day off is funny - and unexpected since it seems to show some humanity in a maid and a black woman, which was unusual for movies of the era.

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It's a specific type of comedy I think, a satire. They often have this general feeling.
A more modern satire is Death of Stalin.

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