Oil! · Chapter
XIV: The Star explained
Bunny returns to Angel City and becomes entangled in the struggles of the labor college and the oil workers' union.
What happens
Bunny returns to Angel City and becomes entangled in the struggles of the labor college and the oil workers' union. He hears Vee Tracy's candid account of her past in the film industry, confronting the harsh realities of exploitation and survival. Meanwhile, in Paradise, union activists are blacklisted, and the labor movement is fractured by infighting among moderates, Socialists, Communists, and I.W.W. members, all while facing repression from capital and the state.
Themes in this chapter
Class Struggle and Labor
The chapter details the internal divisions within the labor movement, blacklisting of union activists, and the repression of radicals under the criminal syndicalism act.
Corruption and Power
Vee Tracy's story exposes the exploitation of women in Hollywood by wealthy men; the labor college faces graft from union officials and pressure from capitalist interests.
Deception and Truth
Vee Tracy chooses honesty about her past, contrasting with the lies prevalent in the film world; the labor movement struggles with propaganda and the suppression of radical ideas.
Idealism vs. Pragmatism
Bunny and the labor activists grapple with the tension between radical ideals and the practical need to build a unified union; the 'reds' versus moderates debate reflects this conflict.
Characters to notice
- Bunny Ross
Returns to Angel City and becomes involved in labor college and union struggles; listens to Vee Tracy's story.
- Vee Tracy
Reveals her past exploitation in the film industry and her cynical view of love and money.
- Daniel Webster Irving
Labor instructor struggling to keep the labor college running amid factional disputes.
- Harry Seager
His business college graduates are boycotted for being 'Bolshevik'; faces illegal blacklisting.
- Ben Riley
Socialist oil worker fired from Ross Consolidated for union activity; forced to take ranch work.
- Ruth Watkins
Pleads with Bunny to help Ben Riley; shows deep concern for the workers' plight.
- Paul Watkins
Endorses Tom Axton's position of saving the union; debates with Socialists and Communists.
- Tom Axton
Organizer for the oil workers' union; advocates unity to save the union.
Key passages
““I’m no spring chicken, Bunny, don’t imagine it. When I came into this game, I had my own way to make, and I paid the price, like every other girl. You’ll hear them lie about it, but don’t be fooled; there are no women producers, and no saints among the men.””
Vee tells Bunny she is not naive; she had to sacrifice herself to succeed in Hollywood, and warns him that the industry is full of hypocrisy and exploitation.
Vee's blunt confession reveals the systemic exploitation of women in the film industry.
““I’ll tell you how it is, there’s such fierce competition in this game, if you’re going to get ahead, nothing else matters, nothing else is real. I know it was that way with me; I hung round the doors of the studios—I was only fifteen—and I starved and yearned, till I’d have slept with the devil to get inside.””
Vee explains that the cutthroat competition in Hollywood makes morality irrelevant; she was willing to do anything to break into the industry.
Highlights the desperation and moral compromises forced upon aspiring actresses.
““If I’d told you I was an innocent virgin, how would you have known? But I said to myself, ‘By God, if having money means anything to me, it means I don’t have to lie any more.’ ””
Vee values her financial independence because it allows her to be honest about her past, rather than pretending to be virtuous.
Vee's statement ties wealth to the freedom from deception, a key theme in the chapter.
“The old-line leaders would have nothing to do with the college if these “reds” got in; on the other hand, if you excluded the “reds,” they would set up a clamor, and a lot of genuine liberals would say, what was the use of a new college that was so much like the old ones?”
The labor college is caught between conservative union leaders who reject radicals and radicals who demand inclusion, leaving no easy path forward.
Illustrates the paralyzing factionalism within the labor movement.
“The average union official was a workingman who had escaped from day-labor by the help of a political machine inside the union. Anything new meant to him the danger of losing his desk job, and having to go back to hard work.”
Many union officials are more concerned with preserving their comfortable positions than with advancing workers' rights, making them resistant to change.
Critique of the bureaucratization and conservatism of labor leadership.
