Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.

Jong’s quip treats “Hollywood” less as a geographic place than as a mental occupation: a set of fantasies, desires, and ready-made narratives that colonize attention. By locating it “between the ears,” she suggests the entertainment industry’s real power lies in shaping imagination and values. The sting of “lately vacated by God” frames this cultural fixation as a kind of secular replacement for religious meaning—Hollywood as a new shrine, offering glamour and myth in place of transcendence. The line is satirical rather than theological: it criticizes the emptiness or idolatry of celebrity culture and the way mass media can displace deeper sources of purpose.