The other poster (jsis) is not wrong (fighting against aging) but I'll add the meaning was, the old man had to lift weights his entire life in order to "make it" in Hollywoodland and he looked grotesque for what he transformed his body into, the old man dedicated his entire life into transforming his body into a grotesque muscle machine and was still lifting weights all the time to maintain that physique, that was all he did, and where did it land him, a rundown slum Hollywood motel/hotel. He worked out his entire life and was still working out and would die working out to maintain a grotesque body for what, to drop dead from a heart attack in a slum dump hole. That is what Hollywoodland turned people into, something grotesque, full of self-worship, full of shallow obsession over physique (not merely looking young). The old man isn't playing with his grandchildren in a nice house, showing them pictures of his body-builder days when he met grandma, he's playing with himself and fully obsessed with himself and showing himself off to everybody in a run down dump. Alone. Creeping people out. He is the old man George Reeves would have aged into if George Reeves stopped drinking and smoking and starved himself and worked out in a gym 24/7 to continue on as Superman: self-obsessed and alone and grotesque. The old man was a possible future for George Reeves, what people wanted him to transform himself into to remain Superman, and Reeves preferred death (I believe he committed suicide).
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