Hollywood's Blockbuster Cultural Colonialism
Essay by review • November 14, 2010 • Book/Movie Report • 789 Words (4 Pages) • 1,303 Views
Aaron Christopher Edwards
World Cinema
Spring 2005
Hollywood's blockbuster cultural colonialism
The corporate Hollywood presence led by international multimedia
conglomerates such as Viacom, Time Warner and Disney not only
dominates moviemaking worldwide, a process capitalized in the 1980s,
but also employs a colonialism-style of storytelling that may aggravate
cultural relations with other nations, rendering the US a further isolated
and internationally non-excepted super power.
Particularly since the days of Ronald Reagan (a former actor and
substantial faction in the conservative political movement) story-lines of
Hollywood movies haven't reflected the contemporary social commentary
of 70's movies, but a glossy, Americanized work ethic theme. The stories
stress that only hard work produces success with the hidden message that
poverty, instead of being a societal problem, results from laziness and
incompetence. To appeal to many audiences in different countries, most
movie story-lines are now simplified to emphasize action and spectacle
over character development, ignoring or trivializing complex issues.
Historically, Hollywood and foreign film industries have had a
symbiotic relationship since the early days of moviemaking. In the 1930s,
European audiences, even in communist countries, flocked to seek
American films, while at the same time Europe exported large numbers of
producers, directors and actors to Hollywood. Even by the early 1950s,
the big studios sought to cut costs by making many of their movies
overseas and using foreign labor, an early form of global outsourcing. At
the same time, foreign theaters and film companies gained revenues from
the taxes on imported American films and from the showing of these
films.
However, the past 30 years have brought the growth of media
conglomerates that absorbed the old Hollywood studios and merged them
with TV networks, high profile news magazines, movie theater chains,
and videocassette and DVD distribution subunits in a complete reversal of
the U.S. Supreme Court's antitrust Paramount decree of 1948. One of the
principal results has been that Hollywood producers increasingly concentrate on making fewer but more expensive blockbuster films. This
change in turn has had several consequences. Hollywood movies, even
when not intending to, often reflect the American ethic that hard work
inevitably results in worldly success, with the hidden corollary that
poverty must be self-inflicted. Such movies proclaim the growing chasm
between have and have-nots in the global economy.
Blockbuster movies -- which combine the technologies of film and
TV -- have a penchant for reducing debate over crucial social and
economic concerns to mere entertainment. Blockbusters tend to emphasize
spectacle and action over character development, resulting in a flattening
out of important issues. Because they have to appeal to multiple markets,
movies can't have the effectiveness they once did. Most movie story-lines
are now simplified and do not reflect the complexities of life in the United
States and other countries.
The growth of worldwide communication empires has resulted in an
enormous amount of power being concentrated
...
...