America on Film. Sean Griffin

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Название America on Film
Автор произведения Sean Griffin
Жанр Кинематограф, театр
Серия
Издательство Кинематограф, театр
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781118743881



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musicals that are successful tend to be either animated films for kids (like Frozen [2013] or Trolls [2016]) or live‐action Broadway adaptations that explore darker thematic material (such as Chicago [2002] or Les Misérables [2012]).

      Thus, the popularity (or unpopularity) of certain genres can tell the film historian interesting things about the culture that produced them. Genre films reflect social concerns, but only rarely do they challenge the underlying ideological biases of Hollywood narrative form itself. (Most genre films, being Hollywood films, still feature straight white able‐bodied male protagonists, while women and people of color are relegated to peripheral roles.) Rather, popular Hollywood genres often attempt to shore up the dominant ideology by repeating over and over again certain types of stories that seem to resolve social tensions. For example, the horror film’s emphasis on the threat posed to “normality” by the monstrous reinforces social ideas about what is considered normal. Not surprisingly, in classical Hollywood horror films, “normality” is conventionally represented by middle‐to‐upper‐class, white, heterosexual, and able‐bodied couples and patriarchal institutions. Monsters and villains, on the other hand, are often coded as non‐white, non‐patriarchal, non‐capitalist, and/or differently abled.

      By examining the structure of Hollywood filmmaking, and exploring when and why certain films were popular with American audiences, one can gain insight into the changing ideological currents of twentieth‐ and early twenty‐first‐century America. Yet one must also take into consideration the specific economic and industrial conditions that determine how Hollywood produces its films. Indeed, Hollywood must be understood not just as a set of formal and stylistic structures, but also as an industry that produces certain types of fictional films for profit. As such, Hollywood is an excellent example of capitalism at work. Hollywood companies make and sell films that they think people want to see (that is, films that in some way reflect the dominant ideology), and Hollywood’s business practices use every tool at their disposal to lessen competition, increase buyer demand, and reduce the cost of production. Though Hollywood films are sometimes discussed as “art” by critics and some filmmakers, a Hollywood film’s merit is chiefly judged by its box office revenues. Even when awards are given for artistic achievement, these too are drawn into a film’s economic evaluation – winning a Best Picture Oscar will usually boost a film’s profits. (There are exceptions: Best Picture Winners The Hurt Locker [2008] and Moonlight [2016] are among the least seen Oscar‐winners, ostensibly because of their subject matter.)

      Another strategy that helped Hollywood come to dominate the US film industry was the creation of an oligopoly, a state of business affairs in which a few companies control an entire industry. (An oligopoly is thus very similar to a monopoly, wherein one company controls an entire industry.) In an oligopoly, several large companies agree to work together, keeping potential competitors weak or driving them out of business altogether. In the case of film in America, the Hollywood oligopolies worked throughout the twentieth century, and continue to work, to keep foreign and independent American films marginalized. This has had a specific effect on minority filmmakers. Excluded from the Hollywood studios, independent films made by non‐white, non‐patriarchal, and/or non‐capitalist people often had trouble being distributed and exhibited. Furthermore, Hollywood’s control of production, distribution, and exhibition has not been limited to the United States alone. Motion pictures have been one of America’s leading exports for at least a century, and Hollywood maximizes its profits by distributing its films globally. Since Hollywood films usually make back their cost during domestic release, most of the money earned from foreign exhibition is pure profit. Consequently, Hollywood films can offer foreign theater owners their films at a discount – a price calculatedly lower than the cost of films made locally in their native country. This makes it very difficult for other countries to support their own film industries.

      As such, the Hollywood system is an example not just of industrial capitalism but also of cultural imperialism, the promotion and imposition of ideals and ideologies throughout the world via cultural means. Imperialism means one country dominating another through force and economic control, but in cultural imperialism, one nation doesn’t conquer another with force, but rather overwhelms it with cultural products and the ideologies contained within them. People around the world are inundated with American ways of viewing life when they go to the movies, and often they have little or no access to films made by people of their own nationality. Furthermore, since Hollywood films dominate the world, Hollywood style tends to define film practice for all filmmakers around the world, since Hollywood style is what most people are accustomed to seeing and understanding. Many filmmakers in other countries, having grown up themselves watching Hollywood films, make pictures that duplicate the Hollywood style, again reinforcing its dominance.

Photo displaying an amusement arcade in New York City.