Media Literacy and the Motion Picture Industry

Despite its expensive and risky nature, moviemaking in many ways lies at the center of American popular culture. Not only are movies shown, they are also discussed. Especially when movie companies first release films, huge waves of publicity blanket the mass media. It often becomes impossible to avoid hearing about certain movies. You'd almost have to be on another planet not to know something about the Spider Man and Harry Potter flicks. Moreover, movie stars and songs that come from movies are themselves major topics on television, in magazines, in newspapers, around the water cooler, and in the lunchroom.

It may be startling to realize how many of these performances and discussions *1 need an ensemble film. Take five star vehicles and smush them together. ” across so many media in so many parts of the world are sparked by just a handful of corporations, the major movie distributors. Moreover, all the majors are tied to huge mass media conglomerates—Time Warner, Disney, Viacom (which owns Paramount), News Corporation (which owns Fox), Sony (which owns Columbia), and General Electric (which owns Universal). These conglomerates use their Hollywood assets as content for their holdings in different media industries around the world. Materials get packaged, sold, and hyped many times. In that way, even extremely expensive movies have a decent chance of making their money back, and blockbuster hits have a chance of making stratospheric sums.

Cultural Diversity and Cultural Colonialism

art films movies created on small budgets that often do not fit into Hollywood stereotypes and standard genres

Some observers of popular culture look at these activities with dismay. They express two types of concern. One relates to the narrowing of cultural diversity. A second involves what they call cultural colonialism. Let's look at each of these.

THE NARROWING OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY Critics of the mainstream movie industry argue that movie executives are sending a rather narrow range of stories into American theaters and homes. Many contemporary Hollywood movies, they argue, are made according to simplistic formulas that use sex and violence in ways designed to ignite the interest of the central moviegoing audience easily: 14- to 24-year-olds. Expensive films that can become blockbusters are the name of the game in Hollywood because they have the potential to travel across so many different media and make so much more for the majors than small films ever will. But the major studios will not take artistic risks on such films because the stakes are so high. As a result, films that push the envelope and challenge the audience to see the world differently are few and far between.

Exhibitors also work against cultural diversity, say the critics. By cultural diversity, they mean a reflection of the broad differences that exist in and across societies. Overwhelmingly, they book movies that fit the Hollywood profile. Few theaters in the United States show art films—movies created on small budgets that often do not fit into Hollywood stereotypes and standard genres. Even fewer theaters show foreign-language films, even dubbed or with subtitles. The theater chains justify their choices by saying that Americans simply won't go to see these movies in num­bers that justify booking them. The critics respond that the movie industry worked for decades to keep such films out of the mainstream in order to protect the standard Hollywood product. It will take time, they say, for Americans to develop the habit of watching non-Hollywood-style films.

The critics add that by not encouraging Americans to see movies made in other countries, the U.S. movie industry is keeping Americans isolated from important aspects of world culture. We live in a time, they say, when business is global, and Americans—especially young people—need to be able to understand the viewpoints of other people. Watching other people's movies can help that understanding enormously. The U.S. movie industry's activities are counterproductive in this regard, they say.

CULTURAL COLONIALISM Another strong criticism lodged against the movie industry is that it represents a leading edge of American cultural colonialism. As we noted in Chapter 4, cultural colonialism is the process by which the media content of a dominating society (in this case, the United States) surrounds people of another society with values and beliefs that are not those of their own societies. Rather, the content's values and beliefs reflect and support the interests of the dominating society.

As you can see, this criticism is in some ways a mirror image of the first criticism. The concern over the lack of cultural diversity in movies argues that American society is being harmed. The concern about cultural colonialism, in contrast, argues that American-based companies are harming other cultures. They are doing this, the argument goes, by drowning out the presentation of local cultural experiences in the media with Hollywood-based formulas.

The critics point out that this cultural colonialism helps American business by creating markets for consumer goods. Moviemaking in the United States is big business. (In fact, filmed entertainment of all sorts, for television and home video as well as the theaters, is one of America's top exports.) At the same time, critics say, it erodes local cultures because they can't compete with U.S. marketing glitz.

One result of the U.S. movie industry's focus on the international market in recent years has been the search by the majors for smaller, more literary movies—so-called art films—that might connect with relatively cultivated audiences around the world. The conglomerates have set up divisions such as Miramax, Fox Searchlight, and Sony Classics to handle these films. You might think that critics and producers in other countries would be happy about this development. The problem is that so far all but a few of the movies that these divisions and others have picked up have been English- language pictures, from either the United States, England, Australia, or New Zealand. Distribution executives point out in frustration that American audiences, still the largest moviegoing audiences, don't like to watch movies that have been dubbed or that have subtitles. As a result, even European film companies have been moving toward making films in English and then subtitling them for non-English-speaking lands. The Americans are colonizing even the art-film world, critics say.

The critics point to the majors' worldwide success as evidence that cultural colonialism is taking place. The international power of the majors, they say, has made U.S. films dominant in the box offices of many countries around the world. True, several of the conglomerates that own the studios are not American. The filmmaking activity, however, is very much based in the United States and presents the U.S. view of the world. Furthermore, they add, the popularity of U.S. movies is merely the tip of a huge iceberg. Under the guidance of powerful multimedia conglomerates, U.S. theatrical product blankets all sorts of print and electronic media. U.S. stars are favorites the world over. And the U.S. way of life that is shown in the movies—with its strong commercialism, lack of environmental sensitivity, and urge toward immediate gratification—becomes an attraction for young people throughout the world.

Not surprisingly, Hollywood's supporters reject this view of their role in global culture. They point out that Hollywood employs many Americans as a result of the movie industry's global reach. They add that many countries support local filmmakers and encourage them to make movies that reflect their own societies. It is not the U.S. movie industry's fault that people like Hollywood films more than those types of movies.

Hollywood's defenders also argue that people around the world like U.S. movies because they are good stories filmed in a high-quality way. They also say that it is patronizing to believe that people in other countries see the movies in the same way that American audiences see them. Rather, they accept or reject what they see in movies from the vantage point of their own cultures. They may even understand the stories differently because they are coming at them with different cultural “eyes.”

This is not an argument that will go away. It may, in fact, become louder as media conglomerates increase their use of Hollywood moviemaking in their bids to create global content for the many channels they need to fill. Where do you stand on these issues, and why?

WORLD VIEW BOLLYWOOD AND HOLLYWOOD