Why Hollywood Rules the World EXCERPTED from Creative Destruction
BY TYLER COWEN
When Hollywood penetrates global markets, to what extent is American culture being exported? Or is a new global culture being created, above and beyond its specifically American origins? There is no simple answer to this question.
Critics of cultural imperialism make two separate and partially contradictory charges. Some are unhappy with the global spread of the American ethos of commercialism and individualism. Other complaints focus on the strong global-market position of a relatively universal cultural product, rather than local products based on nationalism or particularist inspirations. There is some truth to each complaint, although they point in opposite directions.
If we look at the national identities of the major individuals involved, Hollywood is highly cosmopolitan. Many of the leading Hollywood directors are non-Americans by birth, including Ridley Scott (British) and James Cameron (Canadian). Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Chaplin, and Jim Carrey have been among the leading non-American U.S. stars. Most of the major studios are now foreign owned. A typical production will have Sony, a Japanese company, hire a European director to shoot a picture in Canada and then sell the product for global export.
For better or worse, Hollywood strives to present the universal to global audiences. As Hollywood markets its films to more non-English speakers, those films become more general. Action films are favored over movies with subtle dialogue. Comedy revolves around slapstick rather than verbal puns. The larger the audience, of course, the more universal the product or celebrity must be. There is relatively little that the world as a whole, or even a select group of fifty million global consumers, can agree on. Greater universality means that the movies are relevant to general features of the human condition, but it also can bring blandness and formulaic treatment. Critics allege that American culture is driving the world, but in reality the two are determined simultaneously, and by the same set of forces.
Non-American movies, when they pursue foreign markets, must strive for universality as well. The Jackie Chan Hong Kong movie, Rumble in the Bronx, was marketed in the United States with success. The producers, however, cut parts of the movie to appeal to American audiences. All of the action sequences were kept, but the relationship of Chan with the co-star was diminished, in part because the woman (Anita Mui) was a star in Asia but not in the United States, and in part because the relationship was based on the “Chinese” values of obligation and loyalty, rather than on a Western sense of erotic romance.
Despite these powerful universalist forces, the American and national component to Hollywood moviemaking cannot be ignored. Hollywood has always drawn on the national ethos of the United States for cinematic inspiration. The American values of heroism, individualism, and romantic self-fulfillment are well suited for the large screen and for global audiences. It is true that Hollywood will make whatever will sell abroad. Nonetheless, how well Hollywood can make movies in various styles will depend on native sources of inspiration. Hollywood has an intrinsic cost advantage in making movies based upon American values, broadly construed, and thus has an intrinsic advantage in exporting such movies. The clustering of filmmaking in Hollywood cannot help but be based on a partially American ethos.
The promulgated American ethos will, of course, successfully meld both national and cosmopolitan influences, and will not be purely American in any narrow sense. Furthermore, Hollywood’s universality has, in part, become a central part of American national culture. Commercial forces have led America to adopt “that which can be globally sold” as part of its national culture. Americans have decided to emphasize their international triumphs and their ethnic diversity as part of their national self-image.
In this regard, Hollywood’s global-market position is a Faustian bargain. Achieving global dominance requires a sacrifice of a culture’s initial perspective to the demands of world consumers. American culture is being exported, but for the most part it is not Amish quilts and Herman Melville. Jurassic Park, a movie about dinosaurs, was a huge hit abroad, butForrest Gump, which makes constant reference to American history and national culture, made most of its money at home.
The dirty little secret of today’s cinematic world is the following: the very features of the film industry behind American export dominance also have supported diversity of style around the globe. The global prowess of Hollywood means that European moviemakers pursue different markets and produce different kinds of creativity. Many of the interesting qualities of European movies come precisely from their inability to reach world markets on a large scale. European movies have been able to focus on nuances of language and culture. They typically do not have happy but superficial endings, opting, rather, for something more interesting.
Tyler Cowen (tcowen@gmu.edu) is a professor of economics (http://economics.gmu.edu/) and the director of George Mason University’s James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy (http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/). A trade paper edition of his book, Creative Destruction, was recently released by Princeton University Press (www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7374.html).
