Hollywood’s Influence

Hollywood movies are internationally successful because they are popular. Films made in Hollywood can be rubbish, but they can also be terrific – as can films made anywhere else in the world. In any case, it is elitist to condemn films made purely for lightweight escapism for lack of “artistic credibility”. If the public wanted “artistic credibility” it would be profitable and be provided by the studios.

Again,not all Hollywood movies are the same – some are pornographic or gratuitously violent, but this is true of cinema elsewhere too. Taken as a whole, Hollywood movies actually tend to promote liberal values of universal significance, e.g. women’s rights, the evils of tyranny, the independent worth of each human life, and the possibilities of individual success through hard work. It is hardly surprising that those countries which most wish to ban American films are those who least value these values, e.g. China.

Hollywood’s success does not mean failure for domestic film industries elsewhere in the world, e.g. India’s hugely successful Bollywood, and the recently thriving French, Spanish, Iranian and Chinese-language cinema. Instead the attraction of Hollywood movies may help to create an infrastructure of cinemas and marketing methods, as well as a film-going public eager for a more varied diet of entertainment, stimulating the development of thriving indigenous film studios.

Hollywood is far from typically or monolithically American, instead its concentration of creative resources have made it an international centre for the production of entertainment. Many of its most successful producers, directors and stars have in fact been foreigners, coming to the USA either as refugees or because they sought the international audience which Hollywood can provide. Recently cross-fertilisation has taken place, with acclaimed directors from a variety of non-English language film cultures bringing new perspectives to Hollywood at the same time as creating internationally successful hit movies.

If money guaranteed success then small-budget ‘foreign’ films such as “The Full Monty” would never become international hits, and expensive monsters such as “Waterworld” would always succeed. Similarly, the French government has been throwing money at its domestic film industry for years, yet the market share of American films in France has continued to rise. In any case, most of the major studios in Hollywood are, of have recently been, owned by non-American companies.