CHAPTER-1
Introduction
Cinema is a form of popular culture which is accelerated by the fusion
of art and technology. With its profound vivacity, cinema has allowed
breaking through the burdens of everyday life by becoming an artificial
substitute for everything real. Going through different intricacies of life, the
mankind has given the cinema, an exceptional recognition, helping to
materialize itself into an ideology in the world of art and entertainment.
Movies are a rollercoaster ride that transcends people into a whole different
world fresh out of somebody‟s imagination (Felipe, 2008). Dr. Anand, Mulk
Raj (1990) a renowned Indian writer has opined that cinema can stimulate the
creativeness by showing the work of hand and the brain, by analyzing social
and political activity and by bringing the deeper issues of human life before
the people who cannot yet read or listen to the radio or tune in the television.
Movie, just another technological marvel, a kind of not seen before,
was a product of Second Industrial Revolution in the last-third of nineteenth
century, coinciding with a massive wave of socio-economic urbanization.
Jarvie (1992:2) considers motion pictures, “unlike a piece of machinery or a
ton of ore, though, as cultural artifacts were taken to be the product of
mentalities, capable in turn of influencing mentalities”. Cinema since its
emergence, with all its inherent characters and subtle messages, which, indeed
a common viewer cannot realize, are being watched in a sub-merged vista.
Nevertheless, it is apprehending its impact on masses in various forms across
nations. Hence many researchers and authors have had tried to know the
impact, both from the subject point of view (like filmmakers‟ manifestation,
theme, specific instances of cinematic disclosure, characterization of the lead
roles, prop placements and other details of expression) and the audience
reception. The conclusions derived are diverge in nature depending on the
1
personal and cultural backgrounds, gender, race, class, psychological and
sexual orientation of the movie-goers.
As said by Lehman and Luhr (2003), most of us watch movies for
entertainment. The statement though looks simple, cinema is not just a
standpoint to go out on a date, having fun or eating popcorn. Cinema viewing
is much more beyond the word „entertainment‟. Thus exploring the above
statement farther, the authors summarize that - entertainment may actually
provide a pleasurable smokescreen beneath which disturbing issues can either
be reinforced or, more helpfully, contemplated (Lehman and Luhr, 2003:2).
Cinema is an escape from modern life, but one that offers a special kind of
relief from the pressures of the modern age, one indeed particular attuned to its
times – a phenomenon that is both a product of, and an antidote to the
conditions of modernity (McKernan, 2008:274). Cinema, as McKernan (2008)
has remarked, offers immediate escape with the least possible expenditure of
energy.
Getting connected with the celluloid under the physical darkness and
the mental incomprehensiveness for a couple of hours, can illuminate and
intensify the emotions and persona of the viewer. In a spectacular way, an
illusion is created without any great effort of imagination, which is strong
enough to defeat circumstances. While establishing such fantasies, the movie
can persuade the „make-believe‟ aura that enables the viewer to stimulate
certain trails and fixations in psyche before executing them for real in the
social realm.
Thus, whenever an actor on screen inevitably say or does
something touching any of these fixations or fantasies, the viewer can derive
unconscious satisfaction or dissatisfaction accordingly. Uhrig (2005) argues
that visual stimulation of cinema provokes an emotive response which is
therapeutic and that the collective and controlled experience of this emotive
response promotes well-being.
2
What brings us to films is our tastes for film, located within our broader
positioning of dispositions more generally, leading us to the social comfort and
ease of certain texts and locations, and rejection of others (Harbord, 2002:2).
This apparently shows a converge thought that an individual watches a
cinema, not just because it gives something unusual, but it also allows to pick
the thing that one wants, which is subdued somewhere in mind – be it a
voyeurism, a revenge, an empathy, or to identify with the plot – calling it as
“Emotional Possession”. This is the instant where the viewer relates the mind
with the message passively, by coming out from the usual trend of conduct and
starts digesting it as a matter of acceptance.
Media scholars1 like Blumer and Hauser in their book “Movies,
Delinquency and Crime2” and “Movies and Conduct3” turned an eye towards
the effects of films on younger generation and theorized that the influence of
films leading to emotional possession of an individual is particularly strong in
socially disorganized areas, where sources of social control such as family,
school and religious escort are weak (Hammersley, 1989:85). Blumer in fact,
claims that there is no fixed evidence to tell how long this „possession‟ lasts –
in certain individuals the emotions and behavior repertoires may become
entrenched or last for a long time depending on the delinquency of the society
that he belongs to, and the intensity of relation that he has developed with the
film (Prince, 2000:18). However, Blumer added that the experience of film
1
One of the most substantial media research program carried out in USA by Payne Fund Studies with
Herbert Blumer, Philip Hauser and other sociologists is the study of the effect of films on audience,
and especially on young people through a variety of content, survey, experimental, and other
methodologies. The information given on Payne Fund Studies and research works of Blumer and
Hauser is secondary, derived from various research books on Payne Fund project.
2
“Movies, Delinquency, and Crime” is written by Herbert Blumer, Philip Morris Hauser in the year
1933 under Payne Fund Studies. In this study, a number of students, juvenile delinquents and young
criminals discuss how crime movies have influenced their fantasies and life styles. The relationship of
movies as part of the environment is explored with regard to active crime patterns.
3
“Movies and Conduct” is another research project carried by Herbert Blumer in the year 1933 under
Payne Fund Studies”. The study aims to ascertain the kinds of influences wielded by motion pictures
on the conduct of children.
3
might be as formative and powerful as other life experience, which actually
would become part of personal „archive‟ of experience (Landsberg, 2004:30).
The hybridism of cinema with several ingredients works as a
mechanism of self-reflexivity to provide an experience that mimics the real
life‟s combination of disturbance and reassurance (Mainar, 2002).
Such an
exquisite process creates a radical impact, collapsing boundaries, tastes and
hierarchies, fragmenting social solidity and social inequality at one and the
same time. This phenomenon made various authorities, moral watch-dogs and
researchers worry about the cinema which is part of, responsible even, in the
former era of commodifying social relations, spreading elsewhere with a
proximate approach and lifting the local into a global circuit.
1.1. Hollywood cinema – The global consolidation of art and business
The success of Hollywood is indubitable and evident.
“Ours is
becoming a Hollywood planet” says Olson (1999), stating that even media
made outside of Hollywood have grown to have a Hollywood quality about
them. The top five moneymaking films made in Hollywood as by 2010 across
the globe –Avatar4 (Cinemarolling, 2011), followed by Titanic, The Lord of
the Rings: The Return of the King, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man‟s
Chest, and The Dark Knight shows how Hollywood continued to remain
successful in capturing the International markets, till date (Cinemarolling,
2009)5. According to a statistics report of Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA) International box office made up 67% of worldwide total in
4
3D movie Avatar made by James Cameron in 2009, with revenue of $ 2.9 billion, global, stood as
the top grossing movie of all time. Published in Cinemarolling on March 27 th 2011
Source: http://cinemaroll.com/cinemarolling/the-most-profitable-films-of-world-cinema/
5
Titanic made in 1997 raised a profit of $1.8 billion, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
made in 2003 got $1.133 billion, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man‟s Chest made in 2006 got
$1.065 billion returns), and The Dark Knight produced in 2008 fetched $1 billion (approx .997
billion). Published in Cinemarolling on January 22, 2009.
source: http://cinemaroll.com/cinemarolling/film-the-top-10-money-making-movies-of-all-time/
4
2010, increased 8% over 2009‟s total, with the largest growth (21%) in Asia
Pacific region (MPAA, 2010)6. The reach and success of Hollywood across
various nations is intriguing specially the young generation, creating a new
cultural way of life, an „occidental7 exoticism‟, which is now much debated.
Blue jeans, sneakers, hamburgers and the Hollywood blockbuster are some of
what is perceived as American cultural icons of today‟s era (Houella, 2008).
A patronized spectator of Hollywood cinema who is flying to New
York for the first time might not feel strange but seems to have met the life of
city, its structures and forms already through American films, many times and
many ways. This familiarity is formed not just by narrating the story but by
„translating into reality‟ through various forms of filmic disclosures, codes and
styles since decades. Indeed, as Hollywood transcends national and continental
borders with the proliferation of communication net, it tends to articulate with
a wider cultural perception of different audience. Hollywood cinema, thus
stood as a paradigm, attaining a genial position with transnational standards –
a cinema meant for everyone, everywhere.
Many historians, filmmakers, academicians, though tried to define the
dimensions of Hollywood in context of art form, institution, social, historical,
studio system, classicism, modernism, genres, style and narrations, it remained
complex and ambiguous because of the criticality and vastness involved in its
own distinctive logics. The „world cinema‟ itself, as a matter of fact, is defined
by various critics and historians, as a periphery to Hollywood, making it a
dominant model in the world of cinema (Nagib, 2006:30). What makes
Hollywood so different and unique from other national cinemas or films
movements is its commercial aesthetics and its ability to turn pleasure into a
6
Theatrical Market Statistics, Motion Picture Association of America, 2010.
7
The word „occidental‟ is related to or characteristic of the western parts of the world or the West as
opposed to the eastern or oriental parts; “Western thought” (Thesaurus Dictionary).
5
„consumable good‟ that one can buy in a capitalist economy (Maltby,
2003:1,36).
According to King (2002) Hollywood is „shaped by the combination of
forces ranging from the most local and industry-specific detail to the scale of
national or global, social and economic movements‟. In the process of
justifying the term „Classicism‟ crowned to Hollywood during the dominant
period of American studio filmmaking i.e., 1917 to 1960, Broadwell et al.,
(1985) points out that Hollywood films constitute a fairly coherent aesthetic
tradition which sustain individual creation with distinct qualities like elegance,
unity and rule-governed craftsmanship and historical functional role as a
World‟s mainstream film style.
For almost ninety years, an oligopoly of Hollywood studios comprising
Universal, Paramount, M.G.M., United Artists, Fox, Columbia, Warner
Brothers, R.K.O., and Walt Disney, known collectively as „the Majors‟ have
dominated the world cinema with effective strategic marketing management
capabilities required for long-run maintenance (Silver, 2007). Traditionally,
the Hollywood‟s international marketing capture was mostly achieved through
its wide-spread distribution networks and amalgamations with major cinema
companies in various countries. Its vertical integration of the production,
distribution and exhibition interests with box office profits provided their
studios with production finance and guaranteeing automatic outlets for their
films (Aksoy and Robins, 1992). Moreover, instead of imposing any antimonopoly laws on these distribution activities, an act was passed in 1918 by
the American government encouraging the collusion of Hollywood
corporations in the name of promoting American economic and cultural
influence internationally (Kokonis, 2009).
6
Its standard methods of star and genre marketing are popular and
persisting even for today across globe. In addition to, Hollywood blockbusters
trade to a large extent on the appeal of big spectacular audio-visual effects.
While, the contemporary Hollywood is progressively outsourcing their laborintensive production activities to many non-Hollywood industries, the Asian
and European film industries are becoming increasingly, transnational. The
new Hollywood horizontally developed interests in property, theme parks,
television, video, satellite, Internet, retail outlets, music, gaming, book
publishing etc. These diverged convergent activities allow economies of scale,
cross subsidy, dilution of risk, cross promotion of products and substantially
cross the obstacles of entry into international market (Wayne, 2002:6). Now,
the contemporary Hollywood‟s strategic approach of entering into complex
co-productions with other countries like Hong Kong, India, Brazil, Mexico,
Britain either by outsourcing or by grabbing skilled personnel (Straubhaar
et al., 2010:216), is giving a new skeptic view, whether Hollywood is
continuing to dominate the world by controlling the national industries; or its
money, distribution and formulas facilitating the revival of filmmaking by
various national directors.
The phenomenon, being complicated, throws various questions to be
addressed and the current thesis would be an attempt to answer few of the
crucial ones depending on the relevancy and constraints associated with the
topic. Thus the research would focus on the questions like: How Hollywood,
through decades, emerged into a dominant paradigm across the world? What
are the direct and indirect effects of Hollywood on various national film
industries and indigenous cultures and lifestyles at large across nations and in
India? How is Hollywood connected with youth and what are the most
significant influences? While addressing the specified issues through various
sessions and chapters, the researcher also discusses the milestones of
Hollywood and Indian cinema, briefly.
7
1.2. Hollywood’s international scenario
World-wide an assorted response is observed among audience and
cultural overseers with regard to the massive import and gaining popularity of
Hollywood. While moral patrolling is observed to be required everywhere,
audience especially youth are experiencing a rollercoaster ride with
Hollywood cinema. The situation caused a huge impact on cinemas all over
the world coercing them to focus on „national cinema‟ and thereby to distinguish
the so-called new-born modern domestic cinema from the American product
(Broadwell et al., 1985:620; Nagib, 2006:33-34). In fact, a new term, „the Third
Cinema Movement‟ emerged during 1960s and 70s in opposition to Hollywood
dominant model, so as to encourage politicized film-making practices in various
regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, focusing on local issues of race, class,
religion, and national integrity (Marzano, 2009). However, it became unavoidable
to many domestic industries to extensively implement Hollywood narrative
modes to attract the masses that are stuck to Hollywood.
The specific issue of Hollywood‟s global ascendancy, surely one of the
most remarkable and unavoidable facets of twentieth century culture, has only
recently been broached as an international concern. Breen (2000:61) argues
that Hollywoodization is for sure the catalyst that moves national filmmaking
into unstable international alignments and against which government policy
responses occur. So as to resist this scenario, many countries initially have
attempted to include import quotas, tariffs, licensing, screen quotas, frozen
earnings, and local or national subsidies (Wasko, 2003:183). But the
globalization corollary has influenced various countries to adopt a pragmatic
change in relaxing the policies on Hollywood imports, as well as allowing
them to intrude into various regional film industries through various mergers
and acquisitions in an attempt to favor both the parties. Priority to preserve
“national identity” is equally recognized (Kindem, 2000).
8
For British film industry, its domination has been, and continues to be
particularly significant on British film culture through successful international
standards and democratic values from the context of production to distribution,
and even on cinema genres and star system (Street, 2009: 4). A statistical
report carried by UK Film Council revealed that out of the top 20 films at the
UK box office in 2008, 15 were US productions, including „Indiana Jones
and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‟, „Sex and the City‟ and „Hancock‟,
and the remaining five were joint UK/US productions, including „Mamma
Mia!’, „Quantum of Solace’ and „The Dark Knight’ (Office for National
Statistics, 2010)8.
For Australian film industry, the struggle to sustain in the Hollywood
dominant market always exists. Though the national cinema of Australia and
New Zealand has been benefitted from significant government support since
the late 1960s, the recent decades have re-witnessed the Hollywood sway in
circuits of global finance, distribution and exhibition chains stemming from
USA (Hughes, 2007). Filmmaking in a national context, here in Australia, as
specified by Breen (2000) is no longer about films per se but about popular
image making and the struggles over the hegemony of ideas within a society
and global entertainment economy, relying on the US model.
Emphasizing the international success of Australian film trilogies Mad
Max (1979) and Crocodile Dundee (1986) which were distributed by Warner
Brothers, Moran and Vieth (2005:162) expresses – “Hollywood itself is
transformed in such a way as to call into question any easy cultural and
economic assumption about a ‘them’ and ‘us’”. Many movies of late 1970s
like Strictly Ballroom (1992), Muriel‟s Wedding (1994) have negotiated the
national identity with international expectations and reception. In fact the
Australian technical expertise with extraordinary versatility and freshness are
8
Source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=572, Published on 16 February 2010.
9
welcomed to Hollywood creating a form of cultural brain-drain, while at the
same time passing a recognizable expression to the world cinema (Hughes,
2007). Yet the appeal of “other” in US was given way to a profound disinterest
in non-American and non-English language films reinforcing a politics of
isolation for its biased view (Breen, 2000: 66).
South African film industry has been held to ransom for decades by the
developed markets' funding and exhibition models, content and distribution
strengths and world-wide dominance of the Hollywood studios (Botha, 2006).
According to Botha (2006), the Hollywood product dominated almost 99
percent of screen time, and the local filmmakers of South African cinemas
have to compete with films made by independent American, British, and
Australian filmmakers, as well as "art-house" films from Europe, the Middle East
and Asia for the remaining one percent. Though government took various positive
initiatives to encourage local productions, new-generation filmmakers, and attract
audience, leading to the revival of post-apartheid cinema, the unfair competition
and massive marketing budgets of Hollywood studio backed film releases reduce
the chances of South African box-office success at the cinema level, creating a
tough challenge to combat with.
In China, a country with culturally conservative attitudes and mechanisms,
cinema has been nurtured with a combination of a populist, a traditionalist, and a
pragmatic culture for many decades till mid 1990s, while the contemporary filmmakers turning towards Hollywood‟s vertically integrated institutional structure
and horizontally integrated marketing practices in order to make diverse, bigbudget, and high-tech pictures and popular genre films with Hollywood narrative
styles (Zhu, 2003: 204). When Hollywood movies were officially imported into
China in the mid 1990s, it captured almost 70% of total box-office revenue
(Zhang, 2008:110).
10
In 2003, as a part of its obligations being a member of WTO, China had
dramatically relaxed the restrictions imposed on the foreign cinema imports,
especially Hollywood (Garza, 2009), and consequently passed a new
legislation to relax the control over film content and other aspects of film
administration, so as to attract foreign investors, enhance the production values
and thereby increase the film production (Zhang, 2008:114-115). The themes
and subjects dealt with the new generation filmmakers, emphasized in driving
the revolutionary progress towards the margins of society, stepping out of the
state system (Berry, 2009:120).
The global success quintet –The Flight of the Red Balloon (2007),
My Blueberry Nights (2007), Perhaps Love (2005), The World (2004), and
Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon (2000) stimulate different imaginings of the
interplay among temporality and technology at a moment when China and
things Chinese are understood to be reshaping structures of aesthetic,
economic, and political power across the Pacific and beyond (Khoo and
Metzger, 2009:14). The Forbidden Kingdom released in 2008 is an excellent
example of a transnational cinematic production of China‟s Huayi Brothers
and American company Casey Silver Productions. Chan (2009) suggests that
the arrival of Chinese cinemas in Hollywood is an “Asian Invasion” into US
multiplexes. While few optimists accept Hollywood cinema as an aesthetic
feast, many consider it as an alien culture which is giving a cultural shock and
insecurity by injecting western lifestyle in various aspects like socializing,
dressing styles, food habits, and human relations of Chinese people
(Jie, 2007).
According to Min, Joo and Kwak (2003), the dominance is never just
economic – the basic reason for the dominance is both artistic and cultural.
Exploring the supremacy of American cinema which persisted on the Korean
film industry for the most part of 20th century, Min, Joo and Kwak (2003:158)
11
stated – “the conventions9 of Hollywood have become inflected in their
translation to Korean scene, while still showing the profound influence of their
American prototypes”, which is welcomed by the Korean audience. However,
Hollywood‟s international influence provides an inspiration, which strengthens
local film industries and some successful Korean movie producers have
exactly followed the path to globalize its reach in terms of increasing export of
its products and stars to many parts of Asia (Kim, 2003). Many Korean
blockbusters combined the global with the local nationalistic sentiments to
successfully push back the tide of Hollywood‟s increasing dominance of
Korean cinema (Kim, ___; Ok, 2009)
However, Rampal (2005) argues that film industries in several Asian
countries are going through a process of reinventing themselves to maintain
their economic viability amidst the globalizing media culture of the West,
especially Hollywood, where the „cultural imperialism‟ tend to be treated as a
welcome force rather than a harmful one. New Hong Kong films and talents,
for instance, have been earning international recognition-even in the difficultto-crack American market (Gorman, Esq., 2003). A new creative surge from
across the Pacific is leaving its mark on Hollywood, as audiences in the United
States have learned to appreciate the unique excitement of Hong Kong cinema.
Its internationally acclaimed marshal art talent, grand choreography and stunt
tradition and mastery of the action genre are a winning formula-for which
there is constant demand in the American market.
Nigerian government‟s aspiration and developmental measures for the
local cinema “Nollywood” is mainly emerged out of its concern towards its
local cultural preservation as well as economy from the threats of imported
cinema, mainly Hollywood (Oluyinka, 2008). Oluyinka states that continued
9
The Hollywood conventions include its structural properties such as parallelism, repetition, contrast
and variation, its continuity editing; its preoccupation with individualism and its compositions, as
specified by Min Joo and Kwak (2003).
12
exposure to foreign films would lead to changes in consumption patterns and
growing preferences for foreign fashions, food, home furnishings, cars and
general lifestyle which would constitute a drain on the economy.
For German cinema, Americanization is that part of globalization that is
willfully accepted and incorporated (Gemünden, 2001). According to German
auteurs, as defined by Gemünden (2001), the national itself is a minor that
needed to be upheld against the dominance of the U.S. film industry, and
hence, the self-marginalization became an attitude. US popular culture
functioned in this scenario as a catalyst and antagonist, providing both foil and
engine to articulate the paradoxical predicament of the filmmakers of end of
World War II. In fact, the successful filmmakers of 1990s put much emphasis
on fast editing, stylizing interiors, witty dialogues and well-placed plot
development rather than consciousness raising – with a strong emphasis on
entertainment, professional standards, and a visual style that their Hollywoodreared audience expects (Gemünden, 2001).
Robinson (2005), analyzing the US cultural diplomacy in Middle East,
states that seeing the latest Hollywood blockbusters is becoming popular and
pretty easy in the Middle East, whereas smaller independent films lacking
lengthy action sequences are harder to come by. Though the region of Middle
East has long been in the mainline media for all the wrong reasons, and at
times, the acrimony towards West has found its place in an opposition towards
Hollywood movies as well, but the fact that the craze for Hollywood never
diminished, indicates towards the quality and Hollywood movies (Hadi, 2007).
Hadi (2007) adds on that the influence of Hollywood movies is quite
perceptible and has certainly helped in shaping the attitude of the masses,
especially youth, either by its modern equipment, fancy cars or the rugged
bikes.
13
Hollywood cinematic culture - a mogul, nevertheless to say, is built by
many hired talents from all over the world to put up all the required skills, to
attract as many as possible and make business. Far from being a by-product of
American cultural hegemony, Young10 (2008), in a panel discussion11 calls
Hollywood as “a fantastic, equal-opportunity Moloch, swallowing what and
who it could, to produce art for profit‟s sake and rather often for art‟s sake.
From many decades, a divergent flow of hegemony is being observed even in
Hollywood, when many eminent filmmakers such as Bergman, Fellini, the
later Bunuel, Godard, Truffaut, Antonioni, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray,
Zhang Yimou, and John Woo started influencing the Hollywood with their
national cinemas (Young, 2008).
1.3. Hollywood cinema – ‘About youth’ and ‘For youth’
The association of youth with cinema is as old as cinema, and as
contemporary as the youth. As youth, scientifically proven to be a consumer
majority with considerably impressionable and influential minds and thoughts,
they became all time prime target group for cinema. As per 2009 and 2010
statistics of Motion Pictures Association of America, young people aged 12-24
represent the highest proportions of moviegoers i.e., more than 52 million
(MPAA, 2009), and in 2010 the youth still represent nearly one quarter of
movie goers (MPAA, 2010). Indeed, the latest marketing research of MPAA
carries a clear message to marketing arms of the studio: „target the youth‟
(Epstein, 2011).
Hollywood cinema continued to remain successful in „exploiting‟ the
youth market in its most inclusive form, providing a wide range of experiences
10
Michael Young is the Opinion Editor and a columnist for Lebanon‟s The Daily Star newspaper.
11
The panel discussion is based on the question posted by David Ignatius, the Editor, PostGlobal, The
Washington Post, on March 2nd 2008 – All four Oscars for best acting went to non-Americans. Is
Hollywood's cultural hegemony finally breaking up? Or are we Hollywoodizing foreign talents like
Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard?
Source: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/2006/06/about_postglobal/index.html
14
by generating various themes, messages and symbols of the counterculture.
According to Doherty (2002:5) a movie is said to „exploit‟ audiences when it
reflects on screen the audience‟s expectations and values. The term
„exploitation‟ and „youth‟ as key audience thus became a part of Hollywood‟s
constructive production strategy. Hence, Hollywood, as Cendrars (1995) has
remarked, is a „mecca‟ of the movies, the youngest capital of cinema and a
pole of attraction for youth.
In the process of adopting the modernization through science and
technological advancements of western industrial capitalistic societies,
communication technologies occupied the dominant place especially among
youth, the consequences thus leading to a threat of cultural imperialism.
According to Biggins (2004), the penalty of cultural imperialism is bestowed
on various known and unknown elements of a common man like “language,
values and attitudes, norms of religion, ways of organizing public life, styles
of politics, forms of education, professional training, physical appearance,
clothing styles, and many other cultural habits” (Biggins, 2004). Whether it is
through the themes and aesthetic of Hollywood films, music and stylings of
MTV, Internet, or other aspects of popular media, global youth are seen as
actively responding to and identifying with modernized and cosmopolitan
Western culture (Kahn and Kellner, 2004) to embody the „cool‟ lifestyle
(Muehlenberg, 2002; Schor, 2004). It is not surprise to call Hollywood an
artifact of American popular culture which showed significant influence in
shaping the youth‟s ideology and the views of next generation.
Historical changes during the World War I & II, and Great Depression
period have had led many social predicaments. And the arrival of post war
prosperity, recovering economy, the greater availability of automobiles with
industrialization gave youth the surplus money and independence to explore
entertainment in various forms like cinema, rock and roll music, socializing at
15
pubs etc. This situation created a concept of „emergent youth identity‟ which
crept into Hollywood cinema during the downfall of studio system, made it
vulnerable to cultivate product lines that can attract reliable audience
(Medovoi, 2005). Thus, many delinquency themes with the mystique of
outlaw such as violence, crime, drugs, gangs, human trafficking for sex and
labor etc., rendered great material for Hollywood. By the mid-fifties, the film
industry could hit the vibrant - rock „n‟ roll market with genres like war films,
teen-pics, horrors, roadies, bikers, romantics etc. The elements of rebellion and
dangerousness were replicated in several films in several forms throughout the
1960s and early 1970s (Dowler, 2009).
Since then, through decades, various alluring themes of love, unrestricted
sex and sexualities, fantasies, abundant freedom, rebellion tendency, questioning
the moral codes, controversy, male-gaze physical power, corporeality, sporting
spirit, excess money, luxury and materialistic comforts, automobiles, hi-fi
technologies, fashions and new trends of socializing have emerged. These themes
are accentuated by Hollywood in various forms of narrative styles, texts, themes,
symbols, props, and characters, directly or indirectly to attract the youth. Besides,
the teenage characters of Hollywood came out like juggernauts with unflinching
pragmatism and various countercultures like – Gang or neo-tribe (knife culture,
guns/shootings, boy codes, rites of initiation); consumer driven, Tech-savy, with
popular gadgetry like mobile phones, laptops, using social networking sites;
Musical sub-culture driven styles like Goth, Rock, Pop, Rave, Punk, Hip-Hop,
Rap, Grunge; New trends in leisure activities like Skateboarders, Surfers, Band
members, Boy Racers, Dancers, Athletes, Gym obsessed individuals; and
characters like Intellects, Nerds & Geeks.
Since 1980s, a number of distinct sub-genres and character types within
the genre of “youth/teen/young adult” emerged with a sophisticated outlook,
not just restricting to trite frivolity of teens and have offered complex adult
dramas with opulent provocative images and messages so as to provoke the
16
changing trends and concepts of youth. By the end of 1990s, the massive
torrent of Hollywood youth films, along with various teen-oriented television
shows, magazines, and multimedia outlets, as well as huge attention paid to
youth attitudes and behaviors in the wake of various scandals, crimes,
accomplishments, the imaging of contemporary youth has become indicative
of deepest social concern (Shary, 2002).
Lawson (1999) says that the teenage audience has become increasingly
important in Hollywood because movies like "Cruel Intentions," with their
young casts, inexpensive directors and low production overhead, usually cost
less than Harrison Ford's salary. "Cruel Intentions" was released by
Columbia, which also released "Jawbreaker," about teens who conspire to
cover up the accidental death of a girl in their clique. It sports a sequence in
which their ringleader asks a boy to show her how he'd like a sex act
performed. The rating system, designed to protect children, becomes another
code for kids to crack, while the term "teen movie" now becomes another
sexual euphemism, like "adult bookstore" and "mature audience" (Lawson,
1999).
Apart from transmitting youth oriented messages and symbols, Grainge
(2008) says that Hollywood succeeded in constructing a set of appeals from
time to time based on artistic control, technical efficiency, and attractiveness
to core youth audience and created value in life-like reproductions. The
success of Star Wars released in 1978 is highly credited with initiating a large
scale conversion to four-channel Dolby Stereo that increased the aural
sophistication of Hollywood films (Grainge, 2008), while the new-genre of
films like Universal‟s Jurassic Park (1993), Terminator 2 (1991), Casper
(1995), Flubber (1997), structured around „the state of the art‟ in digital actor
simulation signified the realism of animation with computer generated
graphics (Manovich, 2001).
17
Regarding the current success of 3D, “There is a high bar now”, says
Paramount vice chair Rob Moore, whose studio enjoyed great success worldwide with DreamWorks Animation‟s trio of 3D titles in 2010 like Avatar, Toy
Story 3, Alice in Wonderland (McClintock, 2011). And now Avatar has been
digitally converged into a video game allowing the gamers to define the
physicality of a character like casting of a film, thereby providing an
opportunity for the expression of personal identity (Brookey, 2010: 57).
In addition to the revolutionary shift in movie production practices and
interactive storytelling formats, the distribution and exhibition models of
Hollywood is creating a large amount of behaviors, practices and discourses
that inform the movie consumptions (Tryon, 2009), and enforce a wide reach,
which can largely be accomplished by global youth. Even better, the industry
is of prime interest to the merchandisers, such as McDonald, Dominos, and
Pepsi who are willing to make merchandising tie-in deals with the studios
(such as handing out toys based on the characters in the movie, or making
product placements in movies for publicity). Such deals greatly amply the
reach of a movie‟s ad budgets to this prized frequent-goers group as well as
enforce the youth to consume the associated lifestyle products.
The film text is reinterpreted in various possible ways to engage the
audience with cinema like creating websites, posting trailers in YouTube,
setting up pages in social networking sites, encourage blogging for publicity,
use of video podcasts and DVD extras to provide supplemental elements,
broadcasting making-of documentaries in televisions, releasing exclusive filmbased music albums, caller tunes and ring tones for mobiles, video games with
characters of Hollywood blockbusters etc. Digital cinemas, indeed, has
widened the reception of cinema in unpredictable ways like DVDs, Blue Ray
discs, movie-on-demand in DTH connections, Satellite transmissions, Internet
downloads, peer-to-peer sharing etc.
18
Shary (2002) argues that many commercial developments at the end of
20th century like multiplex theatres, the availability of film on video, trends in
youth lifestyles that sync with fashion and technology have not only affected
the output of the youth films, but also have changed the representation of
youth within films. The recent silent success, The Social Network12 (released
in 2010), a unique youth-oriented drama of Sony Corp. and Columbia pictures
directed by David Fincher, is a typical exemplar of Hollywood tactic to
capture the urban youth market with the antagonist approach of lead character
and current trend of „tech-savvy socializing‟ by using the elements of techlanguage, legal lingo and slang to tell the tale of sex, lies, betrayal and
limitless fortunes. The movie has been defined by many critics and advertisers
tout as Hollywood‟s „generation-defining‟ film (Hollywood.com, 2010)13. It
has built-in a global awareness among Facebook's 550 million users, totaling a
figure of $180.9 million worldwide and already drawing Oscar buzz, says the
CNBC Reports (CNBC, 2010)14.
Another movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants released in 2005,
according to Shary and Seibel (2007) is a Hollywood movie to be sure, yet it
succeeded in exploring the teenage life across different cultures and through
different families. Four girls with different attitudes, lifestyles, tribulations,
living across various distances, remain connected by sending a pair of pants
through the email that somehow, despite their different body sizes fit them all.
The film text, here is passing new identities of youth-global connectivity and
recognition through various symbols like – virtual connection via emails and
12
The movie, The Social Network is about how „Facebook‟, a social networking site was harvested
from the halls of Harvard, by an illegitimate act of a genius computer hacker and turned into a billion
dollar business. The hero betrayed by the girl friend, hacks into Harvard's computer system and blogs
unfavorably against her and going farther weird, he creates a program that places the female student
headshots side by side so that inebriated undergrads can anonymously rate them as hottest.
13
http://www.hollywood.com/movie/The_Social_Network/6168374/reviews
14
A report by Julia Boorstin, CNBC Correspondent, Posted on Friday, 1 Oct 2010,
Source:http://www.cnbc.com/id/39463346/Friends_and_Profits_The_Social_Network
19
physical extension of emotions and commonality by exchanging „pair of pants‟
with each other. Calling this movie a refreshing step in Hollywood which is little
outlying from routine youth themes, Shary and Seibel (2007) adds on that the
childhood and adulthood characters of Hollywood cinema tend to follow the
dreams of success and popularity that many young people would love to live and
share. Indeed, the themes of top Hollywood movies released for the year 2011 as
per domestic box office reports (IMDb.com, 2011)15 till April ‟11 – Hop16,
Hanna17, Arthur18, and Soul Surfer19 with genres like comedy, family,
animation, thriller, action packed with drama and sporting spirit revolves around
youth.
James and Piday-Warren (2010), says youth-oriented films since 1990s
are correlated with several developments i.e., macro-social, such as the
emergence of specifically teenage cultural activity that itself reflected the
decay of heavy industry in postmodernism and the corresponding enlargement
of the proportion of industrial cultural production in general; micro-social,
such as the emergence of the shopping-mall as a the prime location where
socializing, movie-going, and commodity consumption are all intertwined.
Hence, the contemporary culture of cinema is said to be associated with
consumerism mandates, an understanding of youth‟s attempt towards creating
own image and identity in pursuit of happiness, such as earning money,
15
USA Weekend Box-Office Summary posted on 8 April 2011 in The official website of Internet
Movie Database(IMDb.com), Source: http://www.imdb.com/chart/
16
Hop (Animation/Comedy/Family): E.B., the Easter Bunny's teenage son, determined to become a
drummer in a rock 'n' roll band heads to Hollywood and is taken in by Fred after the out-of-work
slacker hits E.B. with his car.
17
Hanna (Thriller): A 16-year-old who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched
on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.
18
Arthur (Comedy): A drunken playboy stands to lose a wealthy inheritance when he falls for a
woman his family doesn't like.
19
Soul Surfer (Action/Drama/Sports): A teenage surfer girl summons the courage to go back into the
ocean after losing an arm in a shark attack.
20
growing focus on body shapes, physical appearance, dressing, accessories,
social grooming. Synder (1995) observes that the idea of instant gratification
and the freedom to obtain personal happiness have been a Hollywood tradition
for generations, and contemporary films portraying youth is reinforcing this
view.
Pelt et al., (2007) opines that the fame of Hollywood stars consequently
sees them perceived as idols and icons by their fans, which are usually young
teens. Youth are being influenced by stereotypes and popular conceptions that
Hollywood manufactures, such as the muscular, trained, V shape male body,
which is said to represent guns, money, status and power like Arnold
Shwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone etc., and the thin, often size 0 body for
females, which is said to represent beauty and be sexy like Jessica Alba,
Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlet Johansson (Pelt et al., 2007).
Besides onscreen activities, the off-screen publicity stunt of popular stars
and celebrities targeting thousands and millions of people through interviews,
gossips in media and magazines, or by sending influential or personal message
directly to the followers (through social networking platforms like Websites,
Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) are probing to more and more impact on
followers, mostly the youth. Indeed, these issues are given much focus by
various media channels to increase their ratings. On the other hand, celebrities
of Hollywood are gutsier to publicize their personal feelings, likes and dislikes,
sex appeals, sexual relationships, wed locks, break-ups, and stories on „ex-‟
without any compunction. According to news reports in Hyderabad Times
(2011)20, young celebrities like Katy Perry, Audrina Patridge, Rihanna,
20
News Report 1 – It’s Me in the Buff: RIHANNA. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India,
published on 6th February, 2011, News Report 2 – Perry bares all for music mag. Hyderabad Times,
The Times of India, published on 30th January, 2011. News Report 3 – Too much photoshop
Christina! Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 20 th June 2011. News Report 4 –
Lilo’s shocking new photo shoot. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 22 nd July
2011.
21
Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan are even ready to go bare in photo spreads
of websites, magazines either to treat their fans or to promote a brand.
For instance, some of the provoking messages from and on Hollywood
stars that are covered in special features of Hyderabad Times, Times of India
from January to July 2011 are presented here. a)21 Actress Drew Barrymore
and her new boyfriend Will Kopelman were on news for indulging in a very
public display of affection during an outing. b)22 While Nicole Kidman calls
herself a party animal in a website, c)23 Jennifer Aniston, in an interview says
she doesn‟t believe in „love for ever‟. d)24 Jennifer Aniston was in news again,
when she tattooed her pet‟s name on her ankle. e)25 Jennifer Aniston is
prepared to be a single mom, who also said she does not fret about whether or
not she has a partner in her life with whom to raise a child. f)26 Paris Hilton in
a website declared that she is excited about being „single‟, when recently
parted ways with boyfriend Cy Waits. She also said I‟ve never been single in
my life and always had a boyfriend. g)27 The “Modern Family” actress Sofia
Vergara has admitted in a Hollywood website that she hated her large breasts
as a teenager but now they‟re fantastic. h)28 „Friends with benefits’ fame Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, speaking in an event „MTV Movie Awards
– 2011‟, grabbed each other‟s genitals to pose the cameras. These photos are
21
Drew and Will’s Public Display of Affection. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on
7th June 2011.
22
Keith’s not a Party Animal. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 9 th February
2011.
23
Believe in Love forever? Me? Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 8th February
2011.
24
Jen tattooes pet’s name on her ankle. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 28 th
June 2011.
25
Prepared to be a Single Mom. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 23 rd July 2011.
26
Excited to be Single. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 28 th July 2011.
27
Vergara hated her breasts. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published on 7th June 2011.
28
Calling all Twihards, Potterheads & Beliebers. Hyderabad Times, The Times of India, published
on 8th June 2011.
22
published in all most all popular magazines and news papers grabbing the
attention of youngsters.
The list is not limited as hundreds of tidbits are available from websites
like www.hollywoodlife.com, www.accesshollywood.com which are completely
dedicated to gossip, style trends and lifestyle of celebrities besides other media
sources. Either intentionally or unintentionally, every minute activity is being
flanged to public for sensation, and is slurped by youth. Nothing hooks people
more than a scandal or salacious details of other people‟s lives, says Desai
(2011) a social commentator. Over and above, stars are coming more and more
close to young fans through wired friendships like tweeting, social networking
etc. Going step ahead, some celebrities like Justin Bieber, Amitab Bachchan
are following the fan‟s tweets on popular micro-blogging sites. Rishika from
India, who is a huge follower of International pop sensation Justin Bieber, felt
so excited when she came to know that their tweets are being read by Bieber
(Raje, 2011).
While many criticize Hollywood for its approach of „hypnotized
consumership‟ and its impact on youth to be a moral panic, the youth is getting
more and more attracted to the aesthetic cohesion of Hollywood with the
trends and happenings of today. And so, Benshoff and Griffin (2004) states
that young audiences across the world are thrilled to stories of able-bodied
young people who are climbing the rungs of the economic ladder and the
optimistic tales of economic success (Benshoff, Griffin, 2004:161), either
onscreen or off-screen. In this context, Shary (2005) states that accounts of
films for youth or films about youth–though these are not necessarily be the
same – are usually and quite properly structured historically to propose a series
of periodizations and youth have always been a concern in American film
history.
1.4. A brief history of Hollywood cinema
23
Though development of cinema did happen simultaneously in many
countries, most notably France, England and especially America, it was France
that dominated the export market in the early days of cinema (Izod, 1988;
Gomery and Pafort-Overduin, 2011) and in 1908 the US imported 70% of its
films from France (Saunders, 2000). At the turn of a decade, by 1918,
Hollywood cinema occupied a top notch in reaching the world with its
rationalized and standardized mass production techniques and business model
showing a deep impact on various national film productions as well as
spectators.
1.4.1. Silent era
Early films of silent era were developed by the technicians like Lumiere
brothers, George Melies from France and Thomas Edison from United States
in the 1890s, which were mostly a string of simple actions termed as „actualities‟
of hardly 30 to 60 seconds duration each recorded on a single loop film. Though
many life shots were projected, films with strong commercial sense of violence
and sex also occupied the room featuring the activities like boxing, wrestling, and
clipping of women engaged in performances of erotic component etc. (Musser,
2004: 22). The nineteenth century‟s show business was considered as a nomadic
entrepreneurial occupation with tough competitions between independent
contractors and subcontractors (Pryluck, 2008: 39).
The key years in the development of the US cinema were in the early
1900s when Edison Company (which was established in 1981) was competing
with few other burgeoning movie companies like the Selig Polyscope Company,
the American Vitagraph Company. A fictional western genre “The Great
Train Robbery” made by Edwin S. Poter in 1903 with 14 scenes of 10 minute
long duration remained remarkable for adopting an organizing dramatic visual
principle “the shot” which allowed the director to begin the scene at any point,
thereby making the film dynamic and exciting (Fisher, 2008). Dr. D.W. Griffith
24
was coined to be responsible in bringing full-length feature films putting an end to
the one-reeler productions and became the first cinematic auteur of America.
The fictional film productions boosted up by 1907 and became a profit gaining
strategy for producers as they can avoid traveling costs by shooting in studios
and sell more feet of film to exhibitors.
The two experimental decades of early American cinema i.e., from 1900
to 1920 had witnessed vigorous transformations. In 1903 „film exchanges‟ were
established to rent films to distributors to ensure a steady and ample supply at
cheaper costs (Musser, 2004:77). By 1910s movies became a major force of
socialization with moral and social themes to outbreak the vulgarity associated
with the origin of movies (Finler, 2003:13). While dozens of producers of
nonentity sprang to crack out „one-reeler‟ and fictional shows, Edison merged
with his largest competitor, the Biograph Company to contend his underlying
patent rights and formed the Motions Pictures Patent Company in 1909, which
enacted a strong monopoly on production, distribution and exhibition (White
and White, 2002:106). Desperate to evade this monopoly many filmmakers
went to make films secretly in Los Angeles, a land that laid path to future
Hollywood (Craats, 2002: 13). Hollywood was actually the name of a 120-acre
ranch which was located in the northwest sector of Los Angeles, popularly
known then as the Cahuenga Valley. The ranch was owned by Harvey H.
Wilcox, a real estate developer Topeka Kansas. It was his wife Daeida Hartell
Wilcox, who christened their 120 acre ranch “Hollywood” (Wanamaker and
Nudelman, 2007:19).
By the mid 1910s, a considerable improvement was observed in the
quality of acting, and the stardom came to light with publicity campaigns
through star portraits and posters. Actors like Charlie Chaplin (a British actor),
Mary Pickford, Carl Laemmle, Florence Lawrence, Roscoe Arbuckle, Alla
Nazimova (a Russian actress) and Tom Mix were already established with
worldwide reputation and fabulous salaries. Team contribution was recognized
25
and the technical parameters like photography, lighting, editing, props, art
direction, set designing, costumes were improvised to their proficiency.
A potentially cheap labor force, abundant and inexpensive land for
studio construction, and the mystique environment suitable for all genres of
films, motivated many budding filmmakers and entrepreneurs to move to
Hollywood of Los Angeles by the end of the decade 1910. Expanded film
exhibitions so called „Nickelodeons‟29 became popular. The first permanent
film studio, the Selig Polyscope Company was established in the Los Angeles
area in 1909. Within a few years, ambitious men like Samuel Goldwyn,
William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner
Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to the production side
of the business, soon expecting to be the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the
movie studio.
1.4.2. Classical Hollywood cinema
The Classical Hollywood Cinema, during the1920s revolutionized with
the studio and star systems, talking pictures, color photography, bona fide
theatres and the movies‟ status as a major American Industry. Twenties began
with the nick of World War I resulting in the end of American isolationism
and great international exposures (Fischer, 2009:2) thus benefiting the movie
industry to cherish. By the end of 1920s, most of the popular communication
tools like newspapers, radio along with motion picture were in position
causing the emergence of mainstream culture in America. “Modernism”
seemed to be the new buzz word which reflected in every area like lifestyles,
human relations, and even technologies, while many traditionalists still not
ready to confront with issues of anti-racism, gender equality, public pursuit of
happiness and the power of science over religion (Murrin et al., 2008: 875).
29
Nickelodeons are the initial home for movies, the makeshift, cheap and small theatres meant to
project the motion pictures of early days like news clippings, documentary and dramatic shorts lasting
for one hour. They used to carry large hand-printed posters to announce the movies of the day.
26
Movies which popularly depicted the saucy, working class women of the
previous decade influenced the young and middle class women to choose
liberalism which was reflected on their physical appearance (like donning
short dresses, putting on makeup, cutting hair ) socializing aspects (smoking in
public, outspokenness etc.).
In the early 1920s the three quarters of all films worldwide were
Hollywood productions, which were under firm control of five major
production factories: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor (MGM), Paramount Pictures,
Warner Brothers, Fox Films, and Radio-Keith-Orpheom establishing the so
called „Hollywood studio system‟ and noticeably a small role was played by
United Artists, Universal Pictures, and Columbia Pictures (Hahn, 2008:18).
Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount Pictures, helped to fashion Hollywood into
more flexible, fragmented production organization, with a set of economic
innovations like vertically integrated system and mass production that was firmly
in place by 1930 (Gomery, 1986). The motion picture industry developed the socalled studio system expanded moviemaking into 5th largest industry in US, and it
typically resembled any other American Industries (Balio, 1985: 122). Sound,
arriving in 1928-29 allured moviegoers in large numbers than before. In spite
the impact of Great Depression, producers and production companies
continued to enjoy the monopoly by making long-term contract deals with
stars, directors and technical people.
New fashions arrived in early 1930s and by 1940s the stars and
designers of Hollywood gained mainstream prominence setting a new trend in
the fashions (Peterson et al., 2008:150). The genre cinema culture prevailed so
as to form an immediately recognizable system of conventions with various
visual, stylistic and thematic concerns. The film genres like Biblical epics,
melodramas, romance, historical events, westerns, and slapstick comedies
gained much popularity by the end of 1920s. Whites continued to dominate the
27
industry in all sections making the entry of African-American a difficult task
(Drowne and Huber, 2004:235).
Hollywood narrative style of classical period became a homogeneous
style that dominated American studio film making to produce more than
15,000 feature films between those periods. The classical narrative style -- The
temporal and special coherence in stories; a powerful beginning through
hypothesis-forming and subsequent narrative cues; goal-oriented, individual
character-centered plots; patterned narrative tempos – repetition and delay;
bipolar dichotomy (good vs. evil) and excessive emotion, multiple causeeffects that reveal the narrative process; and the emphasis on the climax and
resolution etc., (Broadwell, 1985; McFarlane, Mayer, 1992:14) remained
popular even in 21st century.
The classical period also mastered on the techniques like conventions of
continuity editing, ideal perspective of camera positions and movements like
in-deep focus photography, creating depth with 50mm, fast film stocks,
complex optical processes and particular shutter speeds and openings, 180
degree rule, eyeline match, match-on-action etc. (Gomery and Overduin,
2011:170; King, 2002). The vigor of Hollywood narrative style, patterns of
early 1920s, and even the mode of production and technology were imitated
by many filmmakers of Europe, France, Germany, Russia, China, Hong Kong,
Japan, and India etc. Before World War II itself the US government saw
Hollywood adventurism overseas as a means to bring American culture,
values, beliefs and capitalist ideology to the rest of the world.
While studios survived the slump of post II world war by controlling
the production costs, the exhibition sectors like the theatre end of the business
turned more profitable in 1946. The sudden variation favored Paramount,
which owed a chain of over 1,200 theatres, while Fox and Warners (with about
500 houses each) held the middle ground and the once-dominant MGM (with
28
only 125 theatres) steadily lost its ground (Schatz, 1997:329). By mid 1950s,
the development of „baby-boom‟ during post war years (which saw number of
couples with young children), television (which occupied the prime position of
entertainment) and growing suburb activities represented a significant threat to
cinema. The studio system finally collapsed in 1948 when majors like
Paramount had to give up their theatre chains after losing suet of anti-trust
action brought by small, independent theatre owners in order to control their
vertically integrated oligopoly (Strinati, 2000:18).
By the late 1950s, however, broad shifts in public attitude towards sex
had become evident and the adult oriented themes of explicit sexual behaviors,
sexualities and violence were gaining the seal of approval from the Production
Code Administration (PCA). The majors also went on to upgrade the film
industry with new techniques and special effects such as 3D, cinemascope,
technicolor, the epic and teen films. The scenario of presaged special effects,
graphic depiction of sex and violence continued even in1990s. In the process
of re-stabilizing the studios, industry adopted a four strategic approach – “the
road-show, the traditional first run, the art-movie and the drive-in movie”
(Lev, 2003:216). Also „Cheap-exploitation films‟ such as biker films, gang
films, horror movies, beach movies emerged to hit teenage audience. On
October 3, 1961, when MPAA revised the Production Code to drop the ban
against homosexuality and other non-normative sexual behaviors, Hollywood
wasted no time in exploring the new boundaries (Pennington, 2007:12, 13).
However, this did not stop the production of good cinema, though. Hollywood
continued its classical narrative style till the period of Hollywood Renaissance.
By the end of classical Hollywood i.e., 1960s – Westerns like Union
Pacific (1939), Stagecoach (1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Duel in the
Sun (1946), High Noon (1952), and Rio Bravo (1959); Musicals like 42nd
Street (1933), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and Singin‟ in the Rain (1952);
29
Comedies like Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Shop Around the Corner
(1940), The Lady Eve (1941); Melodramas Alice Adams (1935), Stella Dallas
(1937), I Remember Mama (1948); Biblical epics like Ten Commandments
(1956) and Ben Hur (1959) created a niche throwing an awesome challenge
to the beginners of New Hollywood cinema. Strong-willed directors like
Howard Hawks (1896–1977), Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) and Frank Capra
(1897–1991) battled the studios in order to achieve their artistic visions and
developed the concept of „auteur‟ films. Among the other films from the
Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics across world are
Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, the original King
Kong, Mutiny on the Bounty, City Lights, Red River and Top Hat etc.
1.4.3. ‘New’ Hollywood cinema – A period of renaissance
From the ruins of studios, which have had undergone a severe financial
crisis after World War II, emerged the term „Hollywood Renaissance‟ between
the periods of mid-to-late 1960s to mid-to-late 1970s. By 1960s the collegeage students developed a new state for US film culture and developed a taste
for foreign movies. Film schools sprang up and aspiring filmmakers were well
aware of Akira Kurosawa, Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman as well as classical
American directors (Broadwell et al., 1985: 22) and consequently new styles
of film-making emerged and independent production became increasingly the
norm rather than the exception. This signaled a rebirth of American cinema
and paved the way for what is now called „New‟ Hollywood cinema. Many
experimental techniques including rapid discontinuous montage editing, the
use of a distorting „fish-eye‟ lens, unstable „subjective‟ camera work, slow
motion effects and non-realistically motivated sound effects have sprang
during this sustained period.
The extraordinary socio-political upheaval of the 60s has provided
Hollywood so much to feed on. As King (2002) describes – the civil rights
30
movement; race riots: “black power”; the counterculture, hippies, drug-taking:
“flower power”; youth, popular music and fashion; protests against the war in
Vietnam; student radicalization and the “New Left”; A new wave of feminism
and demands for gay rights; Political hopes, dreams and nightmares; the
assassination of both the Kennedys; Martin Luther King and his assassination;
Mai Lai, Cambodia and the shooting of students at Kent State; battles on the
streets of Chicago; Nixon; Watergate; humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam
etc. Every element has been projected, with no direct representation, yet with
an implicit approach of stylistic deviations of heavy doses of irony, satire, and
self-consciousness (Kokonis, 2009).
Hence, this period was celebrated for offering some degree of radical and
politically explicit potential with auteur driven, downbeat, youth oriented cinema
with genres like – the Road Movies, the Hollywood Musicals, Pop Movies and
Festival Films etc. Movies like Bonnie and Clyde (1967, a revisionist gangster
movie), The Graduate (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969),
Easy Rider (1969), The Wild Bunch (1969), Little Big Man (1970), McCabe
and Mrs. Miller (1971, revisionist or “corrected” westerns), M*A*S*H* (1970,
slapstick war movie), Love Story (1971), The Godfather (1972), (Play It Again
Sam (1972, Humphrey Bogart parody), The Poseidon Adventure (1973), The
Long Goodbye (1973, revisionist noir), The Sting (1974), Nashville (1975,
revisionist musical), Taxi Driver (1976) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo‟s Nest
(1976), owe their freshness and sophistication in treating the themes and
marked a remarkable comeback to true American films. Moral ambiguity and
complexity are two of the primary virtues of many of these films, says King
(2002:32).
Girgus (1998:212) calls the American hero of „renaissance‟ – a Puritan
rebel with a paradoxical aspect of masculinity, individuality, yet moral
consciousness at odds with the dominant culture for its failure to maintain and
advance the American way and idea. Though this prolonged and persistent
spectacle of male face and body created a stereotypical notion of one31
dimensional masculinity, it turned to be the most successful weapon that
guaranteed optimum returns.
However, by 1970s most of the major studios except Disney and
Twentieth Century Fox had been bought by large corporate conglomerations to
facilitate heavy financial flows. Film viewing took a new shape by entering
into Television broadcasts and new suburb based multiplex shopping-centre
cinemas (Williams and Hammond, 2006). The blockbuster approach became
the modus operandi of the studios from 1975 and holds a strong base even for
today. Hollywood‟ pre-selling method emerged with movies like Airport
(1970), The God Father (1972), The Exorcist (1973) and Jaws (1975), which
was pre-sold based on a best-selling books. This scenario gradually laid path
to „Contemporary Hollywood‟.
1.4.4. The contemporary Hollywood (blockbusters and corporate era)
The Contemporary Hollywood represents a style of filmmaking different
from that which went before and secondly, it signifies a changed industrial
context each of which might be related, in varying degrees, to changes in a
broader social, cultural or historical context (King, 2002). The contemporary
Hollywood though cannot be prefixed with particular period, these movies
emerged since the last end of 1970s. In fact, the period witnessed an overlap of
both New Hollywood with arty projects and Contemporary flavors. However,
the contemporary Hollywood tends to associate with corporate blockbuster
and seen as more conservative in its ideological implications by avoiding
controversial or politically explicit material and concepts of „Social realism‟.
The period can be considered as a return to genre filmmaking, but not
marked by greater self-consciousness, as well as supercharged by new special
effects, saturation booking, engorged production budgets, and even larger
advertising budgets (Neale, 1998:11). For instance, movies like Jaws (1975),
Star Wars (1977), Extra Terrestrial (E.T.) (1982), Batman (1989), Toy Story
32
(1995), Titanic (1997), Godzilla (1998), American Beauty (1999), Magnolia
(1999), , American Psycho (2000) and X-Men (2000) were defined as „event‟
movies that are borne out of the horizontal integration between film producers
and other entertainment companies so as to design the multimedia market
place (Neale and Smith, 1998).
While the films of renaissance were targeted at specific audience
groups likely to be attracted by some gestures towards an element of radical
critique, the event-movie scale blockbuster targeted all the sections of
audience to enhance the scope of profit scales and ensure „repeat business.‟ It
tends (with some exceptions) to gravitate towards the middle of the ratings
scale: neither too juvenile-seeming to alienate audiences aged from teens to
20s and 30s upwards nor too „adult‟ to lose any possibility of reaching
„family‟ audiences (King, 2002).
According to Schatz (2009), the contemporary period witnessed the
emergence of a new breed of blockbuster-driven franchises specifically geared
to the global, digital, conglomerate-controlled marketplace, which spawn
billion-dollar film series installments while also serving the interests of the
parent conglomerate‟s other media-and entertainment divisions. With the
emergence of cable, satellite, and home video markets, music albums, video
gaming industry, clothing, the bulk of profits of most films of contemporary
period are derived from these „ancillary‟ markets rather than these theatrical
box-office. The influence of advertising is strongly evident, in two-way
process. The concept of product placements in movies is highly encouraged to
pool up financial investments from various companies, and at the same time,
movies are strategically promoted, well in advance through websites,
television trailers and all other possible ways.
Wyatt (1994) redefined these films as „high-concept‟ films, mostly
overtly market-driven, which places great emphasis on style and „stylishness‟,
33
heavily reliant upon stars, revolving around a simple, easily summarized
narrative, based on physically typed characters, which in turn affords striking
icons, images and snappy plot descriptions as marking hooks.
The
convergence between the movies of contemporary and advertising has directly
affected the form of cinema as well as mode of production. To make best use
of technological advancements, more movies have emerged with science
fiction, action-adventure, thriller, horror, supernatural backdrops.
Brown (2009) described the emergence of „Post-humanist‟ cinema in
contemporary period that implies humanity‟s possible extinction with the
development of intelligent machines and information super highways. He argues,
“Advances in technology, astrophysics, neuroscience, biology and philosophy as
well as “[diverse] discourses [including] actor-network-theory, pragmatism,
deconstruction, post-Darwinian accounts of evolutionary dynamics, and many
such factors contributed ideas to Hollywood cinema. The emotional threat created
by cinema either through aliens, or from outer space, extinction of sun,
extinction of world, ecological disasters, deadly viruses, artificial intelligence,
or the next-phase of evolution have become very popular holding the nerve of
spectators. However, the formulaic adoption of predominantly “happy
endings” made them more interesting to audience.
Movies like Outbreak (1995), Independence Day (1996), Mars Attacks
(1996), Starship Troopers (1997), Armageddon (1997), Deep Impact (1997),
The Matrix (1999), X-Men (2000), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), 28 Days
Later…. (2002), The Core (2003), Terminator-3 „The Rise of Machines‟ (2003),
I Robot (2004), The Day after Tomorrow (2004), War of the Worlds (2005),
Sunshine (2007), and 2012 (2009), are some successful exemplars of posthumanist cinema in contemporary period of Hollywood. The other movies which
does not feature human characteristics in lead roles or humans who are capable of
transcending the law of physics like also considered as post-human cinema, like
34
Superman series, Spiderman series, Batman series, Lord of the Rings (2001 and
2003), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Others (2001), Hulk (2003), The Last Sand
(2006), and Avatar (2009), are acclaimed globally.
A notable point specified by Neale and Smith (1998) and Schatz (1993)
is that, though great emphasize is laid on spectacle kind of features in plot and
less attention to detailed character motivation, the narrative in these movies
has certainly not disappeared under the clouds of special effects. The narrative
and spectacle often work closely together and interpenetrate across the length
of Hollywood cinema (King, 2002). This is one crucial reason for generating
an emotion equivalent to „roller-coaster‟ ride, across global audience.
1.5. Hollywood and Indian scenario
Indian film industry churns out highest number of movies every year,
estimating to be around 800 to 1000 per year (Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, 2009)30, compared to Hollywood which produces only half of
the Indian estimates (Lorenzen, 2008). It is not a surprise, if Hayward (2006:
391) calls Indian cinema as a „Third World Cinema‟. The current Indian
cinema is undergoing a significant transformation towards globalization by
generating different and emerging strategies in building and sustaining
competitiveness at regional, national and international level (Lorenzen and
Vang, 2006). A comprehensive focus on the Indian film industry is strongly
observed world-wide when PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predicted that
Indian Film industry is to grow at 9.1% compound annual growth rate
(CAGR), to touch Rs 137 billion by 2014 (BusinessofCinema.com, 2010).31
30
Indian feature films certified by Central Board of Film Certification in the year 2000 were 855, 830
in 2002, 877 in the year 2003, 934 films by the end of December 2004, 1041 movies in 2005, 1091
certified in 2006, 1146 films in 2007, 1325 certified in 2008, and 1352 certified films by the end of
31st December 2009, respectively. A gradual increase in the production of films can be observed from
2000 to 2009. Source: http:// http://www.indiastat.com/media/21/filmsandcinemas/61/stats.aspx
31
News item posted in BusinessofCinema.com on 16th March 2010 based on PwC Report titled
“Indian Entertainment & Media Outlook 2010”,
Source http://www.businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=15681
35
Many Indian companies associated with this business have already been listed
on stock markets by issuing a reasonable share to public (Pillania, 2008).
Behind this swift, it is undoubtedly evident that Hollywood played a
key role in coercing the Indian film industry to adopt strategic roles in
production, distribution, exhibition and reception, by the course of time. In a
way, India‟s strong and long-run affair with movies in both ways i.e., moviegoing and movie-making activities has ensured that Hollywood remains the
benchmark for indigenous cinema.
Nevertheless to say, Hollywood did not entirely ameliorate into a
dominant paradigm in India by replacing the national cinema. The market for
English language features in India has traditionally been small amounting to
no more than 2-5% of the country until the government liberalized the
requirements for imports (Acharya, 2004). Spectating Hollywood remained
only a special tang for movie lovers, while homemade Indian masala cinema
continued to allure huge masses. However, it succeeded in synthesizing with
Indian cinema allowing it to transform from all the possible spheres to attract
the spectators who have been already experiencing the rollercoaster ride of
Hollywood cinema.
1.5.1. The established relationship of early Indian cinema with Hollywood
Being as old as Hollywood, the core production of Indian cinema
started in the year 1913 with Raja Harishchandra a mythology made by
Dhundiraj Govind Phalke. Phalke, inspired by the Life of Christ, which he
saw in 1911, produced various mythologies in a way to promote Indian
religion and culture. Though greatly influenced by Hollywood in technology
in 1920s, the narrative structure with endless digressions, detours, plots within
plots, remain unmistakably Indian (Gokulsing and Dissanayake, 2004:19) and
were used as a tool of propaganda for national self expression (Thomas, 2005).
While various Hollywood personnel and stars including Fairbanks visited
36
Bombay to promote Hollywood cinema, Indian producers such as Ardeshir
Irani established their own business links with them in process of getting
acquainted with Hollywood films and filmdom.
Meanwhile, World War I had almost exterminated the European cinema
leaving the field open to „Hollywood‟ for its phenomenal expansion (Kohli,
2006:113) and by the end of the First World War 85% of feature films shown
in India were, American. However, the Indian nationalistic movement under
the leadership of Gandhi by 1920 (Armes, 1987:108) and The Indian
Cinematographic Committee in 1927, acted as a powerful counterforce against
the predominance of Hollywood.
On the other end, the spread of moviemaking in India is rapid and even
across major cities like Calcutta, Kolhapur, and Madras. By the end of 1920s
India forwarded to establish a full-fledged movie making industry taking
Hollywood as reference point for structuring of the studios, totally sufficient at
all levels of production, including the laboratory works (Hayward, 2006:393).
Except very few producers, the Indian cinema completely relied on imported
equipment, often using foreign technicians and key players for Indian
spectacles (Armes, 1987). A tremendous growth in production was visible as
it went on increasing from 27 Indian films in 1920 to 86 by 1925 and 201 in
1931 (Mittal, 1995:23). After emergence of sound, Hollywood cinema helped
Indian cinema to ease the way for Universal adoption of the distinctive form of
Indian musical, which was earlier considered to be poor and crude comparing
with Hollywood, regarding technology and acting skills. India‟s first sound
film Alam Ara (1931) a mythological tale with dozens of songs directed by
Ardeshir M. Irani became a trend setter and success mantra to include songs in
Indian cinemas.
Despite the fact that after independence, it was the second largest
“industry” in India in terms of capital investment, the then government of
37
India did not accord filmmaking a much economic significance, as most of the
popular leaders viewed the cinema as “low” and “vulgar” entertainment
imported from overseas and popular with the uneducated masses. Analyzing the
views of popular Indian leaders Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru on entry
of cinema into India, Ganti (2004:47) expressed that “Gandhi’s moralism and
nativism and Nehru’s internationalism and modernism are present in prohibitive
policies such as censorship and taxation and in development policies that
established a cultural and cinematic bureaucracy to counter the dominance of the
commercially oriented film industries”. The aftermath of World War II collapsed
studio system and resulted in rise of star system, where the star fee began to reach
unavoidable climb. Undeclared black money entered the industry throwing a
no-compromise attitude in producers.
The themes with clear sympathy for „poor and oppressed‟ were
successful by typically following the narrative styles of Hollywood classical
cinema. Films like Raj Kapoor‟s Awaara (1951) which followed the Charlie
chaplin‟s Tramp style, Roy‟s Do bigha zamin (1953), Abbas‟s Munna (1954)
and Mehaboob‟s Mother India (1957) gained International reputation, while
song and dance sequences continued to gain popularity. By early 1960s,
Bombay was strongly rooted as all-India movie market, particularly Hindi
with high commercial focus holding a national appeal and soon referred to as
India‟s Hollywood. Because of the decentralized nature of Indian film
production system, it could not follow the capitalistic methods of Hollywood
studio system for long run.
During 1960s, when Hollywood went on to produce many „Avant
Grade‟ post war movies like underworld cinema, gangsters, candid treatment
of drug, sex, moral codes, sub-cultural fashions like Hippy, Gypsies, and pop
music soundtracks, they have not only enthralled the local audience but
experienced enormous public visibility, internationally (O‟Pray, 2006:66).
Though not immediate, all the specified elements entered Indian cinema with
38
little indianized conversions. An exact imitation of dressing and hairstyles,
physical appearance and body language is observed more among male lead
characters of Indian cinema soon followed by the youngsters, while make-up
and hairstyles of Hollywood heroines became a heartthrob among actresses as
well as audience. Songs with westernized music became mandate to showcase
the youthfulness of cinema and attract the audience. A westernized dance item
by a bar dancer or ballet dances in clubs was a common scene in almost every
Indian movie irrespective of language. The then directors and producers
adopted a safe zone approach by including all trendy elements to attract the
masses and finally giving a message on the dire consequences associated with
them.
When the democracy collapsed in India during emergency i.e., between
1975 and 1977, the Indian film industry responded in an optimistic way to
question the then problems with a typical personality concept and male gaze.
„The action hero‟, a vigilant angry young man emerged who tend to fight
feudalism, corruption and solve the problems through physical violence
(Nochimson, 2010:258), exactly like a Hollywood macho, while role of
woman was only a supporting piece to the male lead or an entertaining doll to
the audience. Stars like Amithab Bachchan from Hindi, Rajinikanth from
Tamil and Chiranjeevi from Telugu industry augmented as a tidal wave of
audience frustration. This gradually led to core commercial domination of
violence and sex, thereby developing a new critical term „masala film‟. Songs
and dances continued to dominate the box office success. While Hollywood
films like Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), Rambo – First Blood (1982), of
New Hollywood had plunked a strong hold on Indian audience, especially
young male, the visualities of Indian cinema naturally reflected the Hollywood
styles, techniques, regimes of signification, producing notable successful films
like Deewar, Sholey and after that hundreds of goofy and revenge tales
mushroomed all over India.
39
Though Indian new wave parallel cinema like Shyam Benegal‟s Ankur,
Satyajit Rey‟s Pather Panchali and many other half-tracks touched feudalism
and corruption with neo-realism approach eliminating fantasy or other
commercial elements, the mainstream commercials dominated the box offices.
By the end of 1990s after attaining Industry status from the Indian government
in 1998, movies entirely took a new turn to reach global audience. Indian
cinema forwarded strategically with required financial support from banking
and corporate sectors. Overseas diaspora opened gates to Bollywood.
Sophistication instead of paucity is observed in production aspects as well as
themes under the shades of Hollywood.
1.5.2. Hollywood’s settle approach in India
When
Hollywood
entered
India
through
vertically
integrated
distribution mechanisms in 1900s, it provided a special tang to Indian audience
with the flavors of west. The stunts, action films and serials of stars such as
Pearl White, Ruth Roland, Charlie Chaplin, Eddie Polo, and Douglas
Fairbanks were very well received by the Indian audience (Thomas, 2005:39).
Though not very rapid in reaching India, many renowned classics, biblical
epics, blockbusters and many other popular genres have had enthralled
audiences of those days irrespective of class, creed and sex. Audience began to
take a closer look at Hollywood when the liberalized economic policies
facilitated it to widen the market outlets. Television movie channels like HBO
and Star Movies became a big source of entertainment and Hollywood‟s genre
approach became a niche and helped mass television audiences to view
Hollywood cinema with diversified tastes. Audience thirst for variety is pleased
and also boosted up when access became easier with VCD / DVD formats.
Now India is not an exception for world-wide simultaneous releases of
Hollywood blockbusters, and watching Hollywood cinema is no more a
flabbergasting issue, as hundreds of movies are being imported from USA
40
every year. Out of 184 imported films certified by Central Board of Film
Certification in India between April 2009 and December 2009, 130 are from
USA (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2009)32. The foreign
investment norms in India, though very restrictive until 2002, Foreign
investment in the film sector has been considerably liberalized after that, by
allowing 100% FDI (foreign direct investment) in Indian companies that
are involved in film financing, production, distribution, exhibition, marketing
and/ or associated activities relating to the film industry.
While streamlining the imports and distribution networks with local tieups, Hollywood tried to expand the business in divergent Indian market by
releasing the dubbed version into regional languages. This proved to be an
extremely popular strategy and continued to be successful till date to tap the
huge masses including the rural. For instance, a Sixty percent of total 950
million rupees fetched for movie 2012 from Indian box-office came from
dubbed versions (Jamkhandikar, 2010). As a mutual concern, Hollywood went
on to distribute Bollywood cinema overseas and laid path to many Indian
corporate distributors like PVR Pictures and other outlets to have its own
infrastructure for distribution of Indian films abroad.
In fact, there has been a substantial financial contribution by Indian
producers to Hollywood during the shortage of conventional fund sources
(Basu, 2010)33. The outbound investment by Indian investors has been allowed
by the Indian Government almost without any restrictions so as to promote
economic co-operation between India and other countries (Reserve Bank of
32
Total number of foreign films certified by Central Board of Film Certification in India between
01.04.2009 to 30.11.2009 were 184 out of which 130 are imported from USA, followed by 11 pictures
from Hong kong, 11 from Thailand, and 8 from UK (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2009)
Source: http://www.indiastat.com/media/21/filmsandcinemas/61/stats.aspx
33
In nine of the 12 months in 2009, Hollywood reported record box office collections - 37% up over
2008. Since conventional fund sources are drying up, Hollywood is also in need of money for meeting
its burgeoning production costs and Indian investors are willing to fill that gap.
(Source:Asia Times, Feb 10, 2010, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LB10Df01.html)
41
India, Master Circular No.05/2010-11, 2010). In May 2008, Reliance
Entertainment announced a slew of development deals with eight Hollywoodbased production houses and committed $1 billion to make "at least 10 films”
by 2010 (Basu, 2010).
Its approach of horizontal integration has opened portals for both the
parties to facilitate cross fertilization of ideas and technical expertise and come
out with best creative assignments. Hollywood has already started spending
big bucks on special effects and animations outsourced from various Indian
digital studios located in cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad etc. Jesh Krishna
Murthy, CEO of Anibrain Digital Technologies who worked for films like
Tomb Raider and Batman says that India digital companies have geared up to
the standards required for Hollywood with all its talent, skills and the utmost
important thing, the competitive price. “Working for Hollywood is always a
big bet, where it spends $ 10-20 million on graphics alone for every project”
he adds on (Mohan, 2006).
On the other hand Hollywood technicians are flying down to work
either to work on India or for India. Films like Gandhi directed by Richard
Attenborough, Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle34, The Pool
directed by Chris Smith35 which are made on Indian themes and Indian people,
shot on Indian locations with Indian cast like Rohini Hattungadi, Anil Kapoor,
Nana Patekar are few examples to note. Slumdog Millionaire, the rags-toriches story of a slum boy went on to win 8 of the 10 Academy Awards it was
nominated for. Indian technicians A.R. Rahman, Gulzar and Resul Pookutty
received global recognition with the movie. The other trend of Hollywood to
capture Indian market is exclusive releases with regional touch by cross-
34
Danny Boyle‟s other movies include Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and
127 days
35
Chris Smith‟s movies include American Job, The Yes Men, American Movie.
42
cultural casting coups like Naseeruddin shah in Shoot on Sight and Saeed
Jaffrey in Gandhi (1982) and My Beautiful Laundrette (1985).
The contemporary Indian cinema is notably depending on Hollywood
technical expertise. Reportedly, for SRK‟s movie Ra.One two Hollywood
technicians --cinematographer Nicola Pecorini (who earlier worked for Fear
and Loathing In Las Vegas) and special effects expert Jeffrey Keisler („X
Men’ series) have worked. Vikram Bhatt‟s movie Haunted is India‟s first
stereoscopic horror 3D film worked by Hollywood technicians. For south
Indian blockbuster Enthiran, Stan Winston Studios in the US has its
contribution with its latest technologies and instruments in providing SFX
support. Production designer Stefano Maria Ortolani, famous Hollywood
technician who worked for films like Mission Impossible and Letters to Juliet
has now signed to work for an untitled Telugu movie based on the life history
of Jesus Christ. Another Tamil movie Acchamundu Acchamundu is filmed in
„RED EYE CAMERA‟ which can facilitate to capture the entire movie on
sync recording. The sound mixing is processed by Marti Humphrey of
Hollywood who has earlier worked for the best thrillers of Grudge, Exorcism
of Emily Rose and The Strangers. The film is developed in Fotokem, one of
the leading labs in Hollywood. These are few noteworthy examples.
Following the footsteps of Hollywood, Indian filmmakers are opting to
converge with other exhibition channels and digital technologies like Internet,
mobile phones to deliver film related content like gaming, music, caller tunes
and publishing. It became a branding mechanism and add-on revenue
generating source. When come to distribution networks, the cinematic
exhibition outlets like multiplexes in fact entered India to promote Hollywood
cinema during liberalized economy and this gradually facilitated Indian
cinema to rely on (Sharma, 2003). Indian filmmakers are opting to monetize
the content by releasing movies on DTH, Pay Per View of cable platforms
43
after theatrical release. For instance films like Slumdog Millionnaire, Aa
Dekhen Zara are released on DTH within weeks of their domestic theatrical
release and film Striker was released internationally on YouTube on the same
day of theatrical release. To enhance the distribution of first release movies to
wider audience, India had already adopted „electronic cinema‟ installations
most all of which are based on single-chip DLP projectors or LCD projectors
(Karagosian and Shah, 2004).
Hollywood‟s co-productions i.e., making Indian movies for Indian
audience received a mixed bag of response. In point of fact, they failed in
gaining revenues as well as enthralling the audience. The first co-production
venture Sawariya (Sony Pictures Entertainment), Warner Bros. Pictures‟ Saas
Bahu Aur Sexsex, Chandini Chowk to China, Walt Disney‟s Roadside
Romeo, Zokkomon, Telugu venture Anaganaga Oka Dheerudu, and recent
release of Twentieth Century Fox‟s Dum Maro Dum have not worked out
well at box offices. Yet, big shots like Gareth Wigan, Vice Chariman of
Columbia TriStar Motion Pictures and Yash Chopra, Chairman of Yash Raj
Films are strongly opining that co-productions will bring world‟s two biggest
filmmaking communities closer and it will give India, an opportunity to
interact with Hollywood studios (Subramanian, 2007).
The current ostensible growth drivers identified by the PwC for Indian
film Industry to be implemented by 2014 like “expansion of multiplex screens
for better realizations, increase in number of digital screens facilitating wider
releases, higher C&S revenues, increased overseas market collections,
unrestricted fund flow from global media industries, and other auxiliary
revenue streams which are expected to emerge in future from DTH, digital
downloads etc” (BusinessofCinema.com, 2010)36 are by and large the strategic
36
Source: http://www.businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=15681
44
implementations of Hollywood which were already proved to be successful
income generating distribution mechanisms.
Indeed, they might put Indian cinema as well as Hollywood on a
threshold of major transformations in terms of a reciprocal expanded business
at regional and international level with standardized outlets. While allowing
Indian cinema to become more transnational, the current scenario might help
Hollywood to become more indigenous and go deep-rooted in India. With a
better organized film industry and further co-operation with Hollywood, more
legal work in the areas of drafting and negotiation of media contracts also is
being generated in India insisting on need for detailed knowledge of both
American and Indian copyright and entertainment laws (Banerjee, 2010). The
entertainment and cultural needs of cosmopolitan audience who is open to
foreign cultural influences can be served to fullest without entirely rejecting
their own, says Rampal (2005).
1.5.3. Influence of Hollywood on content of Indian cinema – A
dogmas of controversy
To stay immune within India and across the diasporic community,
Indian commercial cinema, especially Bollywood for the last couple of
decades believed and tend to extend the belief in obscured and inimitable
convergence of Indian cultural ethos with westernized flavors. It has been
using all sorts of superfluous inputs to bring the western masalas into Indian
bistro of cinema audience with extended high budgets, star and glamour
studded filmmaking with lavish settings, jazzy songs, skin shows, imported
scanty clad Caucasian dancers, graphics and special effects, machoistic and
NRI heroes who could fly to foreign countries as many times as possible to
praise India abroad or to fight with extreme physical power. In the due course
the Hindi film industry was christened as „Bollywood‟ with the influence of
Hollywood by combining Bombay film industry and Hollywood which is
45
followed by other names like Kollywood for Tamil cinema (as most of the
film studios are located in Kodambakkam of Chennai), Tollywood for Telugu
cinema and Tollywood of West i.e., Bengal cinema (Tollygunge, Calcutta).
Hirji (2005) argues that Bollywood has managed to arrive at a
compromise that allows it to assert and affirm traditional values for fans within
India and across the diasporic community without becoming mired in what
seems like an increasingly fruitless attempt to deny the significance of allpervasive symbols of Westernization. The same scenario is visible in Telugu
industry also. Major successes like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kabhi
Kushi Kabhi Gham (2001) paid homage to western goods, consumerist
lifestyles and even skin shows, but insisted on Indian patriarchic society to
retain male authority, ensuring marital harmony and the celebration of Indian
traditions and culture.
However, the stereotypical production of traditional song and dance
based storylines and hackneyed treatment of high society lifestyles and love
stories could not incessantly produce its magic on screen. On the other hand
the growing exposure to Hollywood cinema and it varieties of genres have
modified the tastes and expectations of urban youth. Even the high budgets
could not guarantee the substantial movie theatre attendance and the success of
Industry for long run. As a result the film industry with the inspirations of
Hollywood, schematically started to deal with various bold themes associated
with sex, sexualities and sensualities of human body or extreme skin shows to
encash the hidden voyeuristic pleasures of young audiences, while raising the
eyebrows of other audience groups.
Many movies have turned with such themes like Jism (2003), a story of
a woman who is unapologetic about using her sexuality to persuade her lover
to kill her rich husband; Oops (2003), that explored the murky world of male
strippers, Boom (2003), a completely sexed up story of three hot models with
46
underworld; Murder (2003) dealt the extra marital affair; and Khwaish (2003)
that discussed sex life between couple; Julie (2004), a girl who ends up as a
prostitute after her boyfriends leave her after sleeping with her; Girlfriend
(2004), dealt with lesbianism and so on.
As the British news agency Reuters (2004) reported, "Daring young
actors and actresses have thrown caution, and their clothes, to the wind to play
amorous characters such as prostitutes, adulterers, playboys and husband
swappers that Bollywood rarely touched in the past." No matter which side of
the moral line they are positioned, these movies are standing screaming into
the abyss of suburban life. While Indian audiences are already normalized to
this mimic treatment of Indian cinema which tend to present local cultures
with western flavors, these bold sexual themes remained highly unfamiliar to
majority of Indian sectors. Menon (2003) commenting on the crude sexual
approach in the films like Oops and Boom, argues that the current Bollywood
formula has some cause for concern because the transplantation of western
ideas has led to extreme vulgarity with high sexual innuendo and unnecessary
violence in films today. Elsewhere in the world that might be considered
relatively tame stuff, but not in India where even smooching in public can still
cause outrage (Menon, 2003). Such arguments and criticisms began with the
comments made by the Film Federation of India, a regulatory body that
monitors the film content. Their complaints were that the films made in
Bollywood were too westernized and that they are degrading and diminishing
India's true cultural identity.
Though this new approach to filmmaking appears to be having positive
economic results, they could not acclaim the universal appeal of entire Indian
audience and much debated on moral grounds. Social critics in India are also
worried that by entering the mainstream adult movie market, the uniqueness of
Bollywood of providing elaborate family-oriented musical-dramas will be lost
47
(Rampal, 2005), while the issue of cultural threat to Indian traditional values is
already being contemplated.
Another cause for concern is the often duplication of popular
Hollywood films into Bollywood. While many films from Hollywood are
inspiring the Indian cinema in building the storyline or screenplays, most of
the movies made in Bollywood are in fact blatantly copied scene by scene.
According to an online source37, the hilarious blockbuster Partner released in
2007 starring Salman Khan & Govinda has been accused of being a direct
theft from the Will Smith starrer Hitch. To name few of such movies -- Life in
a Metro is a blatant copy of every single scene from academy award winning
movie „The Apartment; Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahi, is an Indian counterpart of
Hollywood classical It Happened One Night; Jism, a movie which remained a
rare piece for Indians for its adult oriented extramarital stuffs is inspired from
Body Heat.
Similarly, Koi Mil Gaya is a true copy of sci-fi movie of Speilberg‟s
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial; Black, a movie by Sanjay Leela Bansali is a blind
copy of the film The Miracle Worker; Kyon Ki is a bollywoodized story
derived from One Flew Over the Cuckoo‟s Nest; Murder is the Indian version
of movie Unfaithful; and Sarkar, is claimed to be an inspirational copy of the
movie The Godfather, by the director Ram Gopal Verma himself, who laid
tribute for the same (Akilesh, 2009). The list is not limited to this and there are
some hundreds of movies which are mere copies or inspirations of Hollywood.
As a matter of fact, South Indian cinema even for today remained resistant to
such kind of copying attitude as they depended on local cultural myriads to
generate stories. However a drastic swift is observed in the production aspects
of cinema even in southern part of India to reach global audience.
37
From website: Bollywood Movie Inspirations, As quoted in the website the producers of the
movies listed here may have acquired the necessary right or it may be the author's original idea which
incidentally matched the alleged inspirations.
Source:http://www.akhilesh.in/life/india/bollywoodinspirations.php
48
With all the prevailing uncertainties in trends of Indian cinema and
tastes of Indian audiences, the movies like Lagaan (2001), Munna Bhai
MBBS (2003), Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), Tare Zamin Per (2007),
Chak De (2007), Three Idiots (2009) have remained as exemplars for cinema
of national identity with clean and complete entertainment. The year 2011 also
witnessed independent cinema on commercial platform and allowed budding
filmmakers to play around with new genres of experimental films that worked
well without the glitters of big stars, big budgets, and other unnecessary
elements of graphics and special effects, but definitely with the influence of
Hollywood narrative styles.
For instance, the movie No One Killed Jessica, a real story of Jessica
Lal case showed how the justice can be pursued even when denied at the first
go; Turning 30, unlike similar films conveys modern women-hood in a candid
and convincing light; Yeh Saali Zindagi, though criticized as an adaptation
from Hollywood gangster films, has been commended for its ability of
storytelling; Shor in the City is a multi-narrative film which has a vein of rich
and dark humor coursing though it and is much tribute for its finest
screenplays written with phenomenal editing; Dhobi Ghat, is a compelling
picture of urban angst which has become the hallmark of big city life.
The other movies like Shaitan, Delly Belly, Ragini MMS, Love Sex
and Dhoka, Saheb Biwi aur Gangster are definitely not universally appealing
to all the groups of audience but won the hearts of urban youth for dealing
very complex, chaotic feudal beliefs and extreme hypocrisy associated with
Indian lifestyles with less fictitious and close to reality. Movies like Ragini
MMS and Love, Sex and Dhoka are ostensibly constructed from foundfootage which was shot with security and spy cameras are an inspiration from
„The Blair Witch Project‟ of Hollywood. These films hails from a genre that
is quintessentially „independent‟ that are supported strongly by cleverly woven
49
screenplays with crisp visuals accomplished by a great treatment of
soundtracks. At the same time these movies have been criticized for its strong
profanity, extreme seduction, violence and brutality.
1.6. Multiple routes of infringement – A threat to local cinema and
cultural resilience
The main objective of the Indian audio-visual policy is to strike a balance
between preservation of the rich cultural heritage of the nation and increase
efficiency and global competitiveness of the sector through privatization and
foreign investment. Indian government believes that liberalization of trade in
audio-visual services would foster investment and encourage the inflow of
advanced technology and skills which would, in turn, enable the domestic
industry to become competitive in the export markets. Liberalization would also
widen the range of choice available to the Indian consumers. Based on this core
idea the film import policy has now been significantly liberalized, and
Hollywood‟s proliferation became as easy as its entry.
While Hollywood is enjoying success in Indian Territory with a giant
reap of profits, now many film critics and media pundits are worried that with
its aggressive marketing strategies Hollywood has been eating into Indian
markets and their share will keep increasing. The percentages of sharing ratio
became a predicament these days, when Hollywood studios locked horns with
Indian multiplex owners asking for better deals and in some cases even deals
equivalent to that of Hindi / regional cinema (Salvadore, 2011). Suresh Babu,
the newly elected president of the A P Film Chamber of Commerce, sharing
his voice of grievance on this issue in an interview, stated that “Fortunately or
unfortunately we follow free market policy here in India, which is now going
to be a threat to regional industries” (Salvadore, 2011). The same situation
prevails even with Bollywood, he adds on.
50
While many agree that a ban on Hollywood films is not what they want,
Shyam Prasad Reddy, a Telugu producer felt government should look in to
adoption of prevention methods like tax restructuring, increase the ticket rates
and prevent the audiences from viewing Hollywood cinema. However, Allu
Sirish of Geetha Arts who bought the distribution rights for “Avatar”
contradicted this idea of tax restructuring, stating that, the audiences cannot be
stopped by increasing the ticket rates. He suggested a China like module
where they have a 20 to 25 Hollywood films releasing in a year or increase the
quality of movies to bring the audience back (Salvadore, 2011).
Problem is not just associated with theatrical releases. The technological
progress, especially digitalization, has reduced the government‟s ability in
restricting the entry of uncensored foreign content into the domestic market.
Treverton et al., (2009) in a case study on „Film Piracy, Organized Crime and
Terrorism‟, explains that the illicit home video market is exploited to such an
extent that the organized crime based in India and terrorist groups crept in to
entertainment industry, counterfeiting a clear pirate monopoly over
competitors to dominate the piracy market of Hollywood and Bollywood
movies in entire South Asia.
While the uncensored Hollywood cinema through unauthorized CDs,
DVDs has gone deep rooted, now piracy through Internet is becoming popular
and spreading fast in India. According to a research report „India: Internet
Piracy Landscape Audit’, India is ranked fourth globally when it comes to
illegal downloads and file sharing of Hollywood movies, behind US, UK and
Canada; and the two main internet piracy methods used in India are the filesharing network „BitTorrent‟ and web-based file hosts „cyberlockers‟. The
study also reveals that the attitudes of the Indian netizens with regard to piracy
or unpaid movie downloads are apparently at ease – „take it for granted’, who
51
are absolutely least bothered about associated legal issues than any of the
western countries (MPA and Envisional Ltd., 2009). With increasing
interactivity and internationalization of production and delivery offered by
Internet-based broadcasting services, the challenge before any government is
to initiate an appropriate regulation so that the country can enhance its cultural
resilience and at the same time benefit from the globalization process
(Mukherjee, 2003).
52