GLOBAL CRASHES, LOCAL LAUGHS

The Globalisation of Entertainment

Today

An introduction to cultural identity

The importance of entertainment media

The dominance of American popular culture

The rise of Chinese film

The Bollywood diaspora

Essay question: Using examples from a local (national/regional) context, critically evaluate the effect of global

entertainment media on local cultural identities.

Our purpose

We have examined the construction of a global communications system

We have debated whether this leads to global cultural homogeneity, cultural transformation/ reinvention

Today we will use entertainment media, specifically cinema and television, to see how these debates work in practice

Cultural identities

An identity is an individual’s identification with something external to them, normally an abstract or imagined idea (I am this)

Culture: The ideas, practices, norms and social behaviour of a particular people

Cultural identities are always plural and constructed through the cultural resources available – a cultural identity is one’s identification within a set of cultural resources

On a personal level these cultural identities are not only abstract: we form emotional attachments to them

Cultural resources

Our ‘social identities’ tend to be formed during our period of ‘primary socialisation’, and remain relatively fixed

By contrast, the construction of cultural identities is extended through ‘norms’ and cultural practices available in society

Culture identities are thus propagated through their representation in the media

My cultural identifications

Beach

Culture New

Zealander

Informality

Cricket Rugby

What elements make up your cultural identity?

Mediating global culture

In a pre-global world, cultural resources would primarily have been sourced from our local environments

The advent of a global media systems means that these referents are not necessarily local

Global media sources allow us to become ‘spectators of the world’, consuming cultures from our living rooms

The importance of entertainment

The explicit focus of entertainment media is not to produce cultural change, and yet because popular culture has such a large influence on our lives, it cannot help but influence us

The forms of entertainment and cultural representation that are popular within a society also allow insight into how it understands itself

On a global level, the affinity between cultures can be uncovered by the popularity of cross-cultural media

We can ask whether popular culture is particular to a set of cultural identities, or does it have a universal dimension?

How much ‘popular culture’ have you consumed this

week?

The politics of entertainment

Theorists of the ‘Frankfurt School’ argued that the masses were no longer actively repressed, but were now controlled by the rise of ‘mass’ or popular culture

The Frankfurt School were ‘critical’ Marxist theorists who had fled Nazi Germany and argued that the influence of the passive consumption of mass culture in America had parallels with creation of homogenous and passive individuals in fascist Germany

Culture and entertainment were no longer a form of artistic expression for the highest classes of society, but are a matter of mass appeal

On a global scale, the spread of American popular culture is argued to be a form of ‘soft power’ that allows for the transmission of America political and economic values

The culture industry

In their book Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944), Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno argued that popular culture was like a factory reproducing culture goods that reduce a population to passivity

If we are able to get easy pleasure from mass media, our larger exploitation becomes less apparent

It is argued that a global cultural industry is emerging, one that is able to channel the alienation and anger of the global youth

This culture is propagated through the commercialisation of culture, both through the global spread of American produced culture and American modes of cultural production (The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of “Dallas”, Liebes and Katz, 1990)

Do you watch ‘pop culture’ to stop yourself from

thinking?

America the great

The world is primarily exposed to American culture in two ways: through its foreign policy and through its media, which acts as a form of ‘soft power’ that allows for the glamorous and desirable portrayal of America

The United States of America is the largest producer of popular entertainment media in the world

This portrayal is multi-faceted and allows a wide range of access points, from romance to personal excess and expression, to oppositional modes such as hip-hip culture, which appeal to excluded youth around the world

Most of these American sub-cultures are underlined by appeals to youth, individual aspiration and expression, and consumerism

The case of MTV

Music is often the most easily transferable of cultural forms and was at the ‘vanguard’ of the spread of American culture

This dynamic was seen in the global success of ‘Music Television’, or MTV, which was created in 1981 and has spread to approximately 160 countries in 18 different languages

MTV sets up local operations that allow it to push America music but, most of all, to do what is profitable and play what is popular at a local level

Influencing local identities

This pushes the American format of popular culture, sexuality, violence and individual expression (and popular slang)

Through its local affiliates, MTV mass-promotes a cultural lifestyle whose local roots are in American, but inspires demand from local youth

The soft power of the likes of MTV or the e channel and reality TV allow for American values to become more acceptable and more understandable and consuming movies and television more desirable

The rise of the American local

MTV’s expansion matches that of America multi-nationals, moving into new markets and changing their approach to suit that market

MTV sets up local operations (often working with local cable networks) that allow it to push America music but, most of all, to do what is profitable and play what is popular at a local level

Whilst MTV sought to respond to local demands, in many localities MTV has been superseded by local alternatives in the same format

Is music television in your country distinctly

American?

Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures

“These are not signs of Hollywood's homogenizing effect on the world.

They are signs of the world changing the way Hollywood works. It

makes sense to marry our production, marketing and distribution

experience with the growing global appetite for entertainment tailor-

made by and for a variety of cultures.”

Can film be truly global?

Hollywood films make significantly more money from global audiences than in the US box office

There are three main factors:

1. The emergence of greater ‘leisure spending’ in the developing world

2. Global marketing of Hollywood films

3. A concerted effort to refocus the content of films to be more globally appealing

Global cultural identities

Hollywood films are seeking to remove American cultural references and cast a more diverse range of actors

A focus on American military interventions is particularly troublesome, and the same applies to local cultural events and stars

In some movies, plots are being re-shot to include culturally-specific scenes

The influence of China

In 2012 China lifted its limit on foreign films from 20 to 34

With a rapidly growing economy and increased discretionary funds, the Chinese film market is booming

The Chinese government is planning to support the construction of up to 35,000 more cinemas screen over the next five years – up from a current 5,000

In 2012 foreign films made $US1.41billion out of a total of $US2.74billion and American films were seven out of the top ten

http://chinafilmbiz.com/2013/04/06/the-increasingly-astonishing-rise-of-chinas-film-business/

The Chinafication of Hollywood

Hollywood films are being specifically designed for the Chinese market, with more Chinese stars and locations as well as more Chinese friendly plots

Because the market is controlled by the Chinese government, Hollywood has to comply to the strict controls set, including restrictions on the ‘supernatural’ and negative depictions of China

Much of the violence of the Quentin Tarantino move Django Unchained, for example, was cut from the Chinese version and the film was banned for a period until further cuts were made

As China will soon be the biggest market for films, entertainment corporations are ‘forced’ to comply with these practices

The case of Iron Man 3

In 2013 Iron Man 3 set the Chinese record for the biggest opening weekend for a foreign film, taking in over $US65 million

Whilst Iron Man is a continuation of the US cultural tradition of ‘super-hero’ blockbuster movies, Iron Man 3 was designed with the Chinese market in mind It was co-produced with China’s DMG entertainment Scenes were filmed in Beijing with famous Chinese actors and a product

placement deal with TCL electronics The main villain was changed from Chinese ethnicity to one of indeterminate

identity

Global funding

Not only are Hollywood studios like Fox are setting up local studios and ‘production partners’, but funding from China is increasingly lucrative

Many global media corporations have local subsidiaries to help them negotiate local practices

Germany’s Bertelsmann AG is the local distributor for Random House publishing

Local studio productions are also becoming more common, sometimes importing ideas or whole films from the US

The counter-hegemonic global

Globalisation might be a story told by the winners but, in film, counter-hegemonic movements are becoming more influential

China’s financial influential and cultural-political restrictions mean that the biggest budget films are more likely to portray China positively

But, villains have to come from somewhere – they can either be from smaller film markets, or be of non-local identity

Culturally specific films from the Western world are increasingly being re-made with local actors and plots, rather than being dubbed

The global village of film

With global audiences, global production and global funding, we are witnessing the convergence of global cultures through film

Studios wish to appeal to the widest audiences possible, so plots and characters become more generic

As audiences have a greater demand for popular culture, government restrictions are slowly lifting

However, the bigger the market, the more films are likely to represent them positively

Moreover, the vast majority of films play to a local audience and local practices still rule in some genres

What translates?

At the start of the lecture I noted that popularity of foreign entertainment reveals the connections between cultures and the universally of ideas and cultural practices

We see this in films, where action films are popular with global audiences, but comedies struggle

To succeed across cultures, films have to empty themselves of any unrelatable content: comedy relies on insider knowledge of a culture, whereas special effects and action do not

http://online.wsj.com/news/interactive/HOLLYWORLD?ref=SB10001424052748704913304575371394036766312

Not funny?

Comedy relies upon insider understandings of culture, and it also expresses a truth of that culture: to laugh is both a social reaction and a cultural reaction

It is often very difficult to translate these understandings between cultures, even between quite similar cultures

In order to get around this some big-budget companies, like 21 and Over, have different plots to suit different cultural understandings

Do you ‘get’ the British sense of humour?

Concentration of Film Production

Source: UNESCO, INTERNATIONAL BLOCKBUSTERS TO NATIONAL HITS ANALYSIS OF THE 2010 UIS SURVEY ON FEATURE FILM STATISTICS

The case of Indian identity

The increasing global popularity of Indian film, or ‘Bollywood’ signals the presence of a counter-hegemonic globalisations

Bollywood was once largely limited to the local Indian film market and remains a hugely influential element of Indian culture

Bollywood has a very distinctive style, often focusing on song and dance and ‘epic’ stories that are culturally different from Western cultural practices

Although they are very popular across Asia and parts of Africa, they had struggled to have an impact upon American audiences

Globalising Bollywood

Bollywood films have started to become more popular in America and in Britain

This shift has come less from an cultural change in either audiences or in the films, but from targeted marketing at the Indian global diaspora

Indian diasporas

Diaspora's are geographically scattered populations with common origins

At an estimated 25,000,000, the Indian diaspora is the biggest in the world and is increasingly affluent

As diasporic populations are geographically detached from cultural traditions, many had struggled with their cultural alienation and had attempted to assimilate into the local culture

In the era of global media, however, diasporas are able to carve out cultural niches through satellite and internet technology

The global in the local

In appealing to these scattered populations, Bollywood films are becoming increasingly globally popular, but only within a single culture

In this case we have cultural similarity detached from geographic location and greater cultural difference both across the world and within localities

Conversely, as wealthier emigrant populations change their cultural habits, films are slowly changing with them

Summary

Entertainment is a core aspect of our cultural identities, but also has a political function

American film remains culturally dominant, particularly amongst the global youth, and is an example of ‘soft power’/cultural imperialism

Conversely, the rise of the China film industry and the global spread of Bollywood reveal the presence of counter-hegemonic trends

Next Week

WEEK 5 VIRTUAL RESISTANCE: MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSFORMATION

FEATURING: ESSAY REVIEW

POSTNATIONAL TELEVISION?

Good gracious me and the Britasian diasporia

Our Questions

Is there such thing as a global entertainment culture?

Do our local cultural identities change through entertainment media?

Global India-ness

Good Gracious Me represents the presence of Indian immigrants in British society: they are both local and global

Whilst the overt appeal is to the ‘Britasian’ community, 80% of its audience was ‘White’ (p.407)

Executive producer Jon Plowman “It’s like watching Frasier or Friends when there’s a joke you don’t get but is clearly supposed to be funny…You think, ‘Oh, that must be about being American’…it doesn’t ruin the whole show for you” (p.409)

In what circumstances do you find the popular culture of a foreign culture entertaining?

Geographical Importance

Luckett highlights the importance of the digital expansion of the global communications system for maintaining cultural links

Rather than relying on state funded national media (see p.405), cultures are able to stay in contact despite geographical distance

What has more influence on cultural identity, virtual cultural links (TV, internet, movies…)or geographical location?

Global Culture

The Indian diaspora is continuing to spread

Through migration, particularly of students, more people from Eastern Europe, China and the middle-east are coming into contact and hybrid cultures are forming

Good Gracious Me demonstrates the prominence of the Britasian cultural community in Britain (p.406)

Yet, “Allusions to Hindi cinema suggest the importance of ‘national’ culture in a postnational world, especially for diasporic populations, suggesting that hybridity does not necessarily imply dissolution” (p.411)

Is entertainment media more likely to produce a genuinely global culture than social media?