The Homogenization of Hollywood

Abstract

Japan’s late 20th-century investment in Hollywood prompted fear of a foreign takeover of an engine of American culture. Hollywood is in the midst of another anxious evolution, as studio and independent production companies are swallowed up by huge vertically integrated monoliths like Viacom, News Corp. Hollywood must attract mass audiences because movies have become incredibly expensive to produce. The conglomerates are snapping up successful independent companies to feed those needs, offering small companies a steady source of underwriting along with promises of creative noninterference. No wonder studio executives avoid making small, artistically unique films with seemingly limited audience appeal. In their timidity and bottom-line thinking, studios long ago ceded artistic risktaking to independent companies and talent. Tension has always existed between moviemakers’ desire for creative freedom and relentless studio pressure to make the product—whatever its artistic or social pretensions—conform to current models of what target audiences seem to want.