Cinema of the United

States

Representation and Hegemony

 Background Information
• In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power
of photography to capture motion.
• In 1894, the world's first commercial motion picture
exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas
Edison's Kinetoscope.
• The United States was in the forefront of sound film's
development in the following decades.
• Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. film industry
has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los
Angeles, California.
Kinetoscope
 Institutions in Cinema
• The start of the Golden Age in cinema was arguably when The Jazz Singer
was released in 1927, ending the silent era and increasing box-office
profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films.
• After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros gained huge
success and was able to acquire their own string of movie theaters, after
purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928.
• MGM had also owned the Loews string of theaters since forming in 1924,
and the Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre strings as well.
• Also, RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio
Corporation of America[3 ]) responded to the Western Electric/ERPI
monopoly over sound in films , and developed their own method, known
as Photophone , to put sound in films [5].
• Paramount, who already acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer
to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO, and buy a number of theaters in
the late 1920s as well, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit,
Michigan.[4] By the 1930s, all of America's theaters were owned by the Big
Five studios – MGM , Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner Bros., and
Twentieth Century Fox.
20th Century Fox
• The Fox Film Corporation was formed in 1915
by the theatre "chain" pioneer William Fox, who
formed Fox Film Corporation by merging two
companies he had established in 1913.
• Twentieth Century Pictures was an
independent Hollywood motion picture production
company created in 1932 by Joseph Schenck, the
former president of United Artists, Darryl F. Zanuck
from Warner Brothers, William Goetz from Fox
Films, and Raymond Griffith.
• Joe Schenck and Fox management agreed to a
merger; Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox-
West Coast theatres, helped in the merger (and
later became president of the new company).
• Rupurt Murdoch took control of Fox in
1985. He established a Fox Broadcasting
Company that took over the air in 1986.
• Since Jan 2001, Fox has become the
international distributor for MGM releases.
• Fox also makes money distributing movies
for smaller independent film companies.
Top 5 Studios

MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer Inc.)
 "Ars Gratia Artis"
• MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment
entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro
Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation(Leo the lion
and Louis B. Mayer Pictures.
• Marcus Loew was born into a poor Jewish family in
New York City, he was forced by circumstances to
work at a very young age and thus had little formal
education.
• He founded the People's Vaudeville Company, a
theatre chain which showcased one-reeler films as
well as live variety shows
• His associates included Adolph Zukor, Joseph
Schenck, and Nicholas Schenck.
• MGM also owns the French company Pathé Frères as
of 1990.
 Movies by MGM

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Me
tro-Goldwyn-Mayer_films#2009
Paramount Pictures
• Paramount Pictures Corporation is an
American film production and distribution
company, located in Hollywood, California.
• Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media
conglomerate Viacom("Video & Audio
Communications“), it is the oldest existing
American film studio; it is also the last major film
studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district
of Los Angeles.
• Viacom has various world wide interests in cable
and satellite networks( MTV, BET).
• Paramount is also the distributor of movie studio
DreamWorks.
• Paramount Pictures can trace its beginning to the creation
in May 1912, of the Famous Players Film Company. Founder
Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor, who had been an early
investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly
to working-class immigrants.
• With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he
planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to
the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players
of the time (leading to the slogan "Famous Players in
Famous Plays").
• This eventually lead to the creation of Paramount Inc.
Independent Film

Fine line Features

 Fine Line Features
• Fine Line Features was the specialty films
division of New Line Cinema. It produced,
purchased, distributed and marketed films of a
more "indie" flavor than its parent company.
• In 2005, New Line teamed up with fellow Time
Warner subsidiary HBO to form Picturehouse, a
new specialty film label of which Fine Line was
folded into.
Representation of Teenagers

• Teenagers are often seen in film as portraying a

certain stereotype within the stereotype of being a
teenager.
• Some examples:
• Goth
• Popular
• Prep
• Skater
• Pothead
• Slut
• Geek
• Religious
• Indie
• Punk
• Emo
• Trendy
• Etc…
• This can be seen in Hollywood movies as
well as Independent films.
• Teenagers are often seen generally in
movies as emotionally underdeveloped,
inexperienced and sexually provocative.
They are also seen as living for the ‘thrill’.
• One may conclude that this is the common
image depicted on screen, despite the fact
that that image may not necessarily be
true.
• Examples…
Hollywood Films
 "The Breakfast Club"
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkX8J-
Independent Films
 Elephant
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlsOf

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkX8J-
 Hegemony
• “ The process whereby the
subordinate are led to consent to view
the social system and it’s everyday
embodiments as ‘common sense’, the
self evidently natural” (John Fiske)
• The film industry, in this view, would
start out being and entertainment unit
and end up defining the norms,
values, belief s and morals in society.
• The representation of teenagers in Hollywood
movies could reflect the institutions attempt to
make even the smallest minority feel represented.
• Thus, the different types of teenagers presented
to us in US film could be deliberately implemented
to create false consciousness within teenagers to
make them feel represented when in fact they are
attempting to gain and audience and pass on
ideologies to the public about what type of people
teenagers are and/or what type of person you
should be if you are a teenager.
• The hegemonic approach would argue that
the film industries are reproducing the
prominent ideologies shared in society, thus
making it seem that these representations of
teenager are natural and the standard.
• Rather than the owners having direct control
of what goes into a film, they establish an
order in which they produce values and
ideas that are transmitted through the film
via selection of what films get
funded/produced/distributed and who is
casted.
Parody
 Not Another Teen Movie
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxG4u