"Hollywood is becoming Asianised in diverse ways, while Asian film industries are in turn becoming Hollywoodized."
Klein (2004, p. 361) made that statement almost a decade ago, and it is still sustainable.
When first reading about Hollywood becoming Asianized the idea did not resonate with me, I could only think of big blockbuster films that I viewed as very Americanised (the Hunger Games, the Batman series, typical rom coms etc) but having delved into it further, I agree with Klein when he suggested that while Hollywood "blockbusters proclaim their Americaness on the surface, their style and content has been ...taliored to the world market" (Rosenbaum as cited in Klein, 2004, p. 363). What I and I believe many other people would have assumed is that most of the influence in the last decade (and previously) on Hollywood has come from American and Western Culture. But there are many example which refute this claim and support Klein. There are many ways that American films are still influenced, if not more, by Asian audiences and sales.
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| Lucy Liu, a famous Asian-American Actor Source |
The resurrection of the Marvel films, Iron man and alike shows a resurrection of the Asian influenced Comic film. We are also seeing a rise in the use of Asian women in leading female roles, something that has increased since Klein first suggested this Asianization. According to Marlow Stern (2013) for 3 consecutive weeks in July 2013 we saw a "hotly anticipated" american film released featuring an Asian Actress playing the lead or love interest. The Wolverine is an example of this.
More recently the practice of tweaking films and creating different edits for Asian distribution has emerged. The movie 21 & over is an example of this. Scenes for this movie were cut and re-filmed to edit into the version that would be shown to Chinese viewers, to portray a more "wholesome" (Kaufman & Zietchik, 2013) by the R 18+ movie. There is some of more examples of such films here.
Simultaneoulsy, there are still films coming out of Asia that are noticably Hollywoodized. One of China's highest grossing films 'Lost In Thailand' in my opinion has effects of Western Culture. From my first view of the movie poster I immediately thought of the American 'The Hangover' and saw the similarities in the plot (while Lost In Thailand is a little more wholesome).
There are so many ways in which these two culture are affecting each others film industries, too many of which to delve into here, if anything though I think it is clear even from a small number of examples that Klein's statement is truer now than it was a decade ago.
References
Kaufman, A. & Zietchik, S., (2013, February 14). For the raunchy '21 & over' a very different message in China. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/14/entertainment/la-et-mn-21-and-over-release-date-china-theaters-reviews-miles-teller-20130213
Klein, Christina 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384.
Stern, M., (2013, August 3). Whats behind Hollywood's Asian Flirtation? China's Box Office. The Daily beast. Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/03/what-s-behind-hollywood-s-asian-flirtation-china-s-box-office.html
Thanks for the post Katelyn,
ReplyDeleteYou showed some great examples of movies that fall under the term ‘Hollywoodisation’. You demonstrated a clear discussion about the influence of American, Western and Asian culture and linked it well with good examples. I particular enjoyed your personal approach to the topic and you showed some critical and analytical understanding. I found the quote at the start very insightful and it was a good background to start your discussion. You also demonstrated a clear understanding from the scholarly readings and further materials. Some advice to help strengthen your presentation is including more hyperlinks and images to help explain your discussion. Good job!
Great post Katelyn, it's along the lines as my blog post regarding Asin influence in Modern Hollywood. It's actually amazing how many films in the last ten years have been based on Japanese/Chinese/Filipino/Thai movies and texts. Isn't it fascinating how Hollywood no longer only hires an Asian actor for a martial arts films, and now realise the importance to the industry that Asia provides, both financially and through marketability. I still find it fascinating how much editing and re-working are performed on Western movies before they are issued, and why they feel the need to make movies more family wholesome before releasing them to the Asian public.
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