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The Political Economy of Hollywood
In Hollywood, the goals of art and business are entangled. Directors, writers, actors, and idealistic producers aspire to make the best films possible. These aspirations often interact with the dominant firms that control Hollywood film distribution. This control of distribution is crucial as it enables the firms and other large businesses involved, such as banks that offer financing, to effectively stand between film production and the market. This book analyses the power structure of the Hollywood film business and its general modes of behaviour. More specifically, the work analyses how the largest Hollywood firms attempt to control social creativity such that they can mitigate the financial risks inherent in the art of filmmaking. Controlling the ways people make or watch films, the book argues, is a key element of Hollywood’s capitalist power. Capitalist power―the ability to control, modify, and, sometimes, limit social creation through the rights of ownership―is the foundation of capital accumulation. For the Hollywood film business, capitalist power is about the ability of business concerns to set the terms that will shape the future of cinema. For the major film distributors of Hollywood, these terms include the types of films that will be distributed, the number of films that will be distributed, and the cinematic alternatives that will be made available to the individual moviegoer. Combining theoretical analysis with detailed empirical research on the financial performance of the major Hollywood film companies, the book details how Hollywood’s capitalist goals have clashed with the aesthetic potentials of cinema and ultimately stymied creativity in the pursuit of limiting risk. This sharp critique of the Hollywood machine provides vital reading for students and scholars of political economy, political theory, film studies, and cinema.
- GenresPolitics
274 pages, Paperback
Published February 25, 2022
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April 20, 2024
There are many excellent ideas in this book, but it feels a bit littered in the first half with frameworks and deconstructions that I think many may skim it over and not fully grasp many of the powerful ideas in the later chapters. While capital-as-power may be unfamiliar to many readers (as a defined political economic concept) the essential idea does not feel as “out there” as McMahon makes it seem. This fully deconstruction of the separation of the political economic is tedious and ultimately takes away from many of the important ideas.
The writing is strongest when McMahon uses theory, statistics, and analysis of Hollywood modes of production and these aspects of the final chapters are very important for my own conceptions of Hollywood. I also think many on the left, outside of academics already understand capital-as-power without the need for complex theoretical concepts. That is, we already know and connect police to protecting economic interests so separating that political power and economics is not something I’ve personally come up against, but perhaps for the history of Marxism it’s as big an issue as McMahon makes it seem. I hope his further work dives deeper into Hollywood and Netflix as he suggests. I’m glad I powered through the heavy theory, but honestly did not find his tedious exploration as useful as he makes it seem, but maybe I’m missing something. The most important ideas are differential accumulation and risk reduction and these ideas could have been explained more in tandem to an analysis of Hollywood.
The writing is strongest when McMahon uses theory, statistics, and analysis of Hollywood modes of production and these aspects of the final chapters are very important for my own conceptions of Hollywood. I also think many on the left, outside of academics already understand capital-as-power without the need for complex theoretical concepts. That is, we already know and connect police to protecting economic interests so separating that political power and economics is not something I’ve personally come up against, but perhaps for the history of Marxism it’s as big an issue as McMahon makes it seem. I hope his further work dives deeper into Hollywood and Netflix as he suggests. I’m glad I powered through the heavy theory, but honestly did not find his tedious exploration as useful as he makes it seem, but maybe I’m missing something. The most important ideas are differential accumulation and risk reduction and these ideas could have been explained more in tandem to an analysis of Hollywood.
Displaying 1 of 1 review