“Bending” Cultures in Media Capitals

In this week’s lecture, I came across this new yet foreign hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic but the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural (Huntington, 1993). This statement proves evident through the various news media broadcasting about International conflicts such as wars and violence. The most recent news to hit me was the war between Iraq and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine. A quick glance through these happenings shows the obvious signs of a difference in culture that provoked these wars. Huntington’s claim that the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics are somewhat true, however not in every case does violence solves our problems.

Media capitals, then, are sites of mediation, locations where complex forces and flows interact. They are neither bounded nor self-contained entities (Curtin, 2003). One example that comes to mind is Nickelodeon, an American basic cable and satellite television network broadcasting cartoon programs aimed at children and adolescents aged 8-16. I’ve been a loyal viewers even at the age of 20, and my favourite program by far is The Legend of Korra.

The series follows Avatar Korra, the successor of Aang from the previous series, as she faces political and spiritual unrest in a modernizing world. The feature of this series is Korra’s ability to “bend” all four Elements: fire, water, air and earth. Though this program’s young audiences are mostly in the West, the animation was set in an Asian-influenced world. With Korra’s ability to “bend” elements, this is the classical myths of a type of Chinese Martial Art that has been long foretold in Asian histories. The drawings are very similar to Japanese anime and has faced various claims that it is an anime work.

In the synopsis alone, I have been able to identified three different culture that has come together to work on a project that has since became a critical and commercial success in the West. This program obtained the highest viewers for an animated series in the United States in 2012. Therefore, this goes back to my understanding of our ever evolutional world that even though claims of the negativity of the clash of civilizations has been evident and has spread all over the media. There is no saying that it is a bad thing, from what I see, the clash of civilizations in “The legend of Korra” was an amazing art piece. And I can so say about this because media capitals are places where things come together and, consequently, where the generation and circulation of new mass culture forms become possible (Curtin, 2003).

Reference:

Curtin, M 2009, ‘Media capital: Towards the study of spatial flows’, International journal of cultural studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 202-228

Huntington, S 1993, ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, pp. 22–49.

Crossover Cinema

Continuing from the last blog post, I further analyse the concept of the globalised film industry through to crossover cinema. Crossover cinema is used to illustrate an emerging form of cinema that crosses cultural borders at the stage of conceptualization and production and hence manifest hybrid cinematic grammar at the textual level, as well as crossing over on terms of its distribution and reception (Khorana, 2014). This is the incorporation of two different cultural background influencing each other to create an end product, and in this case, a movie. Attempts at cross culturally producing a movie has not been most successful, however, the Hollywood movie, “Slumdog Millionaire” based in Mumbai, India, was a successful attempt at crossover cinemas, winning 8 Oscars, even though the confidence for its success was slim.

According to Khorana S, the inter-text and the extra-text of the cross cultural films is intrinsic to a crossover film. This leads to the emergence of issues such as Bollywood’s attempt at promoting cross cultural film in hopes that one day it will make it into Hollywood and their renowned film statuses. My understanding of this is that if Bollywood’s main aim is to enhance its cross cultural elements in a film in hopes that western audiences would pick up on it and decides to watch it, their search for a Western audience may not come to fruition (Khorana 2014). There is an underlying understanding that there is a certain practice that Hollywood adopts and its secret has been a success for a long time now, other global film industries has been trying to figure out what this practice is and trying to walk in Hollywood’s footstep.

Another issue that arises is audience’s interpretation of a foreign film. Watching today’s news on Middle Eastern countries, all we see is violence and war, murder and rape. Audiences unknowingly succumb to the conception and perception that the media is broadcasting and thereby influences our opinion on Middle Eastern countries. A crossover film may harm a country’s reputation because of an opinion from non-Arabic viewers. Sensitive issues such as suicide bombing and religions in Arabic movie are reflected as “crazy” and “insane” to Hollywood viewers because of their limited understanding of the cultural meaning in a film and the realistic lifestyle of the Middle Eastern and their religion. Here’s a video on the perceptions of Arabs and Americans film:

All in all, what we must really understand is that the success of crossover film industry definitely play a role in portraying globalisation all around the world. The Slumdog Millionaire film was a huge success as it portrays Mumbai poor lifestyle in contrast to the rich lifestyle at Taj Mahal and the fated love story of the characters.

Reference:

Khorana, S 2013, ‘Crossover Cinema: A Genealogical and Conceptual Overview’, Producing a Hybrid Grammar, pp. 1-7.

Bollywood for Hollywood

 

Directing the focus now unto the Global Film Industry, it is easy to make an assumption that Hollywood is and always will be the most successful film industry on the global scale. Hollywood remains strong and posts impressive figures every year despite its dwindling economy (Source: onlinemba.com). With its head turning figures and stunning actor and actresses walking down red carpets, who would have the will to deny these forces.

However, it is important that we understand that on the other side of the globe, there is a film industry known as, Bollywood. You’d be surprise with how much they are one and the same with the Hollywood film industry. Let me explain, Bollywood, is the India’s version of Hollywood. Adopting its name from Bombay, now known as Mumbai, it is the heart and soul of every citizens in India, catching audience’s attention from its catchy Hindi songs and choreographed dance moves, colourful costumes and its dramatic storyline. According to Rosenberg M, fourteen millions Indians goes to work on a daily basis in the Bollywood film industry, which is equivalent to 1.4% of their 1 billion citizens. It is one of the main driving forces for India’s economy providing thousands of jobs every year.

The success of a Hollywood film depends heavily on culture clashes as seen in recent times with the emergence of contra-flows. It is the shifting of direction of cultural influences to the Global South and blurring ‘the boundaries between the modern and the traditional, the high and low culture, and the national and the global culture’ (Thussu, 2006: 175). Hollywood is like an octopus with tentacles extending across the globe. Through the incorporation of multi-culture influences, Hollywood has manage to attract audiences not only through domestic movie ticket purchases but also international revenues from foreign movie goers.

Let’s shine some lights on this with the movie, Slumdog Millionaire. The movie, based in Mumbai, illustrates the nitty and gritty lives of the poor with the shiny aspirations of the new India. It can be categorised as a ‘hybrid’ movie, directed by Briton Danny Boyle with the leading actor born and raised in England. It almost instantaneously stole the heart of everyone in India from the slums to Taj Mahal and even in the States. By creating this whole new market of movie goers, Hollywood was able to open up a new targeted market segment while educating and broadcasting a culture other that the western culture on the big screen was one of the most risky yet successful decision ever made.

Slumdog millionaire went on to win 8 Oscars and was on the top of the list on the box office list and International movie goers played the majority roles in this. It is then easy to see why it is necessary to explore the opportunity globally instead of confining your given knowledge. You wouldn’t know if that orange is good until you’ve tasted it.

Reference:

Thussu, D.K. (2006), International Communication: Continuity and Change, 2nd edn,
New York: Oxford University Press.