Hollywood movies: American soft power apparatus

Cultural transmission across the national borders is one of the main attributes of globalization. Movie in the age of globalization is not just contributes in cross border cultural transmission, but also used as a means to transmit social and political massage for the purpose to the audience. Hollywood movies are better positioned to do so due to its large audience around the world. The US utilizes the Hollywood movies as a soft power tool to promote American political values such as democracy and human rights--aiming to achieve its foreign policy goals.

In 1990, American scholar Joseph Nye first used the word 'soft power' in his book "Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power". The term "soft power" indicates the ability to attract, influence or manipulate actor's mind through non-coercive measures in order to achieve certain objectives, where 'hard power' indicates the ability to achieve desired goals through coercive measures.

Hollywood movies are not only watched in the US, but also watched around the world which helps America to export its culture and values across the national border. The US aims to make American ideals meaningful in films. When people watch Hollywood movies such "Pearl Harbor" or "The Pianist", they tend to support the US by the message that America remained neutral during the Second World War. More than that the audiences may perceive Japan and Germany as threats to others during war and in the worst case scenario, negative attitudes may develop among the audiences toward Japan and German nations and people there.

Hollywood movies also used as a propagation tool in the foreign policy. Movies include propaganda values in term of human rights, cultural, traditional, political and so on. Massages are cultivated in the films and let audiences extract the message through plays and dialogues. This type of propaganda movies such as "Casablanca" which was released during WWII to convey a message that is America remained neutral, responsive and benevolent during the WWII.

American foreign policy partly depended on the soft power of cinema against the indelicate propagation of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and Hollywood was used as a means to encourage impartial countries for their foreign political ambitions. "Hollywood's Cold War", a book by Tony Shaw, gives us some quite interesting information. Shaw tries to show how US government instrumentalized the Hollywood movies against the Soviet Union and Communism.

Ernest Lubitsch's movie "Ninotschka" was quite famous which popularized adoption of anti-communism as the official ideology of the US. Also William Wellman's "The Iron Curtain", Norman Z McLeod's "My Favorite Spy" can be stated as example regarding the matter. American governments were able to control Hollywood industry through "Motion Picture Production Code", "Smith-Mundt Act" and other measures to popularize US political values and to fight against foreign propaganda, especially that of communist countries.

Hollywood movies also used to cultivate new values to the audiences. Movies like "Rambo" and others often try to cultivate masculine value to the audiences. People after watching such movies normally absorbed messages and values cultivated in movies and try to adapt these in their daily life. Hollywood movies sought to affect the overseas communities' choices, actions, and opinions and the foreign relations between states as such.

For instance, Hollywood films have contributed to condemnation of totalizing and fascist rule as a source of inspiration for the political feelings of people, providing a foundation for social demands and attribution of American ideals. Many American movies like "The Patriot" in foreign policy, "Saving Private Ryann" with the theme of World War II, "Operation Rogue", "Tears of the Sun", involve propagation strategies like American who saves the world, American who makes people free, American who save refugees form dictators.
These movies are used in order to construct national identities and stereotypes. US government tends to create image of "good" and "evil" of its friends and enemies through movies. We can see how America tries to demonize and creates negative images of Arabs, Chinese, North Korean and Russians in order to archive some foreign policy objectives. Hollywood movies often project Russian as villain which draws severe criticisms. Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for the Red October" was about supremacy of American values of Soviet Bolshevism and a Soviet defector.

In the wake and after 9/11 incident, Arab character often portrayed as "terrorist" or "radical Islamist". We can see good Arabs in a few films. Such as "Lion of the Desert", "Hanna K" Jack G Shaheen describes the portrayal of Arab as different, threatening, uncivilized and heartless. We can see the same thing in movies such as "Road to Morocco", "The Dictator". Hollywood movies demonstrate Asian, especially Chinese and North Korean as non-western and somehow inferior in dress, culture, language. The theme of Chinese mafia also in display is some movies, such as "Rush Hour". More recently, "The Interview" movie shows the one-man rule in North Korea and ugly side of authoritarian regime.

It is not surprising that there is some sort of influence from government agencies in this film industry. Tricia Jenkins clearly stated this in her writings that how CIA has actively collaborated with Hollywood to develop certain programs since 1990s. We can also find evidences of government involvement in promotion of Hollywood movies around the world through its Embassies in more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks in 2010.

We can see Hollywood movies are being utilized by the US government as soft power tool. Globalization, through its rapid means of communication, helps to expedite the process. But it is not only US which is getting the benefits, but other countries also trying their best to utilize globalization and their film industries in order to achieve certain objectives.

The writer is a student, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka