Behind The Screens: Hollywood goes Hypercommercial
US 2000 (37 mins) - shown here in five sections (click to play)
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Summary: Hollywood has always been a commercial system. However, this video presents compelling evidence to suggest that we have entered an unprecedented era of 'hypercommercialism'. Tracking the phenomenal rise in product placements, tie-ins with fast-food chains, and mammoth toy merchandising deals, six interviewees - five leading scholars and a screenwriter- argue that mainstream, big-budget movies have become largely a vehicle for advertising and marketing. Robert W. McChesney and Janet Wasko discuss the reasons for, and consequences of, an ever-accelerated concentration of media ownership; Mark Crispin Miller, Susan Douglas, Eileen Meehan and Jeremy Pikser suggest that this continues to have profound effects on contemporary cultural life.
Total duration: 37 minutes. ISBN: 1-893521-40-0
Courtesy of the Media Education Foundation
60 Masonic Street, Northampton MA 01060 USA
A study/teaching guide for Behind the Screens in pdf format is available here.
A transcript of Behind the Screens in pdf format is available here.
The Brand Hype team is based in the Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, and is led by Dr. Matt Soar. All team members are Concordia grad students. Current: Lesley Husbands; Stuart Thiel. Past: Danielle Devereaux; Fernando Aloise. Brand Hype is funded in part by a Research/Creation in the Fine Arts grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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