Printed Page 218

Movies function as consensus narratives, popular cultural products that provide us with shared experiences. Whether they are dramas, romances, westerns, or mysteries, movies communicate values, hopes, and dreams through accessible language and imagery that often bridge cultural differences. As the American film industry has continued dominating the movie-watching experience in many other nations, observers have begun asking questions about this phenomenon. Some have wondered whether American-made films are helping to create a kind of global village where people around the world share a universal culture. Others have asked whether these films stifle local cultures worldwide.

With the rise of international media conglomerates, public debate over such questions has ebbed. This is worrisome, as movies exert such a powerful impact on people’s beliefs, values, and even actions. As other nations view the American film industry as an interloper in their people’s culture, they may develop a resentment against the United States overall.

Likewise, the continuing power of the movie industry within our own nation raises questions about movies’ role in our democracy. It’s vital that those of us who consume movies do so with a critical eye and a willingness to debate these larger questions about this mass medium’s cultural, political, and social significance. For instance, most mainstream audiences see Disney’s movies as harmless forms of entertainment. But a critical look at the images of femininity in Disney films from Snow White to Pirates of the Caribbean reveals a consistent view of beauty that hews close to a Barbie-doll ideal—and that inner beauty is typically reflected by attractive outward appearances. Other Disney films (like the Lion King and Pocahontas) verge on racial stereotyping—or xenophobia, as when the heroes of Aladdin look less Middle Eastern than the villains. A media literate viewer, then, must recognize that part of the cultural power of broad entertainments like Disney movies is bound up in packaging potentially questionable messages about gender, race, and class in stories that seem transparently wholesome. Given the expanded viewing options and the increasing access to independent, foreign, and otherwise nonmainstream films, viewers can also seek out various alternatives to massmarketed Hollywood films. With an entity as large as the U.S. film industry producing compelling messages about what we should value, how we should live, and how we should act, it’s vital for those of us who consume movies to do so with a critical, media-literate eye—and to seek out other cinematic voices.