Be Wary of the Disney-Fox Merger

How the Neoliberal Consolidation of Power Creates the Illusion of Choice in Media Consumption

Introduction

It is evident that the global neoliberal ideological agenda has shaped many different affairs from domestic economic policies to international relations. The consideration of its effects on individual industries, specifically that of cinema, however, is not often explored. In order to examine how neoliberal policies affect the film industry, there must first be a concrete definition of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism as defined by five tenets as per the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is defined as policies guided by the liberation of free market enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government, cutting public expenditure for social services, deregulation, privatization, and elimination of the concept of “public good” or “community” (Martinez 2). In effect, there are two arguments to be had about the effect neoliberalism has had on cinema as a cultural industry that are coalesced around the idea of deregulation yielding an oligopoly through global mergers and acquisitions and the usage of the content of the films as tools to socially engineer society through media consumption.

Neoliberal Restructuring Through Mergers and Acquisitions

First, the examination of neoliberal restructuring of world influences and powers is necessary to help demonstrate how the policies of neoliberal nations have helped forge multinational conglomerations that have been used to push certain agendas, psychologies, and essentially one global cinematic machine.

There are six major Hollywood studios: Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Fox Entertainment Group, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, and Paramount Motion Pictures Group. Each of these studios are owned by larger corporations that also own smaller studios. It goes without saying that the neoliberal leniency on antitrust violations has caused the scenario whereby only six corporations own about 90% of the media share in the country. This scenario can be seen when applied in general to the concept of mergers and acquisitions in any industry since the onset of neoliberalism. According to a report from Media Culture and Society, the global communication industry has gone through many processes of restructuring and transnationalization. Chief among these restructurings has been the acquisition of one by another — which has caused an industry which was once achieving limited integration to become one of the largest global industries in the world (Jin). What this causes is monopolization, not only of the industry, but of the cultural product itself. It suffices to say that ownership of multiple groups by one organization does not create differentiation, but the exact opposite — it creates a homogeneous product that is reflective of the existing global hegemony — thereby creating a false cultural zeitgeist that is spoon fed to the masses.

Furthermore, the ownership of capital resides, not only in the six major studios, but there are actually only six American corporations that control these studios. According to the Centre for Research on Globalization, 90% of American media is actually controlled by six large corporations: Comcast, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. By having smaller subsidiaries underneath these parent companies, the consumer is provided the illusion of choice (Bishop). There exists an illusion of choice that is perpetuated by the failure to allow for government regulation when it comes to antitrust violations. Because of this failure to regulate effectively, the vast majority of the market share is saturated by the same six corporations. The neoliberal policies of deregulation have created a situation in which the majority of the consumer base is fed the same media, in cinema, specifically. The direction of the industry is to capitalize on what makes as much money as possible and discard good works that do not make much money. Such is in the case highlighted in Magical Thinking, Fantastic Film, and the Illusions of Neoliberalism, “the growth of enormous firms renders it increasingly difficult for smaller competitors to enter the fray… certain prominent entities are ‘too big to fail’” (Blouin 5). This affects film production in a rather strong manner because the industry has one of the most arduous barriers to entry possible. When the same six corporations are in charge of most films produced, it becomes evident that control is almost oligarchical and that the film industry itself is an oligipoly and thus is one step away from monopolizing. This is why there exists a lack of diversification of studio films in Hollywood. In essence, “corporate media is a behemoth of special interests and mind controllers. The human story is omitted in this capitalistic, for-profit environment scheme” (Bishop). According to Blouin, there is a fantasy being sold to audiences that deregulation of the entertainment industry will increase choice for the consumer, when in reality what it has done is created massive conglomerations and continues to make cultural products with many other industries as well. In post-9/11 America, Hollywood increased its collaborations with the military-industrial complex for obvious reasons, stories about terror were selling, and because of that, there was reason to make collaborative works with other industries so long as there was a profit to be made (Blouin 10). This goes directly into the suggestion that neoliberalism has invaded the contextual realm of cinema and penetrated the stories being told.

Contextualizing Neoliberal Stories in Cinema

In the case of neoliberalism present in cinematic stories themselves, there is a lot to be said about the notion of neoliberal messages and globalizing themes that are used oftentimes as propaganda. It is normal for the studios to push certain agendas within the confines and structure of the story. It is often seen in popular, mass culture settings. One of the key examples of how Hollywood pushes certain neoliberal messages is through fantastical films that involve magical or otherwise abnormal and other-worldly events that are beyond the control of a regular human and then show a regular human overcoming the odds. This, in turn, gives viewers a blanketed idea that they are always able to make swift changes happen. It must go without saying, that Hollywood did not turn into a neoliberal propaganda machine overnight. The success of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) showed a response to a Hollywood that had begun to make advances in the analysis of race, gender, capitalism, and imperialism — five years after Star Wars, the 1982 winner for the Oscar for Best Picture would be Gandhi, a film whose roots involved race relations and the rejection of imperialism — and proved that more money could be made by producing films with white, male protagonists and that films should embrace the idea of the superiority of middle class values and American exceptionalism. And thus, the 1980’s were saturated with American coming-of-age films that had suburban settings and featured predominantly white, male leads (Harshaw).

As Hollywood derived that there was money to be had in diversity, they began to move toward more than just white, male leads and even began to address class struggle — albeit with neoliberal solutions. In The Hunger Games (2012) young adult series, the heroine, Katniss Everdeen is presented with the option of having to kill President Snow and with him, the unfettered laissez-faire capitalism that his fascist, authoritarian administration supports or having to kill President Coin a revolutionary who leads like a communist dictator in the likes of Joseph Stalin. Katniss decides to kill Coin and leave the Districts in the Hunger Games universe to be without a secure government. According to Blouin, The Hunger Games upholds a neoliberal framework whereby Katniss, through her ability to shape her personal identity into a commodity, can act like she is fighting on the behalf of others even though eventually she rejects any real goal of having an egalitarian society — a symptom of neoliberalism in general (Blouin 208–209).

Further examination of examples of neoliberalism in cinema must include, of course, the superhero genre in its own right. As Hollywood began to see the interest in superheroes grow exponentially, it saw an opening to fuel more of its neoliberal propaganda. All things considered, once the superhero boom began c. 2009, it was evident that Hollywood began its shift toward neoliberal messaging. In 2008’s The Dark Knight, the message tends to be progressive, swaying from so-called “disaster porn” and instead opting to make a story grounded in the evils of psychology — the conclusion being an intense moment involving two groups of people held hostage, one of which will only go free if they blow the other up. Neither blows anyone up and the audience is shown the goodness in the world. During the entire climax, Batman ends up surveilling the entire city by creating a science fiction sonar system that can listen in on people’s telephone calls and reconstruct the city on a large television screen based on their geographic location through a GPS tracker. This is all done in the name of stopping the terrorist that is the Joker. Eventually, Batman ensures that the technology he uses, which is presented as highly unethical, is destroyed by the end of the film. The lack of an explosive finale in an action film in post-9/11 America and the critique on surveillance for finding terrorists lends The Dark Knight the label of being a superhero film that is an allegorical representation and eventual critique of Bush-era post-9/11 War on Terror America. Christopher Nolan would be allowed to continue the general progressive message in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises which featured a muddled, slight occurrence in which Batman’s nemesis, Bane, tries to get the working class to take control of their city by dismantling the established bourgeois ruling class (Hassler-Forest).

While Christopher Nolan had free reign over his proven successful series, Disney had control over its Marvel properties and was in the beginning phases of incorporating neoliberal messages and visual imagery in their superhero films. The first Marvel film released by Disney, 2008’s Iron Man features a man that is coexisting seamlessly with a wearable machine that he has total control over through voice talk and eye motions within a graphical user interface that the audience gets to view. This is a common fantasy of having humans and technological data be inextricably intertwined to be mutually beneficial and empowering. The Iron Man suit is nothing without the man, Tony Stark. And Tony Stark, is not Iron Man without the suit. As a form of masculine empowerment, the audience is shown a fantastical narrative of individuality where an “army of one” can take on the entire world as opposed to teamwork and collectivism helping take down evil. Which thus brings about the 2012 box office behemoth The Avengers. In The Avengers, after laying down a nearly half-decade buildup of superhero origin stories, Disney decides to bring all of them together in one of the first-of-its-kind cinematic shared universes. The audience is shown collectivism and teamwork to take down a powerful enemy. This is, however, not without massive amounts of catastrophe as half of New York City is destroyed to stop an alien race invasion. It must be said that disaster movies have always been popular in America and it is known that Americans tend to have an addiction to catastrophe. It’s very likely that “this desire for moments of spectacular disaster that briefly interrupt the deadening monotony of late capitalist consumerism indicates the contradictory nature of postmodern popular culture” (Hassler-Forest). It is not only seen in superhero films, but this is a phenomenon that is present in any large Hollywood tent-pole film — that is a film whose success the studio holds itself up on for a quarter or for a year. The normalization of this sort of large-scale, world-ending, city-destroying violence on popular forms of cinema is a neoliberal tool that softly directs the American citizenry to accept the bombing of nations like Libya, Iraq, and Syria — causing unnecessary collateral and civilian damage. Having already presented the case of Hollywood’s alliance with the military-industrial complex, it is not all too far-fetched to assume that Hollywood can use its powerful filmmaking machine as a means to gain popular support for the perpetual wars being fought all over the world solely as a means to obtain some sort of commodity or bolster the military-industrial complex overtime.

Conclusion

Neoliberalism has not only been used as an ideological tool to create the environment of modern Hollywood conglomerations, but it has also been used as a soft power to formulate, shape, and guide public opinion throughout the United States and the world. In many scenarios, it is pretty evident that because of the system of capitalism in which much of the global hegemony operates, whatever drives profit will be on the forefront of cultural products. What makes Hollywood more difficult is that ever since the beginning of neoliberal restructuring from Ronald Reagan to Margaret Thatcher, there has been a movement of capital from the middle class to a select few individuals (Blouin 4). This movement on the micro level has been reflected in the macro level of consolidations, mergers, and acquisitions of smaller studios to the top. As demonstrated, this has caused only six major studios, that are in reality owned by six major corporations, to exist and own 90% of the market share, thus providing the illusion of choice. Because profit drives cultural products and only six studios are making cultural products, the audience is forced to be wedded to this oligopoly. Differentiation between cultural products is but a mere illusion in this instance. Analysis of the content of the products proves that it is the case. The less corporate influence, the more the audience has movies like The Dark Knight that critique the status quo. The more corporate influence, the more the audience has movies like The Hunger Games which leads a heroine to make neoliberal decisions to dislodge potential egalitarian governments and consider the unfettered capitalistic society she was once fighting against to be a better alternative. Therefore, independent cinema — that is filmmakers and their products that are not influenced by corporations and executive boards — is likely to have the least perpetuation of the neoliberal agenda. The neoliberal illusion of choice and the neoliberal soft power leading consumers to eventually behave a certain way or idolize and idealize a way of life they can never have — such as a middle class suburban life — has created an era of late capitalism wrought with often unmet expectations of reality and a life of constant consumerism that is all but in the bubble of the consolidated powers that be.

References

Bishop, V. (2015, August 29). The illusion of choice: ninety percent of American media controlled by six corporations. Retrieved from: Centre for Research on Globalization.

Blouin, M. (2016). Magical thinking, fantastic film, and the illusions of neoliberalism.

Harshaw, C. (2014, October 31). Lincoln, slave narratives, and Hollywood’s neoliberal agenda. Retrieved from: Political Research Associates.

Hassler-Forest, D. (2012). Capitalist superheroes: caped crusaders in the neoliberal age.

Jin, D. (n.d.) Neoliberal restructuring of the global communication system: mergers and acquisitions. Retrieved from: Media, Culture, and Society.

Martinez, E., Garcia, A. (n.d.) What is neoliberalism? A brief definition for activists. Retrieved from: National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.