Hollywoodization and Asianization

Nowadays, it isn’t unusual to see Hollywood films exploring numerous cultures through their blockbusters on the big screen, which leads us to understand how Hollywood is becoming more Asianized in order to expand their overall viewership. Wasser (1995) describes the process by which America now gains financial support for entertainment industries from purely domestic sources, not cross-culturally, as a form of Hollywood domination. This statement furthers the suggestion that Hollywood is becoming more and more asianized through typical cinema. Wasser (1995) believes by concentrating on the financing of American films the history of Hollywood trans-nationalization can be isolated, thus creating more of a diverse audience for typical Hollywood blockbusters, and in the end, giving Hollywood more revenue for the films that they endorse.

Klein (2004) has pointed out that the people in Hollywood have hired Asian actors, directors and choreographers because “they brought ability to produce a sophisticated, distinctive form of spectacle” for its globalized audiences especially Asian markets (p. 365). Immediately, when taking Klein’s thoughts into consideration, my mind overflows with the typical Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Donnie Yen movies that were huge hits, even in Hollywood, as they were action packed, but still exploring established Asian heritage, culture and traditions. Consequently, this is why Hollywood is continuously becoming more and more asianized in their films because as their market grows, Hollywood is given more of an opportunity to sell their work.

From this, we can form a discussion from a particular “Chinese style” animation, through the Disney blockbuster Mulan (1998). Mulan is the first Disney princess to be of East Asian decent and Mulan is also the first Disney movie, in which the female protagonist becomes her own hero, without having to wait for the prince to come and save her. In fact, I distinctly remember Mulan saving the guy (and the entire dynasty) in the end, talk about girl power!!! Nonetheless, Mulan is a perfect example of how Hollywood is becoming asianized in many ways, through popular animation. The movie depicts how a young woman, Fa Mulan, disguises herself as a man and takes her fathers place to fight the Hun invasion of China in order to spare her fathers life. While her name is "Fa Mulan" in the Disney film, in the actual Chinese legend her name is "Hua Mulan." The popular animation identifies Mulan with the Northern Wei dynasty, during the fifth or sixth century when its territory was frequently invaded. Mulan (1998) is an excellent example of the ‘Asianization of Hollywood’ as the films depicts traditional Chinese legend, customs and history throughout the entire film.

Mulan has often been criticized by the way the film was made as it can be perceived, more obviously to Chinese audiences, as a traditional western film in the midst of an Asian concept. Many audiences believed that this was unfair to the legend of ‘Hua Mulan’ as the Disney animated movie was essentially an Asian film idea incorporated into a western style, given the opportunity to suit Hollywood’s traditions and the traditional work of Disney, as Hollywood is the dominant film industry. Even if this is the case, Hollywood has created this strong and independent female lead, in Mulan, which integrates action, music, humor and legendary, which we cannot expect from usual Chinese cinema. As Klein (2004) suggests, there are different forms of Asianization and Mulan may be adapted into a western style character, but is still delivered as a strong and devoted character with exceptional traditional Chinese history, which is still very impressive to any audience.

Another well-known example of Disney portraying Asianization in Hollywood would be the Disney/Pixar animation movie ‘Up’. ‘Up’ is an American computer-animated comedy-adventure that centers on an elderly widower, Carl, and a young wilderness explorer named Russell, and together the two are determined to see the wilderness of South America, by tying thousands of balloons to Carl’s home. The young protagonist, Russell, is evidently, a half-American, half-Asian character, and is also voiced by a young, Japanese/American actor, Jordan Nagai. This is yet another example of how Disney is exploring Asianization through Hollywood cinema.  According to the Disney Wiki webpage, “Asian Americans have positively noted Pixar's first casting of an Asian lead character, in contrast to the common practice of casting non-Asians in Asian parts.” Veteran actor Aki Aleong has praised Disney and Pixar for their work and has previously stated in regards to the film, that,  "Disney/Pixar could have drawn Russell as a white character, but instead, they demonstrated their commitment to diversity.” Schwarzacher (2013)

Hollywood is a machine that is nowadays taking cultures from everywhere. It has been noted in the past that Hollywood often uses other cultures in its films as a way of appropriating world cultures by fitting them into America’s point of view, instead of actually depicting the heritage of choices’ national traditions and customs. Klein (2004) argues that Hollywood and a number of Asian film industries are being knitted together through the transnationalization of audiences, labor pools, distribution networks and production capital as Hollywood today remains heavily dependent on overseas audiences. Big Hollywood movies typically earn most of their money outside the United States of America and executives now consider foreign audiences a primary, rather than secondary, source of revenue (‘All-Time’, 2003; Groves, 2001a). Hollywood became most popular during the post-war 1980s decade, after that it originated many interesting ways to appeal to international audiences. Hollywood’s overall profit percentage has declined over the years, hence why many people involved in the world of Hollywood are seeking ways to change-up what is happening in Hollywood and are continuously generating new ideas that would appeal to world-wide audiences in order to accumulate more international profit.

Nostalgia is a media industry technique in order to appeal to audiences, and Hollywood uses and manipulates nostalgia to do so, especially through the use of who is cast in the big Hollywood blockbusters. These films intentionally turned ‘stars’ into big name ‘celebrities’ mainly by who they are, not how they perform. Given the example of Asianization in Hollywood, a well-known example would of course be Jackie Chan. But essentially, these celebrities are cast as a way to promote themselves and their name, rather than their performance, as the more famous an actor is, the more appealing they are to international audiences, and therefore, the more money Hollywood will profit from. Although Jackie Chan is a remarkable actor with many skills, many people associate him with his action roles, and his martial arts skills in these roles, in comparison to his performance skills.

In comparison to Asianization, Hollywoodization is the exact opposite. According to Klein (2004) today we are seeing a partial erosion of the boundaries that once separated Hollywood from local Asian film industries, and a consequent intertwining of industries on both sides of the Pacific. One thing we have to keep in mind when discussing cinema depicted in Hollywood and Asia, is that both ‘Hollywoodization and Asianization’ are continuously gathering ideas from what the other is producing in order to attain a high amount of viewership of their produced films, from the population, to make as much money as they can. ‘Hollywoodization and Asianization’ manipulate each others’ produced work in a continuous circle that can be described in the most plain way as two-way manipulation. As a result, individual films and entire industries can no longer be adequately understood within a national framework (Keil, 2001; Lewis, 2001; Staiger, 2002). Hollywood is becoming Asianized in diverse ways, while Asian film industries are in turn becoming Hollywoodized.

Hollywood is now a cultural machine with its ‘repackaging’ culture, it has manipulated Asian cinema to become more diverse in order to attract a more varied audience, creating the massive impact on how Asian film and culture was originally influencing Hollywood cinema. As Klein (2004) suggests, “there are different forms of Asianization”, and with this, it is obvious as to how we cannot deny that distinctive kinds of Asian rudiments can be immersed by Hollywood films and Asianization is an unavoidable outcome in the globalization progress.

References:

‘All-Time Top-Grossing Films at the World Box Office’ (2003) Variety 20–6 January: A6. Amnatcharoenrit, Sukanya (2002) ‘Thailand Movie Production Firm Rides Global Wave’, Bangkok Post 2 September.

Disney Wiki webpage <http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Up> Date accessed, October 8, 2013. 

Keil, Charlie (2001) ‘American Cinema in the 1990s and Beyond: Whose Country’s

Filmmaking is it Anyway?’, in Jon Lewis (ed.) The End of Cinema as We Know

It, pp. 53–60. New York: New York University Press,

Klein, C 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384. 

Schwarzacher, Lukas (2013) ‘Asian Films Gaining B.O. Favor’, Variety.com October 5.

Wasser, F 1995, ‘Is Hollywood America? The Trans-Nationalization of the American Film Industry’, Critical Studies in Mass Communicaion, pp. 423-437.

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