 "Hollywood")
Close your eyes. Think of the images that define America: burgers, shakes, coffee, the White House, the CIA, Tom Cruise, violence, the New York skyline, speeding cars.
Now think of China. Chances are, your mind conjures images of the Chinese army marching, cheap Kung-Fu action, and possibly Chinese food.
As an economy, China is just $10 trillion short of the US. It is the second most populous country in the world and one of its biggest military powers. Yet, around the world, people have no idea — no imagery — of China. That’s because very few stories come out of China. It has spent billions of dollars on period films or on state-funded propaganda tools like CCTV, but there is no clear sense of what China is about. How do its people love, hate, fight, laugh, cry, or eat? What are its conflicts? What moves it?
We like America. We have warm, soft feelings for it, maybe even irritation or dislike. This is not because all of us have been there or lived there. It is because we engage with the stories coming out of Hollywood—the word itself suggests excitement and cinema for most people in the world. For over a hundred years, Hollywood has shaped our thinking of the US. It is a fairly honest reflection of all that is wrong with the country and all that is right with it. And we think of it not as a secretive, repressive society, but as one that we can criticise, call out, or have a great holiday or life in. It has created the America we know in our heads. And it is a happy place.
That is “soft power.” Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor and political scientist who died earlier this week, coined that term. He called culture one of the axes from which the soft power of a country emanates. And cinema is a critical tool that reflects any country’s culture, spreads it and popularises it. Hollywood has proven that again and again.
That is why American President Donald Trump’s plan to impose 100 per cent tariffs on films shot outside the US makes no sense. It will end up destroying Hollywood’s soft power. Here is why.
The US produces less than 10 per cent of the world’s films, but accounts for half of the $30.6 billion global box office revenue, according to data from UK-based consulting firm Omdia. Japan, China, South Korea and India are among its biggest markets. Just one round of reciprocal tariffs could hammer the market for Hollywood. Not surprisingly, the stock of every major American studio — including Netflix, Paramount, and Disney — dropped soon after Mr Trump posted his idea online this Sunday.
Take a look at what is riling Mr Trump. About half of the $3.7 billion spent on making 40 of Hollywood’s biggest hits in 2024, was spent outside of America. The shifting of US film production abroad, known as runaway production, has accelerated in recent years due to high labour costs in the US, and an increase in generous tax incentives from Canada, the UK and Australia, among other countries.
To get American films back into the country, the US government has two alternatives. It could ban producers from working abroad — a move that analysts say would reduce the number of movies being made and drastically weaken Hollywood. Or it could create a federal tax credit scheme that producers could use to reduce their spending. Even if this starts today, the process will take time. Old contracts and agreements have to be redone and new ones made. The whole thing could set Hollywood back by three-five years.
Its revenues have been sliding for the past three years now, thanks to the pandemic and then the writers’ strike. This is its first year with a full slate. Another three-year setback might just put the final nail in the coffin for its theatrical takings — the mainstay of revenues.
Many other cinemas could occupy bits of the chasm Hollywood leaves behind — Korean, Indian, Iranian — among the strong independent local cinemas left globally. They do not have the marketing and distribution muscle of Hollywood, but they are finding a global audience, thanks to streaming.
But what would the world be without Tom Cruise going on yet another Mission: Impossible, or Captain America saving the world — among the hundreds of thousands of moments that have made the America of our imagination?
(The first half is excerpted from the writer’s upcoming book, Indian cinema – Soft Power: Hard Facts)
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
