Edinburgh Research Explorer “Going to the movies”: accounting and twentieth century cinema Citation for published version: Jeacle, I 2009, '“Going to the movies”: accounting and twentieth century cinema', Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 667-708. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513570910966333 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1108/09513570910966333 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Publisher Rights Statement: This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of the following article: Jeacle, I. 2009, ““Going to the movies”: accounting and twentieth century cinema”, in : Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. 22, 5, p. 667-708. 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Sep. 2021 ‘Going to the Movies’: Accounting and 20th Century Cinema Ingrid Jeacle∗ The University of Edinburgh Business School, William Robertson Building, 50 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY ∗ Tel.: + 44-131-6508339; fax: + 44-131-6508337. E-mail address: [email protected] ‘Going to the Movies’: Accounting and 20th Century Cinema Abstract Purpose Since its emergence in the early 20th century, cinema has acquired a cultural identity. As purveyor of light entertainment, the local movie palace sold escapism at a cheap price. It also acted as an important social apparatus that regulated everyday mannerisms and appearance. This purpose of this paper is to investigate the Box Office Ledger of a UK picture house and consider the role of the accounting document as a medium through which both local and broader social and historical norms can be reflected. Methodology The paper primarily employs archival sources. It examines the Box Office Ledger of the Edinburgh Playhouse cinema for the period 1929-1973. This ledger is held within the National Archive of Scotland. Secondary sources are also drawn upon to provide a social and historical context to the study. Findings The analysis of the Box Office Ledger illustrates the potential value of an accounting document as a source of social history. Not only does this single ledger mirror the defining moments in British cinema history, it also helps inform our conception of what constitutes accounting, shape our perception of contemporary strategic management accounting rhetoric, and further an appreciation of the relationship between accounting and everyday life. 1 Originality The entertainment industry has been largely ignored within accounting scholarship. Such neglect is lamentable given both the scale of the industry and its impact on contemporary culture. This paper is an attempt to redress this neglect by examining one component of the entertainment business, cinema, through the medium of an accounting document. Keywords: Accounting and everyday life, accounting history, 20th century cinema, Edinburgh Playhouse, strategic management accounting Classification: Research Paper 2 ‘Going to the Movies’: Accounting and 20th Century Cinema Enter the dream-house, brothers and sisters, leaving Your debts asleep, your history at the door: This is the home for heroes, and this loving Darkness a fur you can afford.[1] 1. Introduction The leisure and entertainment industries have been largely ignored within accounting scholarship. Interesting work has been conducted in associated arenas such as that by Zan et al (2000) on artistic institutions and Ahrens and Chapman (2002) on the restaurant trade. However, leisure pursuits themselves have remained relatively unexplored. Perhaps this is due to the seemingly fun and frivolous nature of the leisure experience. Sun holidays, sporting adventures, rock concerts and shopping expeditions are hardly the stuff of serious debate, and accounting is nothing if not serious. Accounting is the language of business, the means of creating the statutory report, the basis of managerial action and the holy grail of corporate life. Accounting is seen as clear and objective. It deals with hard cold facts. It is definitely not to be laughed at. Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that accounting does not sit easily with the giddiness of the annual vacation, the adrenaline of the rugby match or the thrill of the compulsive shopper. Accounting after all is more associated with the stereotypical bespectacled bookkeeper than the surfer dude or rock chick. 3 Yet accounting has been examined enough over the years to recognise, embrace even, its questionable neutrality. In coming to appreciate the social and organisational context in which it operates, researchers have revealed its uses and abuses. So the academy is not fooled by accounting’s public persona. However, as a community we often seem reluctant to spread the wings of our research activities beyond the shadow of that persona. Our subjects of inquiry typically concentrate on seemingly serious concerns. Scholars have examined the practices of Big Four audit firms, explored the impact of management performance measurement systems, investigated the implication of New Public Management techniques, and documented the international standard setting process. The accounting academia has done admirable work, but it has often been somewhat limited in scope. The field of accounting history has been a notable exception to this trend; it has typically embraced a more diverse range of topics than its contemporary counterpart. However, both communities have arguably been guilty of the neglect of the leisure and entertainment industry in general, and cinema in particular. Such neglect is lamentable on at least two fronts. First, as a business concern, entertainment is as significant and serious a player as any global finance house or multinational manufacturer. Walt Disney Pictures, for example, achieved over one billion dollars in worldwide box office sales in 2006 for one movie alone: Pirates of the Caribbean. Second, and perhaps an even more convincing, justification for the study of cinema arises from its place in contemporary Western society, never mind the Bollywood phenomenon. The act of ‘going to the movies’ constitutes not only an evening of lighthearted entertainment. It is a ritual of everyday life, a cultural phenomenon bound up in the 4 pursuit of leisure. It is a forum where the audience both escapes from the everyday and is at the same time captured by a disciplinary regime, a regime which dictates appearance, mannerisms and commodity choice. Similarly, no film is value free. As scholars of film studies have long recognised, the study of film provides an insight into the taste and values of an era (Shafer, 1997). An understanding of social norms and prejudices can be interpreted from an analysis of the popular films of a period. Cinema acts as “windows into the national psyche” (Allen and Gomery, 1985, p.158). It reveals the moral attitudes of a nation and the values of a generation. As a mass communication system, cinema is one of the means by which a sense of nationhood is constructed (Higson, 1995). It is, argues Sobchack (1996, p.4), a “technology of representation”. The accounting academia has already had some insight into the power of film and the representations it reveals. Beard’s (1996), and more recently, Dimnik and Felton’s (2006) study of the depiction of the accountant/bookkeeper in film has shed light on the public persona of the accounting stereotype. However, there has been no investigation within the accounting literature of cinema itself as an organisational form and the accounting practices it employs. This paper is an attempt to redress such neglect. Drawing on the archival records of the Playhouse Cinema in Edinburgh (UK), the paper examines the cinema’s Box Office Ledger for a period of forty-four years, 1929-1973. The Box Office Ledger is a cinema’s core recording document, comprising the revenues, costs, profits, and audience attendances of every one of its feature films. The ledger for the Playhouse Cinema is complete for its entire operating life. Such a comprehensive record yields a rich summary of trading performance over time. Equally intriguing is what one might term the ‘non- financial’ information that is formally integrated within the ledger: daily weather reports 5 and commentaries on the strength of competition at local cinema houses. Most importantly, perhaps, the analysis of the Box Office Ledger reflects some of the defining moments in the history of British cinema, and hence furthers our appreciation for the way in which an accounting document can vividly illustrate an important period in social history. Accounting scholars have already established the role of the accounting record in this regard. For example, Flesher and Flesher (1981) and more recently, Fleischman and Tyson (2004) and Tyson et al (2004), have provided