Hollywood and film critics: Is journalistic criticism about cinema now a part of the culture industry helping economy more than art? Argo: a case study of the movie and film reviews published in the printed media in United States student: Seyedjavad Rasooli Tutor: Jaume Soriano Coordinator: María Dolores Montero Sánchez DEPARTAMENTO DE MEDIOS, COMUNICACIÓN Y CULTURA Barcelona, September de 2015 Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................4 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 5 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................. 6 Frankfurt School and Critical theory ......................................................................................... 6 The concept of culture industry................................................................................................ 8 The Culture Industry and Film................................................................................................. 11 About Hollywood .................................................................................................................... 12 Hollywood and Ideology.......................................................................................................... 15 About Film Critic Genre........................................................................................................... 17 About Argo .............................................................................................................................. 18 Hypothesis and Methodology................................................................................. 20 Hypothesis............................................................................................................................... 20 Designing the research for analyzing the movie Argo ............................................................ 20 Designing the research for analyzing the film critics (reviews)............................................... 24 Analyzing the movie Argo....................................................................................... 27 Part 1: Americans against Iranians.......................................................................................... 27 Results of the analysis part 1 .................................................................................................. 36 Results of character analysis................................................................................................... 37 Results of the Filmic Elements analysis................................................................................... 38 Part 2: the concept of orientalism .......................................................................................... 42 Part 3: Hollywood ideology and capitalism............................................................................. 42 Analyzing the film reviews...................................................................................... 45 The observations on the text (Wall Street Journal) ................................................................ 48 The observations on the text (Wall Street Journal) ................................................................ 51 The observations on the text (the New York Times)............................................................... 54 The observations on the text (USA Today) ............................................................................. 58 The observations on the text (Los Angeles Times) ................................................................. 62 The observations on the text (Daily News)............................................................................. 67 The observations on the text (New York Post) ....................................................................... 72 The observations on the text (Washington Post) ................................................................... 76 The observations on the text (Chicago Sun Times)................................................................. 79 The observations on the text (Denver Post) ........................................................................... 82 2 The observations on the text (Chicago Tribune)..................................................................... 85 Results of analyzing the film reviews...................................................................................... 87 Comparing the results of the two parts................................................................... 88 (the movie and the reviews) ................................................................................... 88 Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 90 Culture Industry and Globalization ......................................................................................... 90 Culture Industry and technological changes........................................................................... 91 Culture industry and pseudo-individualism ............................................................................ 92 Culture industry against culture industry ............................................................................... 92 Bibliography........................................................................................................... 94 Annex – Text of reviews ......................................................................................... 95 The wall street journal ............................................................................................................ 95 Ny times .................................................................................................................................. 97 Usa today................................................................................................................................. 98 Los Angeles Times ................................................................................................................... 99 Daily news ............................................................................................................................. 101 New York Post ....................................................................................................................... 102 Washington Post ................................................................................................................... 103 Chicago Sun-times................................................................................................................. 105 The Denver Post .................................................................................................................... 106 Chicago tribune ..................................................................................................................... 107 3 Abstract The term “Culture industry” coined by Adorno and Horkheimer in 1944, is now a very fundamental concept to analyse social and cultural problems in social sciences. When it comes to media studies, it is more useful to investigate problematics in this field. The purpose of this study is to focus on a special part of the culture industry which relates to the movies but not directly about them. The fact that Hollywood, as the biggest industry of film production, has all of the characteristics of the culture industry is something clear. What this study concerns about is film criticism (film reviews). This journalistic genre for years had the position of judging and criticizing the products of the movie industry. In this study it is discovered that journalistic reviews today are themselves a part of the culture industry. The investigation of this problem is done through a case study in two different steps. In the first step “Argo” is selected to be studied and proved as a product of the culture industry with all properties mentioned by Adorno and Horkheimer. In the second step the journalistic reviews published about this film is investigated. The result is that the same ideologies, political views and capitalistic values in the film, could be found in the reviews. This study is considered as a critical work (with critical paradigm) observing the production of journalistic texts about the films, discovering that at least in this case, film critics do not criticize, they reinforce the industry. Key words: culture industry, Hollywood, Argo, film critics, review, ideology Introduction In capitalist societies, film production has been a form of commercial entertainment controlled by media corporations. Thus, the Frankfurt School coined the term “culture industries” to call attention to the industrialization and commercialization of culture under capitalist relations of production. This situation was most marked in the United States, which has had little state support of the film industry. Consequently, the concept of culture industries in film studies finds its paradigm in analysis of Hollywood as a distinctive mode of cinematic production, originating in the United States in a specific time and place, but spreading throughout the world as film became a global business and major form of commercialized culture. But clearly the huge industry of Hollywood is not only based on the movies only. Today there is a big circle working to produce every single