Rocky (1976) is a good example of the nostalgic Hollywood blockbuster, a type of film that uses classical Hollywood formulas to reinscribe traditional concepts of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

      Rocky, copyright © 1976, United Artists.

      Most of these Hollywood blockbusters were (and are) shrewdly calculated remakes and recyclings of what had worked (that is, made money) in the past. They are designed according to marketplace research, and work not to raise questions or explore social issues but to maintain the ideological status quo. They are usually pre‐sold (they have name recognition from a previous incarnation as TV show, novel, comic book, etc.), and are considered high concept (they have a story that can be reduced to simple phrases and tag‐lines). Ever since the 1970s, Hollywood blockbusters are sold via saturation advertising and saturation booking, which means that the country is blanketed with ads for a film for weeks before it opens in thousands of theaters at once. The concept of synergy also drives current Hollywood production, wherein the film acts as an advertisement for other related products (and vice versa) – soundtrack music, movie novelizations, behind‐the‐scenes mini‐features, magazine specials, comic books, fast food franchises, posters, toys, video games, action figures, theme park rides, clothes, and other assorted collectibles. All of this media saturation convinces filmgoers of these films’ alleged importance. Independent films, which tend to offer the viewpoints of various marginalized groups, are frequently lost in the media flurry surrounding the more formulaic Hollywood output, films that still tend to center on white patriarchal capitalist ideals.

This situation is the result of the increased mergers of media companies into larger and larger corporate conglomerates (discussed in greater detail in the following sections). These large multinational businesses control multiple aspects of the entertainment industry, producing and distributing motion pictures, books, recorded music, video games, newspapers, magazines, and TV shows, as well as owning theme parks, sports teams, TV channels, cable TV distributors, home video releases, and chains of movie theaters. This is a new type of corporate oligopoly, since these global conglomerates control almost all of the world’s mass media. It is thus increasingly difficult for independent filmmakers to have their work screened within mainstream cinematic outlets, which are for the most part controlled by these multimedia corporate conglomerates.

      Box: A Brief History of Television in the United States

      Although the title of this book is America on Film, there has historically been much cross‐influence between theatrical film and television, and the boundaries between the two have narrowed and blurred over recent decades. Within a number of chapters, we have included sections like this one discussing briefly the history of television’s interaction with a specific minoritized community. This particular boxed section provides a brief overview of the technological, economic, and legal development of television, to act as a reference for the other chapters.

      Although television programming unsurprisingly looked to the Hollywood style of filmmaking for inspiration, the basic technology of television actually emerged from radio. Just as engineers in the 1910s developed the ability to transmit audio signals through airwaves, during the 1930s inventors figured out how to send both sound and image. The US federal government ruled that the airwaves could not be owned by private enterprise, so radio and (eventually) TV stations had to apply to the government for licenses to broadcast (and still do to this day). The government thus has historically had more oversight over these media forms than over motion pictures. Although television was largely ready for mass consumption by 1939, the government’s priorities during World War II stalled such plans. With the war’s end, though, TV rolled out quickly.

      Economically, television also followed radio’s path. TV’s first three major networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) started off as radio networks, and adopted the same business patterns when they moved from one medium to the other in the late 1940s. Unlike going out to a movie, both radio and TV were established as a form of “free” home entertainment. Thus, the networks made their profits not from selling tickets to viewers but from selling time to sponsors to advertise their products to viewers during programmed shows. This gave advertisers a certain amount of power over what got aired, particularly if they were the sole sponsors of a program. For example, assuming that women stayed at home while men worked, daytime schedules aimed at housewives, in order to sell food and cleaning products.

      With the networks also based out of New York City, and with TV at first available only in big cities, early programming reflected the broader number of communities found in the metropolis – including a number of racial/ethnic groups and career‐minded women. Many refer to the early 1950s as a Golden Age of Television, with live broadcasts of original teleplays that dealt with various social issues. Yet, in the 1950s paranoia about Communist infiltration hit the fledgling TV industry as strongly as it hit the film studios, and producers (and sponsors) blacklisted anyone who was labeled as suspicious in the publication Red Channels (1950). The Television Code of 1952 mirrored Hollywood’s Production Code in listing what could not be done, shown, or said on the small screen. As more Americans moved to the suburbs, original dramatic plays were replaced with a number of sitcoms about white, middle‐class patriarchal families. By 1961, rather than a Golden Age, then‐FCC chairman Newton Minow described television as a “vast wasteland” with little cultural merit.

      Escapist programs continued to air during the 1960s. Yet, the FCC mandate that channels offer programs in “the public interest” also led to coverage of civil rights movements, as well as protests against American involvement in Vietnam. In this vein, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) was initiated in 1969 to provide educational and cultural programming, funded (in part) by the federal government, supposedly removed from the need to placate advertisers. Network interest in more diverse viewpoints increased at the start of the 1970s, as a number of shows reflected a move toward “relevance.” Sitcoms and dramas that prominently featured people of color (such as Chico and the Man (1974–78) and The Jeffersons (1975–85)) or independent women (as in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77) and Police Woman (1974–78)) debuted during this period. It is important to note that this move toward relevance happened just as the industry developed a new method of measuring audiences, moving from counting simply the total number of viewers to categorizing audiences into different demographic groups. Relevant programs were a strategy to target upscale urban viewers with greater spending power.

      The focus on consumer attitudes resulted in a swing in the opposite direction politically during the 1980s, as rampant materialism was championed over social consciousness. TV programs emphasized stylish shows celebrating wealth and glamour, like Dallas (1978‐91) and Dynasty (1981‐89). Sitcoms about middle‐class families made a strong comeback during this period as well. President Reagan’s administration pushed for greater deregulation of industries, in an effort to grow greater profits. For television, that meant ending governmental demands for stations to offer political balance and serve the public interest, and allowing more commercials and product placement within programs.

      At