The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, 7 Volume Set

11

Hollywood's Presence in Latin America

Production Participation to Distribution Dominance

Tamara L. Falicov

ABSTRACT

This chapter will examine contemporary film industries in Latin America more generally, to demonstrate what these industries share in common: dependence on state support to survive, and a relationship of subordination to Hollywood film, which dominates in exhibition, distribution, and, with more commercial fare, in production as well. Data concerning both production and various alliances between Hollywood studios and Latin American film industries – as reflected for instance in the history of runaway production in the region – will be juxtaposed to screen quota legislation passed in Argentina a decade later. These issues raise perennially thorny questions regarding Hollywood's history of hegemony in Latin America.

Contemporary Latin American film production has a constraining, yet sometimes enabling relationship with the Hollywood film industry. Although industries of the so-called “Trinity” (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico) flourished autonomously at various times–for example between the 1930s and the 1950s, when a robust studio system thrived in those countries – there has always been some degree of Hollywood influence or some tangible competition at economic, political, and cultural levels. The present chapter will focus on this relationship between two Latin American countries that Hollywood has penetrated both as a viable export market and as a place where it ...