Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema

by Iain Robert Smith

Did you know that a Turkish remake of The Exorcist replaced the Catholicism with Islam? Or that James Bond and Batman team up together in the 1966 Filipino film James Batman ? Or that a Bollywood remake of Memento has become one of the biggest box-office successes in India of all time?

The Hollywood Meme is the first comprehensive study of the transnational adaptations of Hollywood movies that have appeared throughout world cinema. With case studies from the film industries of Turkey, India and the Philippines, Iain Robert Smith shows how reworked versions of Hollywood blockbusters like E.T., The Godfather, Spider-man and Star Wars can complicate prevailing accounts of Hollywood's global impact, and help provide a new model for interrogating transnational flows and exchanges.

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 31, 2016

Reviews

[Martin Riexinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book on strange films. Smith addresses the adaptation or imitation of "Hollywood" films and genres (including, what is a bit problematic James Bond) in non-Western countries, with Turkey, the Philippines and India (i.e. Bollywood Hindi cinema, not South Indian films) as case studies.

In the three case studies the author demonstrates impressive knowledge of film production and the political, cultural and economic context in each country.
In Turkey super-hero, horror and science fiction films produced in the 1970s were due to budget limitations intended or unintended parodistic. They were exclusively produced for the local market, and are today considered as trashy aberration in the country's cinematic history.
In the the Philippines, a former US colony and hence particularly deeply influenced by American culture, spy and action films were copied and adapted with the purpose to sell them on other South Asian markets.
In both countries the adaptation of American form and content reflects that these were known to the local audience. In India the case is different, as Bollywood and regional film industries dominate the market. Here plots were adapted. In some case they were cast into the mould of Bollywood cinema with song and dance,* in other cases this resulted in the deviation from this pattern as, in the dance free Sarkar based on the Godfather.

In the start the author engages with many theoretical approaches on hybridity and eclecticism, including the hybrid character of Hollywood genres themselves, which do not play that big a role in the analysis of the films. The best point here is that the strong appeal of Hollywood cannot be explained by supply side arguments alone, and hence consumer interests have to be taken into account.

* He does not discuss the influence of 1930s/40s Hollywood musicals and the German Revuefilm (Josef Wirsching) on Bollywood.

[Wickham Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith’s book marks a significant step in the development of theories of transnational cinema, and provides an especially useful model for reading transnational adaptation. Especially useful is the argument that while we work to de-colonise the curriculum, it is difficult to erase Hollywood. While we might de-centralise Hollywood, it still manages to be a significant touchstone precisely because of its hegemony, and acknowledging that other cinemas borrow from it doesn’t diminish the contributions of other national cinemas. Indeed, we can find out so much about these cinemas and their cultures based on what they do with the Hollywood texts and ideas. Stellar work.

[Martin Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable read! Balances the hilarity of some of the films studied against a sharp academic backdrop.