Barriers to Diversity in Film – A Research Review – Aug 07

Globalisation creates transnational links and fuels homogeneity in film
types, but it also affects and strengthens regional products (Kim
2003). Regional funding for film has ensured the survival of more local
or regional products. These regionally-made films may also appeal to
an international audience, since the final product is particularly
differentiated as British. Thus in the 1990s a ‘culturally British’ film
genre appeared. The public/private alliance in the British film industry
and the government’s desire to stimulate film, together with private
investors’ desire for wide international recognition, has driven British
film into the foreground (Kim 2003).
It is usually agreed that films which depict the British way of life
(however defined) are desirable, and that British culture would be
impoverished if all its screens were given over to American movies
(Spicer 2005). A seminar to discuss the cultural value of British film in
2005 came to the conclusion that the government needs to revise
what constitutes a British film and to adopt a more plural and
culturally informed conception. One speaker at the seminar argued
that Shaun of the Dead, Enduring Love and Bullet Boy (all 2004) were
all culturally and geographically specific, but contested the usual
marketable conceptions of Britishness represented by James Bond,
Harry Potter or Tomb Raider (Spicer 2005). The concept of ‘national
culture’ has now become increasingly contested both as the global
film industry has developed and as notions of ‘culture’ have changed
(Dickinson and Harvey 2005).
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