American Film Satire in the 1990s

Hollywood Subversion

J. Nilsson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137300997
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

This study examines how a particular selection of films turned American cultural material of the 1990s into satirical experiences for viewers and finds that there are elements of resistance to norms and conventions in politics, to mainstream news channels and Hollywood, and to official American history already embedded in the culture.

CHAPTER 1

THE 1990S

It was a wild decade. The Gulf War was over once and for all, a struggling artist named Matt Groening hit it big with Futurama, and young people had faith in their dreams thanks to a little show called Melrose Place.

—Homer Simpson¹

The backgrounds for understanding satire during the 1990s could possibly be quite varied, depending on our aim and the choices we make. Because this book situates aesthetics in the foreground, the issues addressed in this chapter are such that they can be attributed to affect the formal and stylistic (in terms of satire) aspects of the films at hand, and figure as contextual backgrounds. The chapter’s first section concerns itself with matters of the contemporary American film industry and discusses the relevance of changing film practices, which took the form of a multilevel conflation of Hollywood and independent cinema, for the satirical film. A discussion of cinematic trends—postclassicism, allusionism, and irony—that help position the 1990s satirical film then closes the chapter.

MAJORS AND INDIES

During the 1980s production and distribution of satirical film was mostly an independent phenomenon.² This, however, was only partly the case during the 1990s, largely because of what was happening to the independent sector at the time. Only one (Forrest Gump) of the films under consideration in this book was both produced and distributed by a major Hollywood studio (Paramount); however, a major studio was involved, directly or through subsidiaries, in the production or distribution of all but one (The Player) of the films. Consequently, categorizing films as either Hollywood or independent is difficult—and we haven’t even touched upon aesthetic matters yet.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s independent cinema came under close scrutiny by Hollywood thanks to the popularity of a few exceptional films. Two of the most prominent examples are sex, lies, and videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989) and Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994). The success of these films (and others) made the independent sector interesting in the eyes of major studio executives, and soon several acquisitions of independent companies by Hollywood studios occurred.³ During the 1980s the independent sector was able to increase its output dramatically because of the emerging video and cable markets, and the forming of a network of distributors, film festivals, and institutions.⁴ While some companies overextended themselves in this larger market, a few came to play an important role in changing the institutional structure and aesthetics of low-budget filmmaking.

A standard for low-budget, niche-based distribution was introduced, and during the 1990s all major studios and media conglomerates created or purchased their own specialty divisions that operated relatively autonomously from the studio and focused on smaller-scale quality films. Examples include Miramax (Disney), Universal Focus, Paramount Classics, and Fox Searchlight. According to Alisa Perren, the further one travels through the 1990s the more clear it is that the label “independent” increasingly served as a discursive tool used by the industry and the press rather than a means of classifying any specific type of film.⁵ An effect of Hollywood’s focus on the independent sector was that the independents/specialty divisions were given access to larger distribution channels, which allowed their fare to potentially reach broader audiences.⁶

The rise in the number of indoor theatrical screens in America also played a part.⁷ A contributing factor in this growth was the multiplex boom, which began during the 1980s. Exhibitors expanded their cinemas or established new sites to increase the number of screens and thereby also increase the number of films being shown. An effect of this was that the cinemagoer had more fare, including independent films, to choose from, even though many exhibitors used their chains to further exploit the popularity of the commercial Hollywood film. Exhibitors acknowledged the economic potential of the independent films, and by bringing them “into the multiplex environment, [ . . . ] legitimized them for the non-cinephile audience.”⁸ It should not be forgotten that as this development occurred, TV satire established itself as a commercially viable form of entertainment. Therefore it is likely that viewers became increasingly used to audiovisual satire, just as it is also likely that audiences who were drawn to satire also appreciated the generally more critical fare coming from the independent sector.

It is important to realize that distribution deals between independent companies and major Hollywood studios existed before the aforementioned development picked up speed. A relevant example is Bob Roberts. The film was coproduced by Miramax and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (and its subsidiary Working Title Films), and distributed by Paramount, with which Miramax had a deal stating that the former would distribute to theaters certain films that were deemed to have particular commercial appeal.⁹ The release of Bob Roberts took place the year before Miramax was incorporated into Disney, that is, while it was still autonomous, making the deal with Paramount significant in this context. The primary aspects of the deal, however, were that Paramount would distribute Miramax films on video and to cable networks and broadcast television.¹⁰

However, independence is not only a matter of industry or of scale of production and distribution. In fact, according to Newman, the independent cinema of the 1990s (and the 2000s) achieved “a level of cultural circulation far greater than in earlier eras, making independence into a brand, a familiar idea that invokes in consumers a range of emotional and symbolic associations.”¹¹ Newman’s assertion is that independent cinema began to mean new things after 1989, which marks the beginning of what he terms the “Sundance-Miramax era,” as it started to function as a system parallel to Hollywood as well as became partly incorporated within it, rather than as a “scattered minority practice.”¹² It is also telling that the Independent Film Channel (IFC) started broadcasting in 1994. It showed “unedited, uncensored, and commercial-free independent films to an initial audience of one million satellite and cable viewers.”¹³ The bottom line is that the term independent cinema signifies a group of films, in terms of aesthetics, and the consumption of said films, just as it makes up an industrial category. The main cause behind this shift was the aforementioned rise of the minimajors and studio specialty divisions during the 1990s.¹⁴

Another effect of this shift was a general confusion and blurring of boundaries between Hollywood and the independent sector, and the term “indiewood,” which for Geoff King is a “hybrid location” where these sectors overlap in terms of production, distribution, and consumption, was used to (somewhat ironically) explain the new development. Indiewood also designates a hybrid film that “combines largely conventional cinematic structures or devices with some markers of difference or distinction,” such as variations on established norms.¹⁵ Even though King speaks of indiewood rather than independent, he actually goes against Perren’s contention that the independent label more and more became a discursive rather than classificatory tool. Also, as we shall see, hybrid is a term that can be used to describe satirical films of the 1990s.

Summing up, we note that the 1990s saw changes in industrial practices, such as conglomeration, the creation of specialty divisions, and niche marketing. Interesting to note is that similar changes occurred during the 1960s too. The merger movement of that time began “the age of conglomerates,” when film companies were brought under large multifaceted corporations.¹⁶ The industry recession of the same decade—which was largely caused by overproduction and led the major studios to restructure, reduce budgets, and enter into collaboration with each other—made room for new and often young directors, who made aesthetically and thematically challenging films that targeted a younger audience.¹⁷ Many of these films— such as MASH (Robert Altman, 1970), Catch-22 (Mike Nichols, 1970), Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970), The Candidate (Michael Ritchie, 1972), Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (Robert Altman, 1976), and Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)— incorporated irony, satire, revision, and a critique of politics, media, and history. King makes a similar argument regarding some of the indiewood films of the late 1990s—that there indeed is a connection between these and the “unconventional studio output in the late 1960s and early 1970s.” While this connection is sometimes exaggerated, it is not arbitrary. The earlier body of work functions as reference points for many contemporary filmmakers.¹⁸ It will become obvious that several of the films analyzed in this book actualize this very connection, both those made by younger filmmakers and those made by directors who were active during the earlier period as well, such as Robert Altman and Mike Nichols.

POSTCLASSICISM, ALLUSIONISM,AND IRONY

The indie blockbuster, together with its Hollywood namesake, seems to suggest that a certain mentality had emerged since the late 1970s. Indie blockbusters are “films that, on a smaller scale, replicate the exploitation marketing and box-office performance of the major studio high-concept event pictures.” sex, lies, and videotape is thought to have been the first example of this kind of film, and The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999) the culmination of the trend.¹⁹ The realization that films could earn much more than previously assumed and that the market was infinitely much larger than anyone had suspected resulted in a business strategy aiming to exploit the blockbuster. The large budgets, advertising, mass marketing, merchandizing, and tie-ins that defined the blockbuster led to what David Bordwell has called a “new kind of acquisition mentality,” in which films came to be seen as generating content that could be run through multiple platforms.²⁰

The rise of the blockbuster can also be seen as a prerequisite for the issue of postclassical cinema, which several scholars have suggested is a dominant trend in contemporary cinema. The “postclassical argument” is basically that narrative has been undercut by spectacle, special effects, the fantastic, and intertextuality, causing a fragmented narrative form, and that films have generally become more fast-paced.²¹ This argument soon gave rise to objections that stated that the displacement of narrative was exaggerated.²²

Today, Bordwell writes, the postclassical position is less in vogue and the argument now basically revolves around the aspect of allusion, which is taken to emphasize “knowingness” and “excessive playfulness” while still retaining narrative cohesion.²³ Noël Carroll wrote (as early as in 1982) that it had become a major expressive device in Hollywood film, and even “the symbolic structure that most distinguishes the present period from the past.”²⁴ He traces allusionism to the growth of audiences that are increasingly conscious of film history and filmmakers. Allusionism is:

an umbrella term covering a mixed lot of practices including quotations, the memorialization of past genres, the reworking of past genres, homages, and the recreation of “classic” scenes, shots, plot motifs, lines of dialogue, themes, gestures, and so forth from film history.²⁵

The use of allusion implies an assumption about the audience’s knowledge of film history and other kinds of cultural product...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The 1990s
• 2. Satire and Politics
• 3. Satire and the Media
• 4. Satire and History
• 5. American Film Satire
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index