Both texts, by Barthes and Benjamin, refer to the development of film as a mode of mass entertainment through industrial replication. This analysis reminds me of the broader work of the Frankfurt school, particularly Adorno and Horkheimer’s (1947/2002) theory of the culture industry and the use of mass media as a tool of social control.
Film, through its ready replicability, allows for a uniform messaging reaching unprecedentedly large audiences. But whose views are represented? For Adorno and Horkheimer, mass media reflects the bias of the superstructure, primarily representing bourgeois interests. This is partially achieved through the practical considerations of filmmaking and presentation – such as the capital required to shoot a film by necessity coming from the moneyed bourgeois classes or their governmental representatives such as state film funds. But it is also achieved through the traditional avenues of filmmaking and criticism, from film school to the academy requiring an internalisation and reproduction of bourgeois cultural capital in their later work. This leads to the ease of film consumption – the hypnosis described by Barthes – leading the subject to becoming wilfully docile in the face of harmful social inequity.
Name: Bram Verhagen
UID: 3036112615
| References |
| Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. W., & Noeri, G. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford University Press. (Originally published 1947) |
Carefully crafted writing with reference supporting your point of view. I appreciate how you raised the question in your own response as this helps to trigger further reflection when explaining the source of capital in the early days to fund the filmmaking process and how it relates to social control. However, it would be better if you could focus the discussion more on the content of the reading materials more and link to the context of the reading.