{"id":262,"date":"2024-03-05T18:14:01","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T18:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/?p=262"},"modified":"2024-07-24T19:41:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T19:41:51","slug":"author-conversations-episode-2-add-title-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/2024\/03\/05\/author-conversations-episode-2-add-title-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Conversations: Ross Melnick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ross Melnick<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ross Melnick is Professor of Film and Media Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of “Hollywood Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World,” and “American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry” (2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published by Columbia University Press, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning in the 1920s, audiences around the globe were seduced not only by Hollywood films but also by lavish movie theaters that were owned and operated by the major American film companies. These theaters aimed to provide a quintessentially \u201cAmerican\u201d experience. Outfitted with American technology and accoutrements, they allowed local audiences to watch American films in an American-owned cinema in a distinctly American way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a history that stretches from Buenos Aires and Tokyo to Johannesburg and Cairo, Ross Melnick considers these movie houses as cultural embassies. He examines how the exhibition of Hollywood films became a constant flow of political and consumerist messaging, selling American ideas, products, and power, especially during fractious eras. Melnick demonstrates that while Hollywood\u2019s marketing of luxury and consumption often struck a chord with local audiences, it was also frequently tone-deaf to new social, cultural, racial, and political movements. He argues that the story of Hollywood\u2019s global cinemas is not a simple narrative of cultural and industrial indoctrination and colonization. Instead, it is one of negotiation, booms and busts, successes and failures, adoptions and rejections, and a precursor to later conflicts over the spread of American consumer culture. A truly global account, Hollywood\u2019s Embassies<\/a><\/em> shows how the entanglement of worldwide movie theaters with American empire offers a new way of understanding film history and the history of U.S. soft power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Host: Dr. Swapnil Rai<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-Host: Kristi Rhead<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Producer: Amber Hardiman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor: Sachin Sukumar<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ross Melnick Ross Melnick is Professor of Film and Media Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of “Hollywood Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World,” and “American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry” (2012). Published by Columbia University Press, 2022. Beginning… Continue reading Author Conversations: Ross Melnick<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":54,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gmp-author-conversations","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/169\/2023\/12\/Hollywoods-Embassies1-e1710721112194.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/globalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}