Hollywood and Entertainment

This subject explores developments in the American film and television industry since its beginnings. The evolution of contemporary styles, techniques and genres belongs to a history of refusal, reinvention and departure from older norms. The consolidation of streaming can only be understood when we know how Hollywood weathered earlier crises. US show business is the quintessential cultural industry, and allows us to explore the tensions between art and commerce, mediations of race and gender, the synergies of theatre, TV and pop music, the work of audiences and the significance of marketing strategies over more than a century of rapid social, economic and political change.