THE ADVERTISING OF FILMS
: Sir-Some time ago, G.M. was speculating on some film advertisements which proclaimed, with curious insistence, "NOT a War Film," even when this was not the case. May I offer an explanation? If you closely examine newspaper advertisements of American films over a period, you will find, quite simply, that they are written for American audiences. Continual references are made to Our Navy, Our Marines, Our Heroes, when these admirable bodies are actually the property not of the New Zealand people,
but of the American, This is, at best, a trying and mystifying habit — Christchurch at the moment is deluged in references to The Sullivans, and no one knows who they are; but worse has resulted. According to Time, box-office results in the U.S. show a definite swing away from war films, which is mirrored in the tone of exhibitors’ advertisements, which in turn are reduplicated in New Zealand; the giant brains of Hollywood evidently assuming that because Americans are tired of war films, New Zealanders are in the same case. In short, New Zealand, whose intellectuals have for years been lamenting her excessive cultural dependence or England, is treated by the Hollywood potentates as a part of the United States, with less cultural autonomy than Arkansas: a not very pleasant irony.-
J. G. A
POCOCK
(Christchurch).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19441229.2.10.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 288, 29 December 1944, Page 5
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220THE ADVERTISING OF FILMS New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 288, 29 December 1944, Page 5
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