7/25/2025–|Last update: 22:15 (Mecca time)
For a century, Hollywood has turned from a mere film product into a soft power and a global influence system, reinstating the audience’s view of the world, and the way it interacts with it. Its impact is no longer limited to entertainment, but also extended to social, cultural and economic values. Through artwork, its influence also expanded to include public taste, identity and language, until American cinema turned into a global influence tool in an era characterized by mutual cultural flow that sometimes reaches the concept of liquidity.
Cultural and linguistic influence
The cultural influence of Hollywood has extended thanks to its global marketing power and wide distribution networks, until it became a global standard for cinematic quality and commercial success. She imposed her narrative and aesthetic style on the film industry around the world, and contributed to the consolidation of the American soft power by exporting American lifestyle and social values through its films spread in international theaters.
This influence made many filmmakers in Bollywood, South Korea and Latin America, directly or indirectly, they adopt the American visual and narrative standards, especially in building the plot and formulating the scenario. The influence not only stopped at the content, but also affected marketing and promotion methods.
Some have described this effect as a form of “cultural colonialism”, as Hollywood reproduces local stories from various cultures according to their own vision, which gradually leads to the erosion of the original narratives for an American cinematic narrative that seeks to dominate the global collective imagination.
Black tiger is struggling to survive
In addition to the cultural influence, Hollywood played a pivotal role in reshaping the concept of identity globally, through its transient narrative standards that define the meaning of identity, as Hollywood films are not satisfied with displaying stories individually, but they offer characters as models for success, heroism and struggle to achieve dreams despite difficulties.
These models infiltrate the global collective awareness, to reshape the concepts of heroism and success according to a unified vision that stems from the American perspective, and this imposes a stereotype of self and ambition that is repeated in various parts of the world. This unified style produces what is known as the “hybrid identity”, which arises from the interaction of the local model with the dominant global cultural model.
Despite the American model’s control of global cinema, attempts to resist this trend have emerged by presenting heroes of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, in an effort to challenge traditional templates. Among the most prominent of these attempts is the movie “Black Panther” (2018), which achieved global success as the first work produced by Marvel, a black hero, drawing his costumes and names of his characters from African culture. Despite the strength of this experience, such exceptional models remain limited, striving to provide alternative identities in the face of the prevailing model.
Cinematic techniques and effects
The influence of Hollywood is not limited to the cultural side only, but also extends to the technical field, as it has become a global standard in cinematic and visual production techniques. Films such as “The Matrix” (1999) and “Jurassic Park” (1993) were one of the first works that used digital effects advanced, and contributed to the reshaping of the optical form of global cinema, until it became a technical reference for many filmmakers.
Hollywood has redefined the concept of cinematography by adopting virtual imaging techniques, which allow directors and actors to work in digital environments that transfer them to multiple places without leaving the photography site. Its impact was not limited to developing new tools, but also affected the trends of the film industry in major countries such as Britain, France and South Korea, as its studios have adopted the same visual and Hollywood technology methods.
An example of the integration of physics as a basic narrative element in the cinema, not as just as visual support, films such as “between stars” (2014) and “Inception” (2010), as scientific laws are used as an essential part in building the story and meaning, not only to dazzle the viewer with special effects.
Although Hollywood imposes dominance, cultural and technical value, it may undermine the local diversity creatively and technically, but at the same time it produces large areas of a mutual cultural influence, as it turns into something similar to a point where ideas intersect, to be formulated in a way that suits the global audience. More than one perspective can be viewed to this exchange, which can enhance the spread of some local cultures and at the same time may be reproduced in superficial formulas away from its original context, and here the range of control, openness and diversity appears as part of the complex impact of Hollywood.
