Historia Crítica

Hist. Crit. | eISSN 1900-6152 | ISSN 0121-1617

An Irresistible Commodity: American Cinema and its Impact in Chile, 1910-1930

No. 38 (2009-05-01)
  • Fernando Purcell
https://doi.org/10.7440/histcrit38.2009.04

Abstract

This work analyzes the irruption of American cinema in Chile during the 1910s and 1920s with regard to its role in the formation of a market empire. Hollywood cinema became an irresistible commodity that all Chileans valued irregardless of their social position. Its social and cultural impact was enormous and turned the United States into a new paradigm of modernity. The consumption of movies, fashions, and manufactured products from the United States was regarded as a way to participate in this “American-style” modernity. This reinforced the market imperialism that the United States was forging during those decades.

Keywords: Cinema, market Imperialism, mass culture, modernity, Chile