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Making Sense of Business and Community in Hollywood Films, 1928–2016

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2018

Per H. Hansen  and
Anne Magnussen
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Abstract

We analyze how Hollywood films from 1928 to 2016 represented business within a broad historical and business context. We argue that the films actively contributed to audiences’ sensemaking processes and to how different groups perceived the role of business in society. We advance the idea that films provided cultural blueprints to be used by viewers for their own understanding, identification, and practices in relation to business in its historical context, particularly during periods of uncertainty, crisis, and instability when many films addressed deeper societal concerns about the role of business.

Keywords

Hollywood filmsensemakingstakeholder versus shareholder view of the companycorporate governancefinance and businessentrepreneurship
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 92 , Issue 2 , Summer 2018 , pp. 307 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2018 

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References

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8 Francesco Guerrera, “The ‘Wall Street’ Effect,” Financial Times Weekend, 25–26 Sept. 2010. See also Geraldine Fabrikant, “Wall Street Reviews ‘Wall Street,’” New York Times, 10 Dec. 1987; Josh Sims, “Brace Yourself for Suspenders,” Financial Times, 14 Dec. 2007; and Colin Cameron, “Power, Sex and Suits,” Financial Times, 15 Dec. 2007.

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11 The idea that films and popular culture generally participate in shaping perceptions, identities, and practices is not particularly related to business and film, nor is it new. On business films, see, for example, Bell, Reading Management, 1, 23, 32–37; Czarniawska, Barbara and Rhodes, Carl, “Strong Plots: Popular Culture in Management Practice and Theory,” in Management Education and the Humanities, ed. Gagliardi, Pasquale and Czarniawska, Barbara (Cheltenham, U.K., 2006), 199Google Scholar; Levinson, Julie, The American Success Myth on Film (New York, 2012), 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spector, Bert, “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit in the Executive Suite: American Corporate Movies in the 1950s,” Journal of Management History 14, no. 1 (2008): 89Google Scholar; Shugan, Steven M., “Antibusiness Movies and Folk Marketing,” Marketing Science 25, no. 6 (2006): 681CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bugos, Glenn E., “Organizing Stories of Organizational Life: Four Films on American Business,” Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies 2, no. 1 (1996): 111–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 126; Ribstein, Larry E., “Wall Street and Vine: Hollywood's View of Business,” Managerial and Decision Economics 33, no. 4 (2012): 212CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Parker, Martin, Against Management: Organization in the Age of Managerialism (Oxford, 2002), 157Google Scholar. Within historical research, David Carr has argued in favor of continuities between narrative, everyday experience, and action; see Carr, Time, Narrative, and History (Bloomington, Ind., 1986), 16Google Scholar. See also Rosenstone, History on Film, 4; Rosenstone, Robert M., Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 22Google Scholar; and Trouillot, Jean-Rolph, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, 1995), 21Google Scholar. For a business historian's view on film and history, see Miskell, Peter, “Historians and Film,” in Making History: An Introduction to the History and Practices of a Discipline, ed. Lambert, Peter and Schofield, Phillipp (London, 2004)Google Scholar. For a discussion of narratives and business history, see Hansen, “Business History.”

12 Spector, Bert, “A Crack the Cold War Consensus: Billy Wilder's The Apartment,” Management & Organizational History 4, no. 2 (2009): 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bugos, “Organizing Stories,” 111–12; May, Larry, The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way (Chicago, 2000): 263–65Google Scholar.

13 On representations of management and organization in Hollywood films over time, see Bell, Reading Management. On how Hollywood movies represent business and the “American dream,” see Levinson, American Success Myth; and Boozer, Jack, Career Movies: American Business and the Success Mystique (Austin, Tex., 2002)Google Scholar. However, none of these three analyses addresses the more general category of business in society and how films make sense of business and uncertainty. Other scholars discuss Hollywood as a business in itself; see, for instance, Gomery, Douglas, “Film and Business History: The Development of an American Mass Entertainment Industry,” Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 1 (1984): 89–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bakker, Gerben, “Stars and Stories: How Films Became Branded Products,” in An Economic History of Film, ed. Sedgwick, John and Pokorny, Michael (Abingdon, U.K., 2005)Google Scholar; Bakker, Gerben, “How Motion Pictures Industrialized Entertainment,” Journal of Economic History 72, no. 4 (2012): 1036–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Parker, Against Management, 135. On business films as teaching tools in business studies, see Bell, Reading Management; Werner, Andrea, “‘Margin Call’: Using Film to Explore Behavioural Aspects of the Financial Crisis,” Journal of Business Ethics 122, no. 4 (2014): 643–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aupperle, Kenneth E. and Dunphy, Steven M., “Managerial Lessons for a New Millenium: Contributions from Chester Barnard and Frank Capra,” Management Decision 39, no. 2 (2001): 156–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Williams, Oliver F., ed., The Moral Imagination: How Literature and Films Can Stimulate Ethical Reflection in the Business World (Notre Dame, Ind., 1997)Google Scholar.

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14 See Hansen, “From Finance Capitalism”; and Parker, Against Management, 134–58.

15 Our selection of films resembles the “snowball sampling” used in Bell, Reading Management, 8–9. It is based on relevant literature, the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/), and the American Film Institute's catalog of feature films (http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/). For a definition of Hollywood films, see Lewis, John, American Film: A History (New York, 2008), 92Google Scholar; and Belton, John, American Cinema/American Culture (New York, 2013), 24Google Scholar.

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17 For more detailed analyses of some of the individual films, see Levinson, American Success Myth; Boozer, Career Movies; and Bell, Reading Management.

18 On the Hollywood system and organizing of filmmaking, see Bell, Reading Management, chap. 2; and May, The Big Tomorrow. Cinematography, music, choice of lead actors, and other issues also affected how the films represented business; see Bell, Reading Management, 13–64; and Levinson, American Success Myth, 1–20. However, for the purposes of this article, we argue that analysis of the films’ narratives is an appropriate analytical strategy.

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21 See also May, The Big Tomorrow, 4. The Hucksters (1947) corresponds to some extent with the critical approach to big business, as the protagonist decides to leave the world of marketing.

22 Belton, American Cinema, 137.

23 See also Levinson, American Success Myth, 70–75; and Bell, Reading Management, 19.

24 See also Bugos, “Organizing Stories,” 112–15; and Levinson, American Success Myth, 42–43.

25 About the latter, see Parker, Against Management, 139–40.

26 Roper, Elmo, ”The Public Looks at Business,” Harvard Business Review 27, no. 2 (1949): 169, 170, 171Google Scholar.

27 David, Donald K., “Business Responsibilities in an Uncertain World,” Harvard Business Review 27, no. 3 (1949): 1–8Google Scholar.

28 Suspicion of big business, robber barons, Wall Street versus Main Street, and financial speculation all go back to the nineteenth century; see John, Richard, “Robber Barons Redux: Antimonopoly Reconsidered,” Enterprise & Society 13, no. 1 (2012): 1–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Gregor Aisch and Alicia Parlapiano, “What Do You Think Is the Most Important Problem Facing This Country Today?” New York Times, 27 Feb. 2017.

30 Roper, “Public Looks at Business,” 169.

31 For a discussion of the generation of 1950s executives and their values, see Cheffins, Brian R., “Corporate Governance since the Managerial Capitalism Era,” Business History Review 89, no. 4 (2015): 717–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Batia Wiesenfeld and Gino Cattani, “Business through Hollywood's Lens,” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2010, 146–47.

33 See Spector, “American Corporate Movies”; Spector, “Crack the Cold War Consensus”; and Noakes, John A., “Official Frames in Social Movement Theory: The FBI, HUAC, and the Communist Threat in Hollywood,” Sociological Quarterly 41, no. 4 (2000): 662–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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35 Drucker, Peter, The Concept of the Corporation (New York, 1946)Google Scholar; Drucker, Peter, The Practice of Management (New York, 1954)Google Scholar. The quote is from Drucker, “Trusting the Teacher in the Grey-Flannel Suit,” Economist, 17 Nov. 2005.

36 Examples include A Woman's World (1954), Sabrina (1954), Executive Suite (1954), The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), and Patterns (1956).

37 Mills, C. Wright, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (New York, 1951), ixGoogle Scholar. See also Whyte, William H. Jr., The Organization Man (New York, 1956)Google Scholar; Spector, “American Corporate Movies,” 94–95; Levinson, American Success Myth, 75–92; and Bell, Reading Management, 95–96.

38 Cash McCall (1960) refers to a similar conflict.

39 Patterns (1956) and The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) are other examples of how good management that is responsible to society is possible, especially with the new generation at the helm. See also Spector, “American Corporate Movies,” 96–99. For an alternative (more pessimistic) interpretation, see Levinson, American Success Myth, 87.

40 The relationship between family and work, as well as the issue of women in the marriage, is also addressed in A Woman's World (1954).

41 Other business films of the 1950s addressed issues such as the introduction of new technology, in Desk Set (1957); labor unions versus management, in The Pajama Game (1957); and career versus family, in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957).

42 See May, The Big Tomorrow, chap. 6.

43 Aisch and Parlapiano, “Most Important Problem.”

44 Martin Parker argues that The Apartment did not question “the overall legitimacy of the organization.” Parker, Against Management, 140–41. However, Bert Spector convincingly sees The Apartment as the beginning of a “significant ground shift” that took place in the 1960s. Spector, “American Corporate Movies,” 100.

45 Spector, “Crack the Cold War Consensus.”

46 For discussion of this process, see Cheffins, “Corporate Governance”; and Baker, George P. and Smith, George David, The New Financial Capitalists: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Creation of Corporate Value (New York, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Aisch and Parlapiano, “Most Important Problem.”

48 Belton, American Cinema, 373. See also Lewis, American Film, 291.

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51 See, for instance, with telling titles, “The Organization Man, DEAD AT 76,” Journal of Business Strategy 18, no. 6 (1997): 19–23; and Bennett, Amanda, The Death of the Organization Man (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.

52 See Baker and Smith, New Financial Capitalists; Hansen, “From Finance Capitalism”; and Cheffins, “Corporate Governance.”

53 Jensen and Meckling, “Theory of the Firm,” 310.

54 Zingales, Luigi, “In Search of New Foundations,” Journal of Finance 55, no. 4 (2000): 1624CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Ibid., 1642–43.

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57 Quoted in Davis, Gerald F., “Politics and Financial Markets,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Finance, ed. Cetina, Karin Knorr and Preda, Alex (Oxford, 2012), 44Google Scholar.

58 Belton, American Cinema, 393–94. See also Parker, Against Management, 152–53; and Williamson, Judith, “‘Up Where You Belong’: Hollywood Images of Big Business in the 1980s,” in Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of National Culture, ed. Corner, John and Harvey, Sylvia (London, 1991)Google Scholar.

59 See Trading Places (1983), Wall Street (1987), Working Girl (1988), Barbarians at the Gates (1993), Civil Action (1998), The Insider (1999), Rogue Trader (1999), Boiler Room (2000), Erin Brockovich (2000), Two Weeks Notice (2002), and In Good Company (2004).

60 Bugos, “Organizing Stories,” 123. On the rise of finance and LBOs in the context of Wall Street, see Kelley, Beverly Merrill, Reelpolitik Ideologies in American Political Film (Lanham, Md., 2012), 43–74Google Scholar.

61 Francesco Guerrera, “How ‘Wall Street’ Changed Wall Street,” Financial Times, 24 Sept. 2010; and Kelley, Reelpolitik Ideologies, 65–70. For a critical academic analysis of Wall Street, see Denzin, “Reading ‘Wall Street.’”

62 The same point is made in Wall Street by Gekko (“I create nothing. I own”) and in Other People's Money (1991) by Garfield (“I don't make anything? I am making you money”).

63 Examples include Baby Boom (1987), Tucker: A Man and His Dream (1988), Jerry Maguire (1996), Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999), The Aviator (2004), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Cadillac Records (2008).

64 McCraw, Thomas K., Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction (Cambridge, Mass., 2007)Google Scholar

65 Films such as The Secret of My Success (1987) and Thank You for Smoking (2005) also signal meaninglessness and cynicism in different ways.

66 See, for instance, Baby Boom (1987), Pretty Woman (1990), You've Got Mail (1998), Two Weeks Notice (2002), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), and A Good Year (2006).

67 On the “new firm,” see Zingales, “New Foundations.”

68 Donaldson, Thomas and Preston, Lee E., “The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications,” Academy of Management Review 20, no. 1 (1995): 65–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Freeman, R. Edward, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston, 1984)Google Scholar.

69 Examples include Baby Boom (1987), Working Girl (1988), Erin Brockovich (2000), and The Devil Wears Prada (2006). With regards to racial minorities, Eddie Murphy in Trading Places (1983), and Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) seem to be two exceptions to the rule.

70 On representations of women in films, see Bell, Reading Management, 139–59.

71 Zingales, “New Foundations.”

72 The based-on-real-events film phenomenon accelerated with the financial crisis, but the trend was also clear in business films outside of finance, for instance, The Informant! (2009), The Social Network (2010), Casino Jack (2010), Jobs (2013), Joy (2015), Steve Jobs (2015), and The Founder (2016).

73 For example, Up in the Air (2009), The Joneses (2009), The Informant! (2009), Arbitrage (2012), and The Wolf of Wall Street.

74 The obvious reference is Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, Mass., 2014).

75 Seen also in Casino Jack (2010), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), and Margin Call (2011).

76 Examples include The Company Men (2010), Jobs (2013), Joy (2015), Steve Jobs (2015), and The Intern (2015).

77 See Stout, Lynn, The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public (San Francisco, 2012)Google Scholar; and Gautam Mukunda, “The Price of Wall Street's Power,” Harvard Business Review, June 2014, 70–78.

78 Aisch and Parlapiano, “Most Important Problem.”