At the present time, the first stage towards a privatization of much of the world's audiovisual industries has begun. The official position vis-à-vis cinema taken by the United States during GATT and WTO international trade negotiations has made it quite clear that America's ambition is to break down and eliminate all trade barriers that have been put in place to protect and encourage national and regional cinema abroad. As media and communications industries in general are globalizing at a frenetic pace, more and more power is being concentrated in the hands of multinationals exemplified by recent mega-mergers between Internet, television, film, publishing and print media concerns which are, for the most part, run by white men educated in a Western, capitalist tradition. This situation has created animosity and a lack of trust as the cinema and the audiovisual industries outside of the United States do not necessarily view films and creative output as commodified products, but rather as part of a cultural tradition which is inseparable from art, history and national identity. Thus the American approach is viewed as hostile, especially as it attempts to force its point of view on others, with the primary motives being both profits and control of this increasingly important sector. As the lines between cinema and other aspects of cultural, educational, technological, political, national and even economic concerns become blurred, it is becoming increasingly important that no one single country or ideology be able to monopolize what we see and hear. The very word “entertainment” is misleading as cinema has always been about much more than just that, and thus what appears to be an economic battle (or, arguably a war) is, in fact, a struggle between competing ideologies and the souls and minds of our future generations.; I argue that a war is indeed taking place, in which there are both winners and losers, but that there are innovative forces at work trying to both resist and deconstruct the dominant Hollywood system. These are the forces of anarchy in cinema.
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