The Current Discussion: All four Oscars for best acting went to non-Americans. Is Hollywood's cultural hegemony finally breaking up? Or are we Hollywoodizing foreign talents like Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard?

When non-Americans do well in Hollywood, it’s further proof that the debate on cultural hegemony entirely misstates the nature of culture in general, mistakenly depicting it as something static and one-sided.

Culture, and cinematic culture in particular, has always been about admixtures, optimal blends, the impetus to appeal to as many people as possible—and to make money. That’s why from the outset Hollywood attracted foreigners. Chaplin was British. Von Stroheim was German; Garbo was Swedish, and so on. Far from being an example of American cultural hegemony, Hollywood was a fantastic, equal-opportunity Moloch, swallowing what and who it could to produce art for profit’s sake, and rather often for art’s sake, as the MGM lion informs us.

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