I read a book once that made an interesting point:
1. English-language films make more money than French-language films because there are more English speakers than French speakers.
2. Because of this, an English-language film can profitably have a bigger budget, allowing better production values.
3. Once a film has been produced, the rights will get sold in every foreign market - with the price set by auction, not by the film's production costs. If French broadcasters only bid $15 million for a $150 million film, they get it for that price.
4. The upshot of _this_ is English-language films look 10 times more expensive than French-language films that cost the same.
5. This makes it extremely hard for French language films to compete.
The reason the French are so protective is because they believe, in the absence of such protection, the French film industry would get its ass kicked by the English-language film industry.
Oh, and for 'English-language' and 'French-language' above, you can insert a bunch of stuff about national culture. How do the police and courts act in your film? What food do we see people eating? What attitudes to sex, violence and alcohol do the good guys show? What political systems are shown, and how do characters view and interact with them? What values motivate the lead characters? What sort of things does the military get sent to do? How do employees interact with their bosses? What do roads and cars look like? Is there literally a character named Captain America?
> This makes it extremely hard for French language films to compete.
This assumes some zero-sum level of media the public can support and that money is enough to control it. I don't believe in either of those things wrt the arts and patronage can come in many forms, but restricting amounts of art in any direction by fiat is wrong.
There is a zero sum fight over finite attention and leisure time, and the ability to monopolize distribution channels (as with any other market, there can be monopolies).
Yet, I watch plenty of Japanese anime. I watch South Korean dramas as well. Simply saying that your contender cannot face up to the competition is laughable.
If you cannot compete on budget, perhaps you can compete on plot and story lines. One has to remember that the salaries that you have to pay Hollywood actors are much higher than what people in most other countries would make.
As an American who doesn't live in NYC or LA, I sympathize with wanting high quality, contextually diverse films; however, I would never want my (in this case, state) government to try to restrict the market of films available to me.
1. English-language films make more money than French-language films because there are more English speakers than French speakers.
2. Because of this, an English-language film can profitably have a bigger budget, allowing better production values.
3. Once a film has been produced, the rights will get sold in every foreign market - with the price set by auction, not by the film's production costs. If French broadcasters only bid $15 million for a $150 million film, they get it for that price.
4. The upshot of _this_ is English-language films look 10 times more expensive than French-language films that cost the same.
5. This makes it extremely hard for French language films to compete.
The reason the French are so protective is because they believe, in the absence of such protection, the French film industry would get its ass kicked by the English-language film industry.
Oh, and for 'English-language' and 'French-language' above, you can insert a bunch of stuff about national culture. How do the police and courts act in your film? What food do we see people eating? What attitudes to sex, violence and alcohol do the good guys show? What political systems are shown, and how do characters view and interact with them? What values motivate the lead characters? What sort of things does the military get sent to do? How do employees interact with their bosses? What do roads and cars look like? Is there literally a character named Captain America?