Manufacturing realisms : product placement in the Hollywood film

Abstract

Through an examination of filmic portrayals of the trademarked product as a signifier of real ownerships and meanings of commodities, this paper is concerned with the conjunction of aesthetic and economic issues of the Product Placement industry in the Hollywood film. It analyzes Product Placement as the embedding of an advertising message within a fictional one, as the insertion of a trademarked object into the realisms of filmic space, and as the incorporation of corporate remakings of the world with film fictions. Product Placement images are therefore seen as a systematic surfacing of frameworks and discourses - legal, corporate, economic, and filmic - as both seamless and disruptive layers in film images and film making.