By Tina Pahnke, Doctoral Candidate, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany and Visiting Scholar at UW-Madison’s Department of Communication Arts.
Whether at the cinema, in your living room, or on the go–Hollywood movies are everywhere. Today, remakes, sequels, and franchises dominate the big screen. But when these films repeatedly revisit familiar stories, do their images, worlds, characters, and stars become important points of reference in our lives?
I am part of the Hollywood Memories research project, located at the Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). We are investigating whether Hollywood has created a shared cinematic repertoire that shapes our memories, life experiences, and intergenerational identities in an increasingly globalized world. Our project is designed as a cross-generational and cross-cultural project, and there is a total of four sub-projects dealing with memories of Hollywood movies in Germany, the United Sates, Mexico, and China. My research focuses on the U.S. and is concerned with audiences born and raised in the home market of Hollywood. For my dissertation, I am visiting the UW-Madison and am looking for participants who would like to share their film memories and experiences. I want to find out how Hollywood films are remembered, how remakes, sequels, and reboots influence these memories, and whether the reception of such films shapes a cross-generational “we-sense.”
In short: How do popular culture, media, and memory shape different generations of viewers?
Participants of all ages are welcome!
Anyone interested in participating can sign up for the project via hollywood@uni-hannover.de. We are also active on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky), so feel free to send us a message there as well! For more information about the project and our research design, please visit our website hollywood-memories.com.
If you know anyone who might be interested, I encourage you to share the project! If you have any questions regarding the study, feel free to send me an email at tpahnke@wisc.edu.