Artistic referencing and emergent standards of peer recognition in Hollywood, 1930–2000

Abstract

How does an artwork's referencing of creative content affect its peer recognition? Artists constantly seek to balance the tension between originality and conformity. Previous research argues that peers tend to reward socially well-embedded artists that signal community involvement and literacy of established conventions. Another stream of sociological research argues that the criteria for peer recognition are not fixed but depend on a cultural field's legitimacy. This paper examines the emerging and shifting standards of peer recognition throughout 70 years in U.S. American filmmaking. I ask whether and to what extent a film's referencing of artistic content from earlier films, such as snippets of dialog or camera shots, conditions its chances of being referenced. I analyze reference styles of 5,555 U.S. American movies released between 1930 and 1995 and show how artistic standards emerged during the New Hollywood movement in the 1960s. While films of the New Hollywood (1960–1979) and Blockbuster Era (1980–1995) were rewarded for signaling cultural literacy and openness in their reference styles, these standards did not apply yet to Golden Age filmmakers (1930–1959). These findings offer new insights for sociologists of culture and organizations who ask how an artwork's embeddedness into the cultural space affects its recognition by contemporary peer audiences.