Sound as Control

Synchronized sound had an unexpected political consequence: it made films language-specific. Silent films had been universal — swap the title cards and any audience could follow. Sound films required dubbing or subtitles, fragmenting the global market along linguistic lines.

This gave Hollywood an enormous advantage. English was becoming the global lingua franca, and American films could reach the largest audience without translation. Sound did not just change cinema aesthetically. It helped establish American cultural dominance that persists to this day.