Discourses of legitimation in New Zealand’s film policy

Framing the discussion: scope, theory and method

This article applies principles of framing and narrative analysis to cultural policy texts, depicting various situated discourses that have competed for dominance in the history of New Zealand film policy, from the campaign to establish a national film commission in the 1960s and 1970s through to the revitalisation of interest in cultural policy under the Labour-led government of 1999 to 2008. With a concern for meaning and problem structuring, this approach is similar to other forms of policy discourse analysis, but it focuses on frames, which can be defined as the ‘underlying structures of belief, perception, and appreciation’ that shape policy positions (Schön and Rein, 1994: 23). Two dominant frames that have become embedded in film funding policy are cultural nationalism and economic rationalism.

Although they are not particularly concerned with the issue of legitimation, Rein and Schön (1993: 35) point out that some policy practitioners use rhetorical frames strategically in their quest for legitimacy:

In their public utterances, policy makers may hitch on to a dominant frame and its conventional metaphors (the free market, privatization, and ‘community empowerment’, for example), hoping thereby to purchase legitimacy for a course of action actually inspired by different intentions.

Herbert Gottweis (2006: 470) similarly notes that a frame may gain legitimacy by referring to a metanarrative, which connects it to an accepted value system within a community. The idea of reframing involves reflecting on competing frames in a seemingly intractable policy controversy and redefining the problem in such a way that constructive action can be taken (Laws and Rein, 2003). The creation of a metanarrative and the reframing of a policy controversy both represent an alternative to reaching consensus in a policy debate. Both ‘attempt to shift the paradigm of a problem’ (van Eeten, 2007: 255–6), by developing a new story that establishes a common basis for discourse, ideally through public involvement in deliberation (Hampton, 2009; Morcol, 2004). In the analysis of film funding policy that follows, reframing is seen as the process that produces a metanarrative.

As Rein and Schön (1993: 44) point out, it is important that analysts acknowledge their own frames. This analysis was conducted as part of a project that investigated the implications of dominant discourses for film funding practices in New Zealand. While I consider identity construction and social communication to be important functions of films in the cultural public sphere, I recognise the threat of a unitary, hegemonic vision of national identity. The pervasive effects of economic rationalism in the public sector are equally concerning, particularly the tendency to sideline social and cultural values in policy development and evaluation. The discussion that follows illustrates how I arrived at this conclusion, by way of a historical narrative of film policy discourse in New Zealand, and through a critical analysis of the frames and metanarratives used by particular discourse communities.

The emergence and merging of early film policy frames

Until the 1970s, the dominant political framing of film was as a means of educating citizens and promoting New Zealand as a tourist destination. Independent film producers struggled to find private sources of investment and, consequently, few feature films were produced before the national Film Commission existed. The vigorous lobbying of the film community in the 1960s and 1970s, fuelled by the efforts of committed local filmmakers, is credited with challenging the dominant framing of film policy and convincing politicians of the importance of supporting independent New Zealand filmmaking (Jones et al., 2003; Pitts, 2008). Various discourse communities coalesced in the campaign for publicly funded cinema, hitching on to nationalistic arguments in favour of film as a form of cultural protection. Along with Film Industry Working Party reports, records of parliamentary debates in the 1970s offer evidence of the belief that the foreign domination of local screens was ‘robbing New Zealand of a chance to contribute its own distinctive view’ (Mike Moore, cited in Waller, 1996: 245–6). Following on from the established trend of cultural nationalism in art and literature, a national film industry was thus framed as a vehicle for postcolonial identity formation and as a defence against Hollywood-led cultural imperialism. The framing of film as art, however, soon disappeared from policy discourse. Although creative expression was a more important objective to the film community, and it was their lobbying that brought the issue of film funding onto the political agenda, the dominant rationale for a national funding agency was soon framed primarily according to the metanarrative of cultural nationalism. As Hester Joyce (2003: 57) writes, in her discussion of the formation of the NZFC: ‘Filmmakers were not all necessarily nationalists, but in order to secure government financial support they were prepared to talk about national culture.’

Both politicians and those campaigning for publicly funded films accepted that government support for national cinema should be based on a commercial model. This industry-based frame came to sit alongside cultural objectives, with both discourses influencing the establishment of the NZFC as an industry facilitator, offering an investment aimed at generating income, rather than a subsidy for artistic activity based on intrinsic worth (Joyce 2003: 56–8; Waller, 1996: 248). This contrasted with the earlier ‘high culture’ frame of arts funding (Albiston, 2000). In 1978, the New Zealand Film Commission Act was passed with bipartisan support from Robert Muldoon’s conservative National government and the Labour opposition. It established the national film agency with the mandate: ‘To encourage and also to participate and assist in the making, promotion, distribution, and exhibition of films’ (NZFC Act 1978). In order to be eligible for financial support, a project must have ‘significant New Zealand content’ in terms of Section 18 of the Act. The legislation stipulates that the Film Commission judge the national relevance of a project according to the subject and locations of the film, the nationalities of key personnel, sources of funding, ownership of equipment and facilities, and any other factors it deems relevant.

While there was some debate about the establishment of a national film funding body, it was not ‘frame critical’. According to Rein and Schön (1993: 162–4), reframing should be a social process guided by norms of communicative rationality where participants ‘overcome the blindness induced by their own ways of framing the policy situation’ to acknowledge that others’ frames contain legitimate values. While all parties seemed to agree that a film commission should be established according to an industrial frame and the metanarrative of cultural nationalism, there is little evidence of frame reflection in their discourse. Jim Booth’s original proposal, the Interim Commission’s first report and the parliamentary discussion of the Act contain no distinction between the cultural nationalism frame and the commercial rationale for a film industry (Waller 1996). In his analysis of short film funding policy, Bevin Yeatman (1998: 79–85) observes that the following separate arguments are often mixed together in political justifications for supporting New Zealand cinema: cultural and national identity, international image, export income and employment opportunities. My research confirms that these frames coalesced in the campaign for state funding for cinema and in the early political discussion of the NZFC. Following this period, however, international discourse on cultural policy, combined with New Zealanders’ changing attitudes to national identity and cultural activities, caused a more frame-critical approach to arts (and film) policy.

A wider definition of ‘the arts’, recognising popular culture and ethnic diversity, emerged from debates on the restructuring of the Arts Council in the mid 1970s. The attention to cultural diversity represents a shift from the ‘foundation’ period of paternalistic cultural policy to a ‘cultural development’ frame, which emphasises multiculturalism within New Zealand society (Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1998). This structure was then challenged in the 1980s by the growing recognition of indigenous rights and the government’s acknowledgment that, according to the country’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, it must protect Maori cultural practices and language.

Unlike more recent cultural policy and legislation, the 1978 Film Commission Act has not been updated to reflect multicultural or bicultural values and thus does not provide any legal recognition of Maori or other minority group rights in film policy. In its early years, the NZFC Board was predominantly composed of professional males of European descent who invested in projects by white male filmmakers (Mita, 1996; Waller, 1996). Maori were part of the ‘subaltern counter public’ (Fraser, 1990) of marginalised filmmakers and audiences who challenged the dominant discourse in the 1980s and 90s. While the NZFC, in Gregory Waller’s (1996: 253) words, ‘played up the role of the New Zealand film industry as national storyteller and historian’, the political embrace of cultural nationalism contrasted with emerging social and artistic trends. ‘The new film-makers tended to be deeply suspicious of nationalism, seeing its artistic canon as white, macho and mostly straight,’ asserts film scholar Roger Horrocks (1999: 131). Some of the arguments of this subaltern counter-public have aligned with the discourse of recent governments who have recognised their responsibility to Maori based on the Treaty of Waitangi.

This alignment is likely to be responsible for the incorporation of a bicultural frame at the NZFC. In 1992, the agency’s revised purpose statement mentioned Maori for the first time: ‘New Zealand films, and the New Zealand film industry, are reflective of the cultural diversity of the nation and in this spirit the Film Commission supports the aspirations of Maori filmmakers.’ Just as it combines the economic and social benefits of cinema, NZFC discourse tends to conflate multicultural and bicultural rationales, ignoring tensions between them. ³ Since 2001, the NZFC has shown a stronger commitment to biculturalism by specifically funding several projects to showcase Maori filmmaking talent (OnFilm, 2001; Pitts, 2008). Supported by these targeted policies, a new wave of Maori filmmakers is emerging, led by writer/director Taika Waititi and producer Ainsley Gardiner.

Economic rationalism hits (and sometimes misses) 1980s–90s cultural policy

According to one political commentator (James, 2000), it was the institutionalisation of bicultural principles rather than neoliberal reforms that represented the most significant change to New Zealand’s arts and cultural sector in the 1980s. Local scholars Catherine Albiston (2000) and Peter Skilling (2005) concur that, while neoliberalism attained hegemonic status throughout the public service in the late 1980s and 1990s, the intrinsic values of conserving tradition and enabling cultural expression continued to be recognised as valid frames for art and cultural policy. In addition to increased and newly guaranteed funding from the Lottery Board, the NZFC actually received higher grants from the fourth Labour government, which doubled its budget from $7.3 million in 1986 to $14.5 million in 1991. ⁴ This enabled the agency to continue devoting a significant proportion of its income to non-commercial programmes, such as its Short Film Fund.

By the 1990s, however, the dominance of economic rationalism in public policy had seeped into the cultural realm and began to influence film policy. The arts continued to receive state support, but justifications of cultural funding had to be reframed in order to retain legitimacy. The tacit understanding of the intrinsic value of arts and culture was undermined by an emphasis on their instrumental benefits. Kevin Mulcahy (2006: 271) describes this as a shift in frames from cultural development to ‘cultural utilitarianism’. Justifications for arts funding came to be based on economic arguments, primarily the idea that cultural activities are not ordinary private commodities, but merit goods which deliver important externalities. ⁵ This argument was combined with the notion of market failure to sanction government assistance. In particular, the need to fail in order to produce innovative work comes at a price that a private enterprise is rarely willing to pay repeatedly. The acknowledgement that innovation requires allowing for some failures has resulted in an acceptance of risk-taking in the allocation of some public funds (James, 2000; Yeatman, 1998), particularly for emerging artists and ‘projects of excellence or innovation’ (Creative New Zealand, 2008).

The NZFC did not escape the ‘profit culture’ of the 1990s, though (Pitts, 2008: 127): funding levels declined and the agency focused on encouraging investment in films that returned revenue. Although lotteries funding increased in the early 1990s, the National Government cut the NZFC grant by $2.7 million in 1991, resulting in an overall decrease of 20 percent in the agency’s income. By the mid-90s, the direct government grant to the Film Commission constituted less than 10 percent of its annual $12 million budget, which itself was a quarter of the cost of an average Hollywood production (Calder, 1996: 190). The NZFC became ‘heavily dependent on Lotteries Commission profits’, which provided most of its income throughout the 1990s (Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1998). Faced with this limited budget, the NZFC board opted to reduce expenditure on marketing and documentary filmmaking, and focused on lower-budget feature productions to be co-financed with television companies (Waller, 1996: 255). The lack of funds and insistence on private investment resulted in fewer productions and caused a ‘mini-exodus’ of filmmakers (Jeffery, 1994: 46; Shelton, 2005: 102).

Although the NZFC operates at arm’s length from the government and is free to criticise it, the agency has not escaped the state’s hegemonic control. Especially while under the direction of Chief Executive Ruth Harley, the NZFC aligned its approach with the dominant discourse of economic rationalism. It emphasised the economic benefits of film in order to attract continued – and eventually increased – levels of funding. This was not a new argument; the NZFC had been established for industrial as well as cultural reasons, and had been highlighting the economic benefits of a healthy film sector since 1978 (Waller, 1996). Analysis of Harley’s speeches (Harley, 1999, for example) reveals nonetheless an ‘overt politicisation of the film industry’ (Jones et al., 2003) as an important contributor to the economic and social development of the country. Harley (cited in Yeatman, 1998: 88–9) has explicitly stated that her understanding of the political climate led her to believe that adopting an economic discourse was the only way to overcome the marginalisation of film in policy debates. Although a self-proclaimed ‘cultural nationalist’ (Harley, 2001), she began to frame her discourse, as well as that of NZFC documents, according to the economic metanarrative dominating public policy. Yeatman (1998: 89) remarks: ‘Harley is strategic in her alignments with the politicians, even if this is her own smoke-screen, and does not herself believe in the arguments she uses to justify funding increases.’

One of Harley’s early initiatives was to engage legal and economic specialist George Barker to help the NZFC ‘make a bridge between cultural values and the principles of economic rationalism’ (Harley, 1999, in Barker, 2000: v). Barker proffered the concept of ‘cultural capital’ as a means of expressing and assessing the social benefits of cultural policy in a way that would make sense to politicians and bureaucrats. He defines ‘cultural capital’ without reference to Pierre Bourdieu but by allusion to Robert Putnam (2001), as a type of social capital which helps to connect individuals and coordinate action by reducing misunderstandings (Barker, 2000: 13). It is an intangible value, equivalent to the idea of identity, with aesthetic, cognitive and moral dimensions. Barker (2000: 48–9) recognises the difficulty of measuring identity, but suggests that ‘revealed cultural capital’ can be identified through empirical evaluations of supply and demand in the cultural sector. The NZFC embraced this conception of ‘cultural capital’ and proceeded to use it in their mission statements and annual reports. NZFC agents did not simply abandon the social or cultural reasons for supporting cinema; rather, they aimed to ensure these objectives were not overlooked due to the emphasis on quantifiable outcomes in public policy. As Norman Fairclough (2003: 127) explains, contemporary political texts often contain a ‘hybridization of discourses’, specifically the ‘strategy of legitimizing the discourse of social cohesion in terms of the neo-liberal discourse’. The NZFC’s application of Barker’s argument thus reinforces the framing of film as a market good with little value in itself and that ‘requires legitimacy from the dominant discourse of economics’ (Jones et al., 2003: 21–2).

The NZFC’s approach to film as an economic sector was not merely rhetorical. It worked more closely with industry practitioners, continuing to devolve funding decisions to independent producers. Its first devolved funding programme had appeared in 1986 to fulfil the new requirement ‘that there has to be some demonstrated market interest for any film before it can get its investment’ (Jeffery, 1994: 48). Funds were allocated to established production houses for project development, to ‘reduce the centralising influence’ of the NZFC and ‘devolve both responsibility and accountability’ to the industry (Jeffery, 1994; Waller, 1996: 252). Although there was a risk that funds would not be well spent by producers, the scheme’s independence from bureaucratic interference made it a success, according to Joyce (2003: 279).

Alongside Harley’s discursive strategy and the Board’s market orientation, the NZFC faced increasingly stringent requirements in terms of policy objectives and outcomes that necessitated the integration of economic rationalist frames into its accountability documents. The introduction of the Public Finance Act in 1989 required that the NZFC, as a state-owned entity, formulate strategic plans and performance measures in its annual reports to the responsible minister. While its statement of ‘Role and Operation’ in 1986 had focused loosely on producing ‘first class films of international calibre’, from 1989 the agency’s guidelines were less ambiguous, dictating specific targets for international distribution and box office takings for each project. These criteria match the explicit connections made between film production, economic development and international promotion in policy documents in the 1990s (for example, Ministry of Cultural Affairs, 1996: 45–6). Although the application of public management principles gives more power to funding agencies to formulate the criteria of cultural policies, the new emphasis on measurability has forced them to articulate objectives in accordance with the government’s broader goals (Skilling, 2005: 26; see also Gray, 2007).

The development of performance indicators is a clear example of the infiltration of neoliberal principles into NZFC policy. Judging a film’s success by the number of viewers who pay to see it offers a convenient performance measure under the economic rationalist frame, and has been similarly applied in Australia (Dempster, 1994) and Canada (Morris, 1994). In annual reports, the NZFC indeed lists its achievements in terms of box office takings in addition to the number of films supported and, occasionally, audience figures per film. This approach to measuring outcomes relies on conceptions of consumer sovereignty and a belief that the purpose of cinema is attracting mass audiences. Yeatman (1998: 162) quotes Harley’s public statement: ‘if you want to have a significant cultural impact, you have that by impacting on a significant number of people’. Horrocks (1999: 137) bemoans this lack of understanding of ‘the idea that there may be important films for small audiences’. Knowing the size of a film’s audience says nothing about the extent of viewers’ engagement with the text. Signs of critical rather than commercial success, such as positive reviews and any awards a film has gained, are occasionally mentioned in NZFC accountability documents. Presenting any conclusive measure of success in an annual report is problematic, however. Not only is cinematic ‘success’ incredibly difficult to assess objectively (de Valck and Soeteman, 2010) but a film also has a much longer ‘shelf life’ than the months of its cinema release (Petrie, 2008: 24–5). Ruth Jeffery (1994), former NZFC Director of Development, recounts that the introduction of strategic objectives and performance measures caused conflict in a small, ‘people-based’ industry that perceived too much change in the agency’s practices. The film community became increasingly critical of the economic framing of cultural policy, seeing it as a threat to the diversity, vitality and independence of the film industry (Calder, 1996; Dennis and Bieringa, 1996; O’Shea, 1997; Shelton, 2005). They blamed the NZFC board for these changes, although some were clearly the result of government legislation, informed by public choice theory, applied indiscriminately across the public sector.

National cultural policy in a global knowledge economy

Recent developments in New Zealand’s cultural policy reflect broader trends in the international political economy, particularly the premium placed on so-called cultural or creative industries. Since 1999, policy rhetoric has centred on the combined social and economic objectives of nation-branding, firmly framing film as a commercial product in a global industry with instrumental benefits (Conor, 2004: 90–1). A significant aspect of ‘third way’ politics, this focus on the national brand has emerged as globalisation has refuelled fears of the dominance of United States popular culture (Skilling, 2005). ⁶ The revitalisation of cultural policy under New Zealand’s fifth Labour-led government involved a heightened interest in screen production, which it identified as the fastest growing creative industry (Screen Production Industry Taskforce, 2003). Over its nine-year term, Helen Clark’s administration increased its role in the sector and provided unprecedented levels of public finance for film production. ⁷ Announcements of its new schemes, which provided financial benefits for films with international investors, also emphasised each programme’s cultural objectives.

The Labour-led government’s use of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to reinforce the national brand and celebrate its model of creative enterprise in the ‘knowledge economy’ is a notable example (Lawn, 2004). Clark (2002) was explicit about her government’s use of the films as ‘leverage’ in ‘seeking to rebrand New Zealand as an upmarket, innovative, dynamic economy’. Instead of a threat, globalisation was framed as an opportunity for New Zealand to develop its own brand, by using distinctive cultural products to give the country a competitive advantage (Skilling, 2008; True, 2006). It is worth recalling that film had long been identified as an ideal vehicle to promote New Zealand’s identity at home as well as its image overseas. Introducing the Film Commission legislation to Parliament in 1978, Minister Allan Highet stated: ‘The new era of New Zealand films will enable the world to see New Zealand and its people as they see themselves’ (Petrie, 2008: 27). As self-appointed Minister for Culture and Heritage, Clark (2000) similarly described film as ‘a very powerful medium … able to influence the way we see ourselves and our country – and the way the rest of the world see us too’.

Within political discourse, New Zealand films are thus commonly framed as simultaneously addressing local issues and international audiences. A strong interest in the internal and external projection of national identity is typical of small, postcolonial nations and is reinforced by their limited domestic market for cinema (Hjort and Petrie, 2007). Drawing on Nick Perry’s conceptualisation of ‘Antipodean camp’, Horrocks (1999: 135–6) points to the sense of cultural dislocation and heightened awareness of the strange combination of cultures in New Zealand. This may explain why overseas success has sometimes been necessary before New Zealand audiences would embrace a film and overcome ‘cultural cringe’. ⁸ Various writers (Higson, 2002: 40; Pitts, 2008: 155; Skilling, 2008: 2) have acknowledged the paradox in that the expression of national or cultural identities through cinema is reliant on the global, corporate forces that threaten them.

Conflict has arisen when local and global aims of film policy have been framed as oppositional. Some scholars are critical of these dual objectives, which, they argue, are not always compatible. Along with Jennifer Lawn (2004), Lydia Wevers and Mark Williams (2002) have suggested that Labour’s rhetorical embrace of cultural nationalism and social criticism is at odds with, or obscures, its prioritisation of policies driven by economic nationalism. Russell Prince (2010) concludes that creative industries policy in New Zealand ended up as economic, rather than cultural, policy. New Zealand’s small population, indigenous inhabitants, geographic isolation and economic vulnerability make it impossible to escape the tension between the local and the global in the film industry (Joyce, 2003). Not only do financial inputs and outputs, artistic techniques and technological developments cross borders, but there are also flows of human capital back and forth between New Zealand and foreign film industries (Higson, 2002; Jones et al., 2003).

Reflecting on New Zealand film policy discourse

The NZFC evidently occupies a difficult position as it negotiates the sometimes conflicting priorities of governments, industry practitioners and the film community (Joyce, 2003: 267). Albiston (2000: 113–14) suggests that debates over arts funding in the 1990s were inhibited by the abstract level at which they took place and ‘the pervasiveness of opposing frames’. Tensions in film funding debates have tended to arise between the competing frames of ‘film as art’ and ‘film as industry’. While NZFC policy has constantly combined cultural and commercial imperatives, this binary paradigm continues to shape much debate on film policies and funding practices. ⁹ This dichotomy has limited value, as a country cannot have a national film industry without a film culture or vice versa. Mainstream film production involves both artistic techniques and industrial practices, making the art/industry distinction somewhat redundant. Policy debates nevertheless became increasingly polarised as members of the film community reacted to what they saw as a problematic emphasis on film industry over film culture. On the other side, many politicians and some members of the public and film industry have argued that public funds should only be spent on films that are popular, as demonstrated by commercial success. International literature on film policy (Craik et al., 2000; Dermody and Jacka, 1987; Mulcahy, 2006) demonstrates how frequently this dichotomy – which is sometimes framed as elitism versus populism – comes up. Andrew Higson (2002: 45) highlights the tension between ‘intellectual discourses which insist that a proper national cinema must be one which aspires to the status of art’, and a populist discourse, which sees national cinema as ‘a mass-produced genre cinema, capable of constructing, reproducing, and re-cycling popular myths on a broad scale, with an elaborate, well capitalised, and well resourced system of market exploitation’.

Social cohesion and national identity have remained inherent albeit thorny justifications for state funding of film throughout the past 30 years. While national identity can be identified as a constant and fundamental goal of New Zealand cultural policy, it is now only considered legitimate when framed within an economic discourse. This is epitomised in a speech from Harley (1999), where she asserts: ‘Film creates culture, builds identity and markets that identity to the world.’ Such economic arguments appeared entrenched by the turn of the century, when there was reportedly a general consensus that government funding in the arts, as in any sector, should be directed to achieving ‘externalities’ (Hazledine, 2000; James, 2000). The cultural reasons for state support of cinema did not disappear, but there was an emphasis on the instrumental, society-wide benefits of a thriving film industry, rather than the intangible values of cinematic expression. Horrocks’ (1999) suggestion that art is commonly seen as ‘artifice’ and has no established role in New Zealand society may help to explain the lack of common understanding in cultural policy debates. It is not uncommon for policy discourse to contain such ‘verboten goals’, described by Dvora Yanow (1996: 189) as aims ‘which cannot be made explicit because they lack the social consensus that would support their public discussion’.

The intangible and hard-to-define nature of culture has been a source of conflict between economic rationalists and cultural nationalists, and the NZFC’s representation of cultural benefits in economic terms has proved somewhat problematic. Barker’s ‘cultural capital’ concept, for instance, failed to gain traction in popular discourse (Prince, 2010: 132), and even members of the arts community did not manage to translate it (James, 2000: 6). The difficulty in defining the concept defeats its purpose, as indeterminate outcomes mean little in a policy environment dominated by economic rationalism. Although it is possible to measure benefits of a film industry such as employment opportunities, it is very difficult to measure progress towards the more abstract goals of social cohesion and identity formation. The difficulty of putting a value to these ‘intangibles’ may be one of the reasons why cultural objectives have been marginalised in public policy discourse since the 1980s. The specificities of cultural production and consumption contradict some of the basic assumptions of economic analysis, such as agency theory (Hazledine, 2000). Economic measurements have their place in cultural policy analysis, but policy conflicts arise when the intrinsic value argument, which underlies the film community’s traditional justifications for state support of film, is disregarded because it fails to demonstrate quantifiable benefits.

This discussion has highlighted some of the complementary and contradictory frames within cultural policy discourse. Film policy disputes in New Zealand have been shaped by justifications of the need for, and use of, public funds to support film production, which have varied according to dominant discourses at the time. As suggested by policy discourse analysts, participants in these debates hitch on to dominant frames, or metanarratives, in attempts to validate their reasons for funding cinema. Their varying degrees of success have been explored through an analysis of the reframing process. While the early campaign for a film commission was not frame critical, it involved public and private discussions among various groups who determined that state support for cinema was legitimate if based on an industrial frame and in accordance with the metanarrative of cultural nationalism. This dominant frame became institutionalised in the legislation and policies of the NZFC. The metanarrative of economic rationalism, however, has not gained such widespread support. In part, it has been forced on the Film Commission through government policy and legislation. The NZFC has also actively reframed its activities in line with neoliberal discourse. Its failure to engage the film community in the reframing process may account for their resistance to the adoption of this metanarrative. Consequently, there is currently no widely accepted frame to legitimate state support for cinema.

While the recent rise of creative industries discourse seems to accommodate both cultural nationalism and economic rationalism, the latter frame retains more legitimacy in public policy in New Zealand. Film continues to be predominantly framed by government and the NZFC as a commodity with instrumental benefits for the economy and identity of the nation. The tacit values of creative expression and artistic development, as well as the social role of cinema, are not valid reasons to support publicly funded filmmaking in the current environment. An inclusive, deliberative approach to reframing the debate around film funding in New Zealand may be needed to overcome conflict between the Film Commission, policy makers, industry practitioners and other members of the film community, let alone the wider public. The recent ministerial review of the NZFC, led by local filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson and Australian academic David Court (2010) highlights these issues, and may have provided some impetus for more constructive dialogue among key stakeholders. Since the release of that report, perceived threats to cultural funding, law changes affecting contractors in the film industry, and the New Zealand government’s proposals to cut back and consolidate public radio, digital television channels and media archives, have prompted members of the public and a group of academics to campaign in support of public broadcasting, and professional guilds to form a new combined industry group (Screen Industry New Zealand). It is too early to determine whether these developments are leading to an open, inclusive and frame-critical dialogue. This article implies that such an approach is needed if legitimacy is to be built for media and cultural agencies lacking public and political support.