Vol.:(0123456789) Int J Semiot Law https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09757-y 1 3 Hollywood, an American Factory of International Soft Law and Social Order Mikel Díez Sarasola 1 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract Even if Hollywood is often represented as a liberal and progressive paradise, the liberal approach showed by the Hollywood star system is not present in the same proportion and degree in Hollywood blockbusters. Apart from some arguable con- tributions to the cause of minorities, in general, Hollywood tends to reinforce and perpetuate the establishment, the status quo and the structural causes leading to the Abyssal line and thus, it contributes to maintaining the social order. The Abyssal line (a mostly unknown and terrifying area of the ocean) is used by de Sousa San- tos as a powerful metaphor to describe our ambivalent world, a world divided into two territories; on the one hand, the Metropolitan side, a world which is home to those human beings “fully human”, where human beings live in a decent world and enjoy rights in a set of social relations and; on the other hand the Colonial side, where human beings are not considered human neither are they subjects of the most fundamental rights. Hollywood does not explicitly show the Abyssal line and the existence of the two sides of the world: Metropolitan and Colonial. However, as this essays shows, many plots of Hollywood movies (both in liberal and neoconservative dystopian narratives) and TV series show in an indirect manner, some of the main features of the Abyssal world. In particular, the most intolerable and hurtful circum- stances of today’s society are represented in scenarios and stories which take place in the futuristic, apocalyptic contexts. Keywords Cinema · Law · Hegemony · Social order · Critical legal theories * Mikel Díez Sarasola mikeldiezsarasola@deusto.es 1 School of Law (Department of International Law), Universidad de Deusto (University of Deusto), Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain