It wasn't really hollywood that started it. Swords were expensive and thus often only carried by the upper class and nobility. In some places that even got backed up by law. See the Japanese sword hunts where only samurai were allowed to wield a sword. And when the value of knights declined many stuck to their swords and had them embellished further to pretend that they are better than the crossbow and musket wielding rabble. Swords were as much a symbol than a weapon.
In quite a few places in europe it was often completely illegal for someone who was not of a recognised noble house, or a knight, to own or even have possession of a sword. For reasons that should be obvious, lords did not want their peasants to be well armed.
BUT, us peasants were allowed to own knives. And there were many regulations regarding the difference between knives and swords, which was important because people would make very large knives that were still totally counting as knives and not as swords, to get around such arming laws. We were also allowed to own a variety of farming tools, some of which are basically blades on the ends of sticks anyway, so turning them into weapons was easy.
