From: reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: American Cultural Imperialism? (was: the vanishing)
Date: 28 Jul 92 16:45:52 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department

In article <1992Jul27.1489.24867@channel1> "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com> writes:
>
>     1) Those foreign movies were not made by Hollywood studios.  This
>     means that the profits from these movies will be flowing to a studio
>     other than Hollywood.  Tinseltown cringes at the thought of actually
>     having some COMPETITION, so they have spent decades building a
>     monopoly on the movie business - not only in America, but all over
>     the world.  As a result, American movies are seen worldwide, but
>     many foreign studios have trouble showing their movies IN THEIR OWN
>     COUNTRIES!

The American movie industry has indeed devoted much effort to wringing
profits out of other countries.  However, I believe that the real reason
American films, to varying extents, drive other nations' films out of
the theaters even in their own countries is that American films are
calculated to appeal to the common filmgoer, not just in the U.S., but
across the world.  Many films from other nations are not meant for that
audience, or, if they are, are technically or artistically inferior to
the American ones.

As evidence of this, consider Hong Kong.  Hong Kong has a burgeoning
film industry because they have devoted themselves to making films that
are likely to have wide popularity.  On the other hand, Germany, for
instance, tends not to make such films.  There's a reason many French
films achieve popularity outside France - they make some very funny
comedies, and, once in a while, a high quality thriller.  

I personally believe that it is not only the U.S. audience that likes
to see things blow up, people get shot, and beautiful women take their
clothes off.  The American film industry is not forcing audiences to
attend their films, and is not preventing the audiences from choosing
other films.  Consider a nation with protectionist film importing rules,
such as South Korea, where there was a quota of how many American films could
be imported.  Also, for every American film shown, one or more Korean films
had to be shown.  The popular films were still the American ones.  The
plain fact is that there are lots of folks across the world who really
do not want to see "Europa, Europa", or "Raise the Red Lantern", or
the latest Godard film.  Your typical Thai, Egyptian, Peruvian, or
Dane would probably much rather watch "Hook" or "Terminator 2", just as
the average American would, and there is little point in blaming this
fact on U.S. cultural imperialism.  I'll believe that the latter is the
driving factor when there are substantial numbers of non-American films
that are made for mass audiences with equal production values and budgets
for advertising that fail to achieve the level of success of similar
American films.  Just as the world buys Japanese cars because the Japanese
give them what they want in a car, the world goes to American movies because 
the Americans give them what they want in a movie. 

--
		Peter Reiher
		reiher@wells.cs.ucla.edu