DISCLAIMER: I have a feeling that Nat is going to hate this post.
If you know me (and if you’re reading this then you probably don’t), you know I am no flag-waving patriot. That said, there is no debate that bores me more than the ongoing one about the cultural supremacy of the USA, like it’s some big freaking crisis that everyone loves our movies.
In the latest sortie by the cultural has-beens of Europe and the also-rans of everywhere else, UNESCO voted just shy of unanimously for an exception to international trade accords (“accord” – n. – def. we freaking agreed to this already!) in order to allow for protection of domestic cultural content against a preponderance of outside (read: U.S.) material. Naturally, the US strenuously objected on the grounds of free trade agreements of various forms the world over.
I am going to mock and deride the UNESCO decision on two fronts: economic and cultural.
First, Economic. Look, the US may be the biggest economy in the world and we may be gigantic slimeballs in a lot of ways, but the simple fact of the matter is that we keep the rest of the world in business. We are net importers of, well, just about everything. Industry planetwide (that is, jobs) gets paid for by the US hunger for… umm… everything. That said, one of the few areas in which we do export more than we import (and we export a lot more) is cultural content. Movies, TV shows, music and even a fair number of books. We make a lot of money around the world on our cultural works. Cut us some slack! We need to be a net exporter of
- something
for God’s sake!
Second, cultural. I’m sorry, but any culture that has to protect itself might as well just throw in the towel. It is the nature of history for cultures to rise and fall. For cultures to lead, to matter and for other cultures (that once led) to go gently into that good night, crying a little feebly as they disappear because people once cared – really. Well, they don’t any more. So sorry. Now hush.
Take heart! Someday, the US won’t make the movies everyone wants to see anymore, but, for now, we do. Deal with it. If people in your country like our stuff better than yours, its for a simple reason: our stuff is more interesting. Our artists are better.
And spare me the McCulture garbage, thank you very much. Yes, this is the home of movies with Queen Latifah and Keanu Reeves. But this is also the home of Tim Burton and Marin Scorcese. Yes, we gave you Danielle Steele, but we also gave you James Baldwin, Emerson and John Steinbeck. We may be the home of the Back Street Boys, but we’re also the home of Dylan.
Yeah, that’s right: Dylan. Take that.
We also happen to be the place that came up with great ideas like comic books, blues music, rock-n-roll, cartoons, cinema itself and a little gadget you might have heard of called the World Wide Web. The Moog Synthesizer? Oh yeah, the was us, too. Try to keep up, world. We’re cooking over here.
Look, it doesn’t even matter. The market will out on this even if the WTO doesn’t take UNESCO’s proposal and use it to smack the body like the impertinent little crybaby it is (the US pays for 25% of its budget, b t w ). People like American stuff and, say what you will, snobs of the world, that’s because a lot of it is really good. Some of it is good because it is super fun eye candy. Some of it is good because it is thought provoking and engaging. Either way, it’s good.
Deal.
Post-script: just so long as we’re clear, I mock cultural whiners at home, too. There’s nothing I like more than going to a show put on by a “Preservation Society,” trying to keep people interested in some artform, language or subject that no one has any interest in anymore. I find it really funny when compulsive people waste their time on futile little efforts like that. Hey, long live puppetry, right?
{ 7 } Comments
Altho the condescension and extremity in this post is a bit disconcerting, I don’t hate it. I understand, unlike most Americans at this point, that there is more complexity than binaries like progressive vs Fox news, and what that is supposed to mean, in larger issues such as this. However, that being said, there is a lot of oversimplification and reductiveness in your post as well. For example, it would not take too much resourcefulness to figure out what to do with the surplus in this country after we’ve subsidized our farmers so that they make 100 times what a farmer doing the same thing in Africa is doing, who can’t eat their own food. This is not just about disparity, it’s about conservation, the present state of the world as well as American have-nots, and the future — ironically, all the things “conservative” used to stand for, but that word has gone to sh!t. Yes, it is not as simple as WTO yes, but nor is it as simple as we make the rules so just deal, Brady. Compromise is good.
It’s true. I’m more bitter than usual when it comes to this. The vitriol gets high when I start hearing people talk about preservation or protectionism.
BR
Sorry Brady, but what I’m reading is exactly the attitude that has in recent years made Americans one of the most hated cultures on the planet. You are NOT better, in any way whatsoever, than anybody else. You’re country’s entire existence is FOUNDED on that principle – remember your declaration of independence ? Line one ? All men are equal before God !
Yes there has been some real art in the American film industry, but let’s face it, it’s one out of every thousand movies you make. You have one Paul Verhoeven for every thousand Keanu’s – why should we be happy about a world then created NOT by superior art, but by market influence where people don’t get to see their own film simply because it isn’t SHOWN in cinemas !
Now as for your second last paragraph – how ignorant can anybody BE ?
Comic books American ? Sorry no ! The first examples came from ancient egypt for crying out loud, the first that look like modern comic books were created in china hundreds of years before the USA even existed !
Blues and Rock I will grant you, but you also turned your own backs on it, in favour of bugglegum pop.
Cartoons predate the USA by at least a hundred years or do you mean animation ? Yeah okay, so you had Walt, guess what, Walt’s legacy has done more to destroy the growth of the arts in the last twenty years with their frantic mickey-mouse-copyright-protection than the entire RIAA and MPAA together. No legacy is worth that !
And finally, cinema ? That’s a FRENCH invention… yes, the zany french did it. Go eat your freedom fries my friend (which by the way is from Belgium, not france), and let those of us who do not want to live in a giant mall fight for that which we treasure not to be destroyed by money.
Wait, hold on… I said American Artists are better… i.e. the work. I didn’t say the people were better. Sheesh! I’m a Vonnegut fan! all people are exactly as important as anyone else. Sheesh! Don’t put hostility in my mouth that isn’t there…
I mean, there’s enough there already.
If the US cultural ascendancy could be ascribed to market share then we’d also be the biggest exporters of everything else, too… but we’re not. In fact, we’re behind the ball in almost every other major industry that’s not service based. Financial stuff and stuff that needs copyrights… that’s what we dominate in.
It really does have something to do with the quality of the work. yes we are arrogant about this ascendancy and I join that chorus… part of our charm.
(granted, our governmeng also keeps blowing up innocent people… not so happy about that… but I care a lot more about things that we do that are wrong than the things we do that the rest of the world finds disagreeable/unlikeable. About those things… the “ugly american”… I could care less.
Now, American’s did invent comic books. yes, yes… we’ve all read Scott McCloud’s UNDERSTANDING COMICS and saw the early days of sequential story telling with pictures… but look: we’re the ones who printed comics on newsprint, folded it in half and put staples in. that’s what a comic book is. we are also UNQUESTIONABLY the ones that created the form they are most known for: superheroes. Sadly, other cultures have probably done a better job with the form since (France and Japan stand out here), but them’s the breaks and really only prove my underlying point rather than detract from it (because my real point is: may the best work win and don’t protect the schlock – and right now I really do think we’re best).
Blues is ignored now because it’s dead and should be. it was the music of a historical moment… it was great and it’s influence continues to be felt. America is pounding out new groovacious forms of music all the time. yes, most people listen to crappy music here. Most people listen to crappy music everywhere, though. That’s just true. I mean, come one? What country has a mainstream taste in music that isn’t poppy and lame.
really? Okay.
The indie scene is alive and well here, though.
As for film… well, we’re both wrong… film was invented in by a brit. As for who made it big and went crazy with it… umm, Hollywood! yea!
As for the Disney point… yeah, I think that was a stretch.
That said, I want to be clear that my real point is that the culturally ascendant culture is always going to be the most interesting and its always going to dominant, because people always dig the folks on top….
I’m also going to argue that ascendance does usually happen for a reason. There are great peoples (even if they aren’t better) just as there are great people (which also doesn’t make them better).
I’ll be the first to admit that America is nearing the end of its greatness and I’m looking forward to seeing who the next great culture is. When they arise, we will, no doubt, whine incessantly about their incursions into our stately and resplendent traditions. But incur they will, and more power to anyone more interesting than us to incur away.
But I’m going to enjoy the top spot while it lasts. Rock on!
-BR
paul verhoeven is dutch by the way, and he has recently returned to holland because it is becoming increasingly difficult in the current political climate for him to make films in the usa – his latest movie is being made in holland
the real boring ol’ binary argument here is the pop vs high cult/dylan versus backstreet boys one.
Jermaine, y’know… can’t say I disagree. In fact, I would really have liked to have contended that taken as a body, our stuff is really pretty damn good overall. I tend to think that pop art has more merit than people are comfortable admitting, just because it’s commercial and it’s everywhere. But it’s too subtle of a thesis for me to really defend at the moment (more of a gut feeling I have right now), and it seemed like too much to go into for a post that I already knew would annoy people. So I was sort of dishonest and stuck with things I knew people hated and liked as a general rule.
That said, Dylan does totally rule.
BR
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