America+-+'That's+Entertainment?'

America: "That's Entertainment?" So we've been reading a small amount of articles that all offer different positions on why our haters hate us, and for the most part, the general consensus appears to be that our goverment simply doesn't know what it's doing in the middle east. That's great and all, but in many regards, it doesn't explain why the entire population of these countries wants to kill us. Maybe, it's government propaganda, or maybe it is ourselves, or more importantly, our entertainment media. It's an idea that has backing, and I think it's a good explanation for the anti-american feelings. They don't like us because we're "immoral", we don't think so, but we do think our media and pop-culture is immoral. As a superpower, and as a commercially-successful power, we export our culture to everyone else; it's hard to go against this claim when there are McDonald's in every country. These countries view our culture, and for the most part that's all they see, ergo, we're viewed as a corrupt amoral country. Now it's not that all our movies are trash, I have seen some very good movies, like the movie __Ink__, but that's a shameless plug, that despite what feels like their small numbers, do seem to outweigh the trash Hollywood is wont to make. The problem is that these movies are difficult to translate, and other countries don't have the same ideals, problems, or sense of humor (Scandanavian comedies, rather disturbing). In fact "action movies have traveled more effectively ... since explosions and car crashes do not require translation (772)." Totally true, but there comes a dire consequence with easy translation: the overall picture appeals to the audience, but the morals don't. There's no context to put the film into, so film-goers in other countries are treated to needless violence as the norm, and that leads to Londoners having a "wildly exaggerated fear of American street crime" and a child who "knew that all Americans carried guns (772)." Granted, it's hard to translate our better movies into another country's culture, but it is possible, and if not, why not make movies that demonstrate the majority of America. Part of it, I think, is because that's not the stories we like. We, stereotypically, like the big bangs, explosions, robots, fighting, gratuitous sex, stupidity, vulgarity, and watching the characters in masochistic situations, it's that stuff we like, and consequently, Michael Bay stays in business and we keep getting the same kind of "comedies" all the time (which, you know, are alright every now and again). True, we like the touching stories like __The Tree of Life__ or __Ink__, but they're the exception. Still, it's interesting that "R-rated movies are dominated by G, PG, and PG-13 movies in all three dimensions (775)", and yet, cinemas in other countries, at least mentioned in this article, are showing R and X rated movies; more and likely because they're easy to translate. Still, the point seems to be that the movies that are easiest to translate are also the ones we enjoy every now and again and not on a regular basis.

Along with being escapist adventures for American audiences, that just don't translate well for foreign audiences, there's the point that Hollywood likes to make movies that double as social commentaries for America. On the one hand, there's __The Adjustment Bureau__, again, because the list of movies I've recently seen is really short, and the like, that are making philosophical arguments, and then on the other hand you have movies that are simply portraying the social life of America (sorry, it's a //really// short list). Specifically, for example, the "three major networks ... [that] offered different, competing dramatizations of the murder of Matthew Shperd - the gay ... student ... beaten to death ... no other crime ... has received comparable attention (773)." To foreign viewers, this would suggest that we think homosexuality is totally okay, so okay in fact that we flaunt it, we endorse it like no other. Now that's really not the way Americans view the subject, it's seeped in controversy and bickering. The reason the event was so focused on was because it was to tell America "hey, look at this; how messed up can you be?" To us, it reflects our guilts, to get us to do something, raise awareness, which isn't a prime objective in foreign audiences. Then you just have Hollywood running wild for entertainment purposes, "depictions of sex outside of marriage are nine to fourteen times more common than dramatizations of marital sex (772)." The reasoning behind this that article provides, to me, seems a little shaky. It doesn't feel like the artists in Hollywood want to be edgier in order to set themselves apart, and yet at the same time it does make sense too; it doesn't seem like Hollywood realized that "seting yourself apart" could be done with really good story-telling. I think, and it may not be any less silly, that America is going through it's "adolescent" phase. Everything is getting a gritty reboot - superheroes, movies, books, music, even fairy tales - and it's probably just that, a phase; but an important phase nonetheless. After the Cold War, America has had to come to terms with itself, it has had to take a look at itself and realize it isn't the almighty chosen empire, and it's trying to break free from its egotism by going through it's good-guy to bad-guy adolescent phase, which just happens to be now. It has some merit, America is a fairly young country afterall.

The one thing I completely disagree with in the article is the the apologists' view on how Hollywood and pop-culture "insist that American pop culture merely reports reality, accurately reflecting the promise and problems of the United States (771)." It's a critical point to Medved's article, because it's completely ridiculous and Medved uses the false position to springboard into his observations. By crushing the opposition, Medved makes his argument appear more enlightened. Let's face it, too, pop culture is not an accurate portrayal. It may be accurate in the regards of what American escapism looks like, but not the way reality is, especially if there are three different accounts of the same event, there's something off about that: they can't all be right. Deep down, we know that, we're all aware that behind the words "based on a true story" there is a story that is true, but the movie is not, by any means, an accurate depiction. It's the one thing that gets me about non-fiction movies, they're seldom accurate. One of the other interesting things was how members of Hizballah were Rambo fans and how "We [the Hizballah members] all like Rambo (779)." To me, it says that the America haters are against the morals and messages that they perceive in Hollywood movies, not the actual characters. If the movie portrays America as completely corrupt, then the good guy of the film comes to represent everything against America, which in the mind of the foreign viewer, would be them.

Really good movie, just saying. Also, shameless plug.