American cultural hegemony a myth?
Richard Pells rejects the complaint that “American mass culture inspires resentment and sometimes violent reactions, not just in the Middle East but all over the world.” Instead, he argues in The Chronicle, that the constant influx of immigrants has enabled Americans to create cultural products with universal appeal.
For anyone living outside the US, Pell’s arguments are worth reading and reflecting on, since he draws on the history of modernism and innovations in painting, literature, music, architecture to illuminate the reasons for the current overwhelming dominance of American movies. I was taken by his explanation of the importance of English in disseminating American culture:
The effectiveness of English as a language of mass communications has been essential to the acceptance of American culture. Unlike, for example, German, Russian, or Chinese, the simple structure and grammar of English, along with its tendency to use shorter, less-abstract words and more-concise sentences, are all advantageous for the composers of song lyrics, ad slogans, cartoon captions, newspaper headlines, and movie and TV dialogue. English is thus a language exceptionally well-suited to the demands and spread of American mass culture.
(Link via Arts & Letters Daily)
Sounds a bit like a cultural version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Posted by: zem on 12 April 2002 at 12:45 AM