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Preface to "How Is U.S. Popular Culture Received Around the World?" Editors: David Haugen and Susan Musser Date: 2011 From: Popular Culture Publisher: Greenhaven Press Series: Opposing Viewpoints Document Type: Topic overview Length: 532 words Content Level: (Level 5) Lexile Measure: 1480L

Full Text: During World War II, the entertainment industry—especially Hollywood—took part in the Allied war effort by producing movies that showcased American values of honor and righteousness while presenting America as a melting pot of ethnic diversity. Movies such as Flying Tigers (1942), Air Force (1943), and Bataan (1943) also emphasized U.S. commitment to its besieged allies in China and the Philippines, and they demonstrated America's determination not to surrender friendly ground to foreign invaders. The U.S. State Department even commissioned Walt Disney to tour Latin America and South America in the early 1940s to create animated features that would show goodwill between America and its neighbors to the south. Although all of these celluloid efforts were purely propagandistic and meant to strengthen America's resolve and maintain friendly relations with as many nations as possible during wartime, they did present a very positive image of American values, including the duty to help foreign countries fight a just war.

Martha Bayles, a humanities and literature professor and author of Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, believes that the boostering America did during the 1940s and even through the subsequent three decades (as the Cold War against communism ran its course) has given way since the 1980s to an unattractive media glut that shows no concern for how the nation's image is presented worldwide. Bayles insists that American pop culture exports—film, music, and television—are saturated with violence, nudity, profanity, and a general crass commercialism that sends a very negative message to foreign markets. Noting that U.S. citizens are concerned about these messages at home, she wonders how they are received in parts of the world that have more conservative cultural morals. In addition, Bayles worries that the continual growth of these industries and the numerous products they dispense has not been slowed by a popular backlash that could perhaps compel the media to take notice of the damage being done. "Instead of questioning whether Americans should be super-sizing to others the same cultural diet that is giving us indigestion at home, we still seem to congratulate ourselves that our popular culture now pervades just about every society on Earth, including many that would rather keep it out," Bayles writes. She insists that "American popular culture is no longer a beacon of freedom" and is conversely projecting images of a violent, warlike society that breeds intolerance and imperialism. In a post-9/11 world, she argues that America must show that "freedom is self-correcting—that Americans have not only liberty but also a civilization worthy of liberty."

In the following viewpoints, several cultural critics debate how American pop culture is perceived overseas. Some agree with Bayles that the music, film, and television industries are projecting negative images that feed foreign fears of the pervasive influence of coarse American values. Others contend that America's cultural exports are merely melding with those from other nations, creating a global culture that all people can share. Regardless of whose argument seems more persuasive, critics of various stripes recognize—as Bayles writes—that American pop culture is "our de facto ambassador to the world" and undoubtedly shapes the way in which the rest of the world views America.

Books

John Alberti Text Messaging: Reading and Writing About Popular Culture. Florence, KY: Wadsworth, 2008. LeRoy Ashby With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. Ben H. Bagdikian The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon, 2004. Ray B. Browne Profiles of Popular Culture: A Reader. Madison, WI: Popular, 2005. Jean Burgess and Joshua Green YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Lane Crothers Globalization and American Popular Culture. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.

Shirley Fedorak Pop Culture: The Culture of Everyday Life. Toronto: UTP Higher Education, 2009. Nathan W. Fisk Understanding Online Piracy: The Truth About Illegal File Sharing. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Jib Fowles The Case for Television Violence. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1999. Matthew Fraser Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2005. Joshua Gamson Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. James Paul Gee What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Dave Grossman and Gloria Degaetano Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence. New York: Crown, 1999. Keith Gumery International Views: America and the Rest of the World. New York: Longman, 2006. James T. Hamilton Channeling Violence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Andrew Hammond Popular Culture in the Arab World. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press, 2007. Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn, eds. Understanding Reality Television. New York: Routledge, 2004. Peter Howe Paparazzi: And Our Obsession with Celebrity. New York: Artisan, 2005. Mizuko Ito et al. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Henry Jenkins Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Media Consumers in a Digital Age. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Roland Kelts Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Lawrence Kutner Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Cooper Lawrence The Cult of Celebrity: What Our Fascination with the Stars Reveals About Us. Guilford, CT: Skirt!, 2009. Antony Loewenstein The Blogging Revolution. Carlton, Australia: Melbourne University Publishing, 2008. Amanda Lotz The Television Will Be Revolutionized. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Laurie Ouellette and Susan Murray Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Neil Postman Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. 20th anniversary ed. New York: Penguin, 2005. Marc Prensky Don't Bother Me, Mom—I'm Learning! St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2006. Scott Rosenberg Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters. New York: Crown, 2009. Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader The World Is a Text: Writing, Reading and Thinking About Visual and Popular Culture. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2008. C. John Sommerville How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999. Karen Sternheimer It's Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture's Influence on Children. New York: Basic Books, 2003. John Storey Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 4th ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Wallace Wang Steal This File Sharing Book. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2004.

Periodicals

Martha Bayles "The Return of Cultural Diplomacy," Newsweek, December 31, 2008. James Vaughn Bowman "The Mystification of Change," New Criterion, January 2009. Danny Duncan Collum "'We Are the World': Now Playing Near You: A Global Monoculture," Sojourners, May 2007. Mark Edmundson "Notes on Mono-Culture," Massachusetts Review, Spring-Summer 2009. Boris Kachka "What the World Thinks About Us," Conde Nast Traveler, November 2008. Andrew Kohut and Richard Wike "Positive Aspects of U.S. Image," Harvard International Review, Winter 2009. Ambardar Rekha "America's Popularity Potion," World & I, October 2007. William Triplett "U.S. Needs Image Tuck," Variety, December 24, 2007. Mortimer B. Zuckerman "What Sets Us Apart," U.S. News & World Report, July 3, 2006.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2011 Greenhaven Press, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Preface to 'How Is U.S. Popular Culture Received Around the World?'." Popular Culture, edited by David Haugen and Susan

Musser, Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010377140/OVIC?u=txshracd2512&sid=OVIC&xid=17c5522c. Accessed 4 May 2021.

Gale Document Number: GALE|EJ3010377140