CAN'T MAKE CHICKEN SALAD...:

A Common Culture (From the U.S.A.) Binds Europeans Ever Closer (ALAN RIDING, 4/26/04, NY Times)

Creative life may be flourishing in widely different ways across Europe, but the most common cultural link across the region now is a devotion to American popular culture in the form of movies, television and music. [...]

In movies European artists know whom to blame. The region's movie industries constantly bemoan the power of Hollywood, which for the most part leaves local films less than 15 percent of the box office even in cinephile countries like Italy and Germany. France in turn uses Hollywood to justify generous government subsidies and other privileges that enable its movie industry to control about one-third of the local market.

Yet three decades after the wellsprings of Fellini, Bergman and Truffaut, Europeans now rarely choose to see one another's films. In 2002, a good year for French cinema, 50 percent of the box office went to American movies and 35 percent to French movies, but only 4.9 percent to British films, 0.8 percent to German and 0.2 percent to Italian. And in Spain last year, Hollywood had 67 percent of the movie market, Spain 15.8 percent, Britain 5.7 percent, France 2.6 percent and Germany just 1.2 percent. [...]

In the case of books, "Harry Potter" is everywhere, but best-seller lists in Europe are generally dominated by national authors. A few have a European audience, like Italy's Umberto Eco, Germany's Günter Grass and recently Spain's Carlos Ruiz Zafón, whose "Shadow of the Wind" comes out in English this month. But most nonnational best sellers come from popular American writers, currently Dan Brown with "The Da Vinci Code," but also frequently John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell or recently Michael Moore.

American and British writing clearly profits from the English language: European publishers can read books in English, while those in other languages must usually be translated before being judged.

More surprisingly, while modeled after American "sound," even European pop music rarely crosses the region's borders, as if Europeans were accustomed to lyrics in English but not in other languages. The Rolling Stones can fill stadiums across the region, but no other European rock group could do so outside its own country. And France's undying love for its aging rock star Johnny Hallyday still mystifies other Europeans.

Does this separateness matter? Perhaps it represents the cultural diversity that Europeans continue to covet. Yet if Europeans remain focused on the riches of the past and ignore one another's contemporary work, there may also be a price. As Europe moves toward "ever closer union," unless it also communicates culturally, popular taste will become ever more American.

Hardly surprising that dying cultures aren't very creative, is it?

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 4, 2004 7:16 AM