American woman.
American psycho.
American entertainment.
Let's just get this out of the way: I want to clarify and disambiguate between two things: American entertainment and pop culture. American entertainment is the production, distribution, and consumption of our films, music, television shows, etc. Pop culture is the obsession with these things and with celebrity. I'll talk about the former in the first part of this post and the latter in the second part.
Some people say America doesn't make anything anymore, doesn't build anything anymore. So I've heard. Look at the stevedores of Baltimore shipping in Season 2 of The Wire. The death of the American working class, indeed. Reminds me a little bit of Pretty Woman. What is it that Richard Gere says as he laments that his success has come with his company only breaking up and selling other companies? "We don't build anything." I wonder if he knew how poignant that quote would be today.
But for me, I really couldn't disagree with these people more. Absolutely America still builds things. You know, like buildings. We have manufacturing. The Mercedes Benz and AirBus plants in Alabama, I think BMW has one in North Carolina now. Motorola (now owned by Google basically) at least assembles in Texas, right? I guess the lamentations have quieted down recently. And we have companies that build all over the world. HP, IBM, and others have manufacturing in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
And not only do we build, but we produce! What does California alone have? Facebook, Google, Apple. Washington has Microsoft. Ok, so we're pretty strong on the technology front, obvi. And for these companies, what I mean we're producing is services, so not tangible goods, but other things people want.
So, to the point of my post: American entertainment. I want to talk about it specifically because, for me, given the scale, it's rivaled by no one globally. Not even close. There are competitors I'd say, think Chinese cinema, Bollywood (it's a big industry in India but I don't see it consumed much outside of India and some surrounding countries and Indians abroad). South Korea is doing a great job with music (Gangnam Style). They really know how to throw money at that industry and make it work.
But American entertainment? Fuggedaboutit. Just one example: The Avengers, Thor. $200 million to make a movie that might lose $150 million or make $800 million. God look at that! What investment! What return! What loss! Over and over again! Without fail! We crank out TONS of movies and we haven't touch tv shows or music yet! $200 million on a single movie and it's not like we make one movie a year.
I believe we are the pinnacle of entertainment. We make the most and we make the best entertainment, year after year. It doesn't mean that we make the absolute best song every year or best movie ever year, but we product so much good entertainment. If you want to be big globally, you have to work in the US market. Take The Beatles. I'm paraphrasing here, but they said something to the effect of, "We don't want to come to the US until we're number one." Numero uno. Notice they didn't say France, they didn't say Germany, or Ghana, or China. The US. Rail against me all you want for being a Pro-America American and for being obnoxious, but when it comes to entertainment, we're kind of a big deal.
Our entertainment, produced in the US (and, of course, filmed abroad where applicable) is eaten UP by the United States and the world. I mean, California would be, what, the world's 8th largest economy by itself?* It's true. You know it. I know it. American entertainment is consumed and loved by every corner of the world. It's like Coke. And people say the world hates us. Fuck yourself.**
All you have to do is travel a little bit to see it. People watch our shows, in English or translated from English in their language. They listen to our music in English. They watch our movies with subtitles. So many people abroad have heard of, watched, and/or loved Friends. I have heard non-Americans say "Yeah, of course we have music in our language, but in order to be known globally, you have to be in English so more people can understand and identify with your music. You're just reaching a much larger market."*** I've met people in Argentina who watching Breaking Bad. It's great.
Other countries have what other countries have. We build, they build. They are no better or worse than us for any of this. Please don't take away from this that I think America is the best country in the world or better than any other country in the world. But I do think our entertainment industry is the best in the world. You might have whatever you have. But America? We have The Hulk.
Coming up next week (i.e., whenever the hell I feel like): Part 2 - Pop Culture As A Multipliler Effect
*NO CLUE IF THIS IS RIGHT I MADE IT UP. And, of course, that's not just due to the entertainment industry.
**See, Ashley? It does work.
***Sure, this is more an argument for English, but bear with me
American psycho.
American entertainment.
Let's just get this out of the way: I want to clarify and disambiguate between two things: American entertainment and pop culture. American entertainment is the production, distribution, and consumption of our films, music, television shows, etc. Pop culture is the obsession with these things and with celebrity. I'll talk about the former in the first part of this post and the latter in the second part.
Some people say America doesn't make anything anymore, doesn't build anything anymore. So I've heard. Look at the stevedores of Baltimore shipping in Season 2 of The Wire. The death of the American working class, indeed. Reminds me a little bit of Pretty Woman. What is it that Richard Gere says as he laments that his success has come with his company only breaking up and selling other companies? "We don't build anything." I wonder if he knew how poignant that quote would be today.
But for me, I really couldn't disagree with these people more. Absolutely America still builds things. You know, like buildings. We have manufacturing. The Mercedes Benz and AirBus plants in Alabama, I think BMW has one in North Carolina now. Motorola (now owned by Google basically) at least assembles in Texas, right? I guess the lamentations have quieted down recently. And we have companies that build all over the world. HP, IBM, and others have manufacturing in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.
And not only do we build, but we produce! What does California alone have? Facebook, Google, Apple. Washington has Microsoft. Ok, so we're pretty strong on the technology front, obvi. And for these companies, what I mean we're producing is services, so not tangible goods, but other things people want.
So, to the point of my post: American entertainment. I want to talk about it specifically because, for me, given the scale, it's rivaled by no one globally. Not even close. There are competitors I'd say, think Chinese cinema, Bollywood (it's a big industry in India but I don't see it consumed much outside of India and some surrounding countries and Indians abroad). South Korea is doing a great job with music (Gangnam Style). They really know how to throw money at that industry and make it work.
But American entertainment? Fuggedaboutit. Just one example: The Avengers, Thor. $200 million to make a movie that might lose $150 million or make $800 million. God look at that! What investment! What return! What loss! Over and over again! Without fail! We crank out TONS of movies and we haven't touch tv shows or music yet! $200 million on a single movie and it's not like we make one movie a year.
I believe we are the pinnacle of entertainment. We make the most and we make the best entertainment, year after year. It doesn't mean that we make the absolute best song every year or best movie ever year, but we product so much good entertainment. If you want to be big globally, you have to work in the US market. Take The Beatles. I'm paraphrasing here, but they said something to the effect of, "We don't want to come to the US until we're number one." Numero uno. Notice they didn't say France, they didn't say Germany, or Ghana, or China. The US. Rail against me all you want for being a Pro-America American and for being obnoxious, but when it comes to entertainment, we're kind of a big deal.
Our entertainment, produced in the US (and, of course, filmed abroad where applicable) is eaten UP by the United States and the world. I mean, California would be, what, the world's 8th largest economy by itself?* It's true. You know it. I know it. American entertainment is consumed and loved by every corner of the world. It's like Coke. And people say the world hates us. Fuck yourself.**
All you have to do is travel a little bit to see it. People watch our shows, in English or translated from English in their language. They listen to our music in English. They watch our movies with subtitles. So many people abroad have heard of, watched, and/or loved Friends. I have heard non-Americans say "Yeah, of course we have music in our language, but in order to be known globally, you have to be in English so more people can understand and identify with your music. You're just reaching a much larger market."*** I've met people in Argentina who watching Breaking Bad. It's great.
Other countries have what other countries have. We build, they build. They are no better or worse than us for any of this. Please don't take away from this that I think America is the best country in the world or better than any other country in the world. But I do think our entertainment industry is the best in the world. You might have whatever you have. But America? We have The Hulk.
Coming up next week (i.e., whenever the hell I feel like): Part 2 - Pop Culture As A Multipliler Effect
*NO CLUE IF THIS IS RIGHT I MADE IT UP. And, of course, that's not just due to the entertainment industry.
**See, Ashley? It does work.
***Sure, this is more an argument for English, but bear with me
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