People around the world watch American movies. The blockbuster Titanic made more money around the world than in the US. When I was in France, I had the option of watching my favorite American movie either with French voice overs or without French voice overs. Barry Brunett (1994) defines popular culture as "those systems or artifacts that most people share and that most people know about." Popular culture is produced by cultural industries such as movies, TV, radio, newspaper, social media, web articles, books, music and food. Popular culture is not the same as folk culture, which reflects age-old cultural traditions such as Europeans dressed in folk costumes of past centuries. Pop culture is everywhere. When you drive down the street, you see a billboard of the latest blockbuster movie and pop culture fulfills a social function.
Most US movies portray the hero as the straight white male getting the female or saving the world. Meanwhile, Asian Americans are portrayed as geeks or as comic relief. African Americans are portrayed as the loyal sidekick of the white male. Females also play a subordinate role in American movies.
When people around the world watch US movies, they think the ideal American is a white male with blonde hair and blue eyes. African Americans are often portrayed as criminals, thugs or drug dealers while Muslim Americans are portrayed as terrorists. Asian Americans are portrayed as geeks, ultra smart geniuses with no life of their own, or as spies for the Chinese government. If a theater goer has no idea what American culture is like, then they are learning about white American culture primarily in these films and the foreign movie-goer rarely sees other ethnic groups depicted as real 3 dimensional people.
Not many movies are made with an all Asian American cast. I think about 25 years ago, Joy Luck Club was a hit and now 25 years later Crazy Rich Asians had an all Asian American cast. There have been other Asian American movies, but they are very few compared with American movies with white males as the ideal American.
While people around the world get to watch American movies, American themselves do not watch as many foreign films because Americans do not like to read the foreign subtitles. Sometimes the jokes do not translate well into English. In comparison to people around the world, Americans watch fewer foreign films than foreigners watch American films
When people around the world watch American movies with the hero as the straight white male, they have a misconception of the other races in America. They develop the wrong idea that the only race that matters is the white race in America. And they miss out on the richness of diversity of other cultures in the US. US culture is seen mainly as a white culture in other countries.
I was surprised at how often American movies or American TV shows are shown around the world. When I went to Taiwan, I saw all my favorite TV shows like Modern Family, and old shows like Different Strokes for Different Folks. When I went to France, I watched American movies like Titanic and TV shows like John Wayne movies (the French voice over guy had the same quality voice as the real John Wayne.) In France, I saw the newest American TV shows as well as older classics like Dallas and Dynasty. People around the world know more about American culture than Americans do about foreign cultures because of the massive exportation of American movies, TV, internet, streaming internet around the world.
To make your students more aware of the cultural and ethnic bias of American films, ask your students this:
1. Ask your international students, when you think of the word, 'American', how does he/she look? What American movies have you seen? Who was the hero? Who was the villain?
2. Do you think about African Americans or Asian Americans as the ideal American hero why or why not?
3. Have your American students watch 4 hours of TV. Have them write down how many Asian Americans are depicted if any, if African Americans are depicted, are they the heroes, comic relief or the villain? Who is usually portrayed as the hero? Then begin a discussion on why there is a need for more ethnic representation in American films.
4. How do stereotypes of ethnic groups influence intercultural communication? What prejudices will foreigners have about African Americans? Muslim Americans or Asian Americans based on many American movies (especially movies made from the early 20th century)? How does media influence the way we think? How does media influence what others think of you?
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