Cultural diplomacy, or should I say the American version of cultural diplomacy is now being vilified and excoriated by Western European countries, and has been criticized for decades by Middle Eastern countries as well. But, is the critizism justified? In a word-no. While it is true that American culture can be somewhat crass at times, European and Middle Eastern culture leave a lot to be desired too. The caste system in India, the rule of Sharia in Islamic countries, and the denial of European culture and heritage by the Europeans themselves have left a vacuum that will be filled by people searching for an identity they can call their own. The politically correct ideology that Europeans have embraced, denying their own contributions to culture throughout the ages, has eviserated their national identity and corrupted their own sense of self worth. While Americans as a whole are extremely self criticial and judge ourselves rather harshly when it comes to our self image, our national identity is intact and we are extremely proud of who we are as a people and as a nation.
It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The authoritarian rule in the former Soviet Republics, the lack of freedom and denial of human rights in the Middle East where Islam is the rule of law, and abulic attitiude Europeans have embraced to the deference of a dominate immigrant culture, has exacerbated the national identity crisis on the continent and elsewhere. American culture has been emulated in part because of that crisis. If the desire to reclaim national identity is paramount, then Europeans and others need to eschew the trappings of politically correct multiculturism, and instead embrace the unique individuality and heritage that history has bestowed upon those nation states. And recall that is was this individuality and heritage that gave birth to America.
The Return of Cultural Diplomacy
America should aim to export more serious forms of entertainment as well as 'Dark Knight' and 'Baywatch.'
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Hollywood screenwriters get paid to come up with clever lines, so it's not surprising that when their organization, the Writers Guild West, held a panel discussion on American culture 15 months after 9/11, it gave it a catchy title: "We Hate You But Keep Sending Us 'Baywatch': The Impact of American Entertainment on the World." After a brief discussion, the panel concluded that apart from stereotyped portrayals of Muslims as terrorists, Hollywood was not to blame for America's plummeting global reputation.
One panelist, radio entrepreneur Norman Pattiz, cited global opinion surveys conducted in 2002 that showed disapproval of U.S. policies but approval of U.S. popular culture. Encouraged by such findings, Pattiz, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (which oversees all U.S.-funded broadcasting), created Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language channel aimed at Arab youth that combines Western and Arabic pop music with U.S.-style news bulletins. The channel has become popular, but at the price of supplanting the more serious Voice of America Arabic service.
Radio Sawa is hardly the first government-funded use of popular culture to burnish America's image. During the cold war, Voice of America radio beamed jazz into the Soviet bloc. For more than a century, Washington has toiled to open foreign markets to Hollywood films and other forms of entertainment, on the assumption, articulated by President Woodrow Wilson, that popular culture "speaks a universal language [that] lends itself importantly to the presentation of America's plans and purposes." In other words, Americans have long believed that exporting movies, pop music, TV shows and other entertainment is both good business and good diplomacy. Is this belief still justified?
Regarding business, the answer is yes. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that between 1986 and 2005, foreign sales of U.S. motion-picture and video products rose from $1.91 billion to $10.4 billion (in 2005 dollars)—an increase of 444 percent. As Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association says, "Among all the sectors of the U.S. economy, our industry is the only one that generates a positive balance of trade in every country in which it does business." The same is true for the TV and music industries, and the reach is far greater when piracy is figured in.
Diplomatically speaking, however, the picture is mixed. To be sure, police dramas like "Law & Order" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" can expose those who live under authoritarian regimes to the rights and protections guaranteed by democracy. But when people with no other source of information about America take vulgar, violent, vitriolic examples of popular culture—the film "The Dark Knight," say, or the TV show "Desperate Housewives"—as an accurate reflection of reality, the impact can be negative and far-reaching. "People who watch U.S. television shows, attend Hollywood movies and listen to pop music can't help but believe that we are a nation in which we have sex with strangers regularly, where we wander the streets well armed and prepared to shoot our neighbors at any provocation, and where the lifestyle to which we aspire is one of rich, cocaine-snorting, decadent sybarites," writes Jerrold Keilson, the author of a State Department study of international visitors. Indeed, a 2007 report from the 47-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey found consistently that "individuals who have traveled to the U.S. have more favorable views of the country than those who have not."
The same Pew survey also found that popular culture may no longer be America's best ambassador. "Majorities in several predominantly Muslim countries, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, say they dislike American music, movies and television," the report said. "Indians and Russians also express negative views of U.S. cultural exports." Pew also uncovered a startling rise in the number of respondents agreeing with the statement "It's bad that American ideas and customs are spreading here." Since 2002, the percentage expressing disapproval grew by 17 points in Britain, 14 points in Germany and 13 points in Canada.
President-elect Obama's sheer charisma has already refreshed America's image. But it will take more than a new occupant in the White House to turn the entertainment industry around. Interestingly, Obama was the only candidate who confronted Hollywood directly, telling an audience of show-business luminaries in Los Angeles, "It is important for those in the industry to show some thought about who they are marketing [to] ... I'm concerned about sex, but I'm also concerned about some of the violent, slasher, horror films that come out; you see a trailer, and I'm thinking, 'I don't want my 6-year-old or 9-year-old seeing that trailer while she's watching "American Idol" '."
Yet the solution is not to restrict popular entertainment exports. For one thing, America is faced with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and every bit of revenue helps. Besides, plenty of countries regulate their own entertainment industries. When I asked a young actor in Mumbai whether gruesome American films such as the "Saw" series had many fans in India, he replied, "Of course not. They'd never get past the board." India's Central Board of Film Certification must approve all films released in that country. When I asked him whether India would be better off without censorship, the young actor's answer surprised me: "No. Filtering is needed."
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