The fast-fading luster of the American story
Nathan Gardels and Mike Medavoy Tribune Media Services
LOS ANGELES The publication of cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish daily earlier this year inflamed the pious and mobilized the militant across the Muslim world.
The American casting of Chinese actresses in "Memoirs of a Geisha" stirred the considerable ire of Japanese nationalists when it was released.
At a recent Rolling Stones concert in Shanghai, the Chinese government prohibited the aging rockers from singing "Let's Spend the Night Together."
Indonesian Muslim activists are in an uproar over the launch of a local version of Playboy magazine - even though there is no nudity.
These are but the latest episodes of a clash that is a result of the globalized media crowding cultures with incommensurate values into the same public square.
They suggest that, unlike past moments in history, the main conflict today is less about armies and territories than about the cultural flows of the global information economy.
The core of that system is America's media-industrial complex, including Hollywood entertainment. If culture is on the front line of global affairs, then Hollywood, as much as the Pentagon or Silicon Valley, has a starring role.
The reasons for Hollywood's power, which projects America's way of life to others as well as to ourselves, are clear.
Long before celluloid and pixels were invented, Plato understood that "those who tell the stories also rule." Philosophers tell us that images rule dreams, and dreams rule actions. And if music sets the mood for the multitudes, the warblings of Sinatra and Madonna are surely the muzak of the world order.
(There is more.)
LOS ANGELES The publication of cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish daily earlier this year inflamed the pious and mobilized the militant across the Muslim world.
The American casting of Chinese actresses in "Memoirs of a Geisha" stirred the considerable ire of Japanese nationalists when it was released.
At a recent Rolling Stones concert in Shanghai, the Chinese government prohibited the aging rockers from singing "Let's Spend the Night Together."
Indonesian Muslim activists are in an uproar over the launch of a local version of Playboy magazine - even though there is no nudity.
These are but the latest episodes of a clash that is a result of the globalized media crowding cultures with incommensurate values into the same public square.
They suggest that, unlike past moments in history, the main conflict today is less about armies and territories than about the cultural flows of the global information economy.
The core of that system is America's media-industrial complex, including Hollywood entertainment. If culture is on the front line of global affairs, then Hollywood, as much as the Pentagon or Silicon Valley, has a starring role.
The reasons for Hollywood's power, which projects America's way of life to others as well as to ourselves, are clear.
Long before celluloid and pixels were invented, Plato understood that "those who tell the stories also rule." Philosophers tell us that images rule dreams, and dreams rule actions. And if music sets the mood for the multitudes, the warblings of Sinatra and Madonna are surely the muzak of the world order.
(There is more.)
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