The Myth of Cultural Imperialism; R. K. Rauth, Jr.

448 The Myth of ·Cultural Imperialism by Robert K. Rauth, Jr. W hat's faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap over hostile elitists in a single bound? Well, it's none other than the all-American duo of Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald. It may come as a surprise to most Americans that overseas these beloved symbols are some times about as welcome as typhoid or leprosy. The cries of cultural imperialism are a rela tively recent phenomenon. With the withering away of Western colonial empires, nationalists in the newly independent countries often be came outraged over the staying power of colo nial cultures. These nationalists came to term the presence and domination of Western culture as "cultural imperialism." Paul Harrison's de scription in his book Inside the Third World is typical: "And so there grew up, alongside po litical and economic imperialism, that more in sidious form of control-cultural imperialism.

It conquered not just the bodies, but the souls of its victims.... " In time, the strength and attraction of Western popular culture became even more dominated by that of the United States. This development allowed the accusations of cul tural imperialism to become just as common in European intellectual circles as in the Third World. Because the French have traditionally been very proud of their culture, the emergence-of American popular culture has been an espeMr. Rauth is a consultant at The Services Group, a con sulting firm in Arlington, Virginia, which specializes in private sector approaches to economic development. cially bitter pill for them to swallow. The fear of encroaching Americana has often been on the mind of France's Minister of Culture, Jack Lang. Shortly after the Socialist Party's elec tion Lang called "for a real crusade against . . . this financial and intellectual imperialism that no longer grabs territory . . . but grabs consciousness, ways of thinking, ways of living. "

One of the people who have examined cul tural imperialism most closely is the exiled Chilean author Ariel Dorfman. Dorfman has published two books on the subject: How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comics and The Empire's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other In nocent Heroes Do to Our Minds. The case of Mr. Dorfman is important be cause he is so open about the elitism that the movement classically represents. Dorfman is extremely paternalistic toward the poor he has elected himself to represent. He proudly re counts one tale in which he tells a female slum dweller that photo novels, because they foster impossible dreams, are both "a hazard to her health and to her future. ' , Later we find that it is not photo novels that Dorfman opposes, but the fact that these books send the message that love and money can make one happy. We learn this because, soon after the socialist Allende regime took power, Mr. Dorfman was busying himself by be coming "personally involved in producing new comic books." Obviously, when it comes to Mr. Dorfman, the medium is not the message.

As he later notes in The Empire's Old Clothes, "No matter whether a country is oozing with opulence or on the path to pauperdom, the new generation is always required to accept the status quo of their parents." Unfortunately, Mr. Dorfman never recognized the truism of this statement as he produced the new status quo for his children's generation. The leftist bias of Dorfman and Lang is not unusual in those denouncing America's cul tural exports. Dorfman believes working hard to achieve success is a myth the developed world is trying to perpetuate. (Does this mean he doesn't tell his children that hard work is the key to success?) This attitude is exemplified by his analysis of a Donald Duck cartoon. Dorfman mocks the moral of the story which he considered to be "the amount of money each person possesses is equal to the amount of work and cunning he has put into it." Dorfman is shocked that the cartoon ignores the "years of appropriating other people's labor to build up that wealth. ' , Uniting Against "Pollution"

The cries of cultural imperialism, however, are not restricted to the world's leftists. In fact, there are few issues that exact such a universal response from the world's elite, regardless of their political position. The left and right have often joined forces against the American "pol lution" of their native culture. While leftists are disgusted by the strength and attraction of a base, capitalistic culture-one that emphasizes money, lust, and power-conservatives simul taneously lament the democratization of their "civilization. " One example of this coalition of strange bed fellows occurred recently in France, after the announcement that a European Disneyland would be built near Paris. According to one re port, the French Communist Party joined "unreconstructed Gaullists in deploring the en croachment of an 'alien civilization' on a site so close to the 'city of enlightenment.' "

Despite the popularity of American food, music, fashion, and movies among the French middle class, the attacks on America's pop cul ture by French intellectuals have been particu larly cutting. A popular magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur featured a cover with Mickey Mouse high above the Eiffel Tower. The head449 line read: "Is this Mouse Dangerous?" In the accompanying article, one writer likened Dis neyland to a "degenerate utopia." One of the leading French newspapers, Le Matin, warned that the European Disneyland will "deform generations of French children. " Le Figaro's writers were equally outraged. Louis Pauwels called the coming of Mickey a "defeat for Europe." The most combative was Jean-Edern Hallier who cautioned against a ,'cellulite mentality" that would lead France to becoming "the 51st state after Hawaii. " This spectacle would have been amusing were it not so disarmingly hypocritical. After all, French rightists never complained about dispatching priests and bureaucrats to convert and civilize French West Africa. Similarly, French Marxists had few hesitations in pros elytizing their own brand of religion to Franco phobe subjects. As David Lamb, author of The Africans, writes: in French West Africa, France "remains the paramount economic and cultural force. . . . Unlike other colonial powers, France governed through a policy of assimila tion or, as some have called it, cultural imperi alism. " This policy has not ended with the con tinent's independence, although French influ ence has slackened, much to the mother country's chagrin. Luigi Barzini, author of The Europeans, believes that France was the most dissappointed of any of the Western European powers at the loss of colonies and influence.

While condemnations of America's spreading influence are usually limited to the cultural sphere, a surprisingly large chunk of the opposition stems from the economic risks American firms pose to local inefficient enter prises. This economic insecurity further ex plains the left-right coalition. Workers repre sented by the left, and owner-managers repre sented by the right, fear American domination of their home market. In Canada for example, a top labor official fears that "free trade would tum us into bloody Americans." The same atti tude is shared by many in Canada's broad casting and publishing industries, where the link between culture and big business is espe cially important. Reactions to U.s. moves to open Brazil's computer market were no less fierce. Newspaper editorials were filled with charges of "u.S. imperialism" and Brazil's 450 THE FREEMAN. NOVEMBER 1988 foremost economic newspaper labeled Amer ican pressure "Rambonomics." Newspaper cartoons pictured President Reagan as Rambo, slamming Brazilian President Jose Sarney over the head with a computer.

Unions have also been particularly fierce in their fight against the first McDonald's in Mexico. This Mexico City McDonald's was accused of "threatening national values" mostly because it wanted to use part-time non union workers. Protesters painted "Death to the Voracious Bosses" on the walls of the res taurant. The horrible crime of the nasty capi talist bosses? Paying non-union workers more in an hour than the union's standard contract paid in a full day. Meanwhile, cars backed up in a mile-long line waiting to order their Big Macs. Which Culture Dominates? The world's literati will be happy to know that America itself is not immune to the fear of cultural imperialism. Americans living between Los Angeles and New York often bemoan the cultural products of these two foreign capitals. More serious is the risk posed by what anthro pologists term "the law of cultural domi nance." This theory states that whichever cul ture is technologically superior will eventually dominate its inferiors.

Until World War II, this position of domi nance was shared by Great Britain and France and was ceded to the United States in the wake of the war. If this theory holds true, perhaps the next dominant culture will be Japan's. As it is, Japanese food, fashion, and art are more pop ular than ever both in America and worldwide; Japanese technology and management tech niques are in even greater demand. While this idea might seem a little far-fetched to some, it would surprise no one in the rust-belt cities of Detroit or Pittsburgh. Auto and steel executives speak openly of their hatred for their Oriental competitors, taking the phrase "trade war" lit erally. "This time," one auto executive told me, "the Japs won't lose. " At the moment, however, American culture is-if nothing else-technology, and it is in this realm that the fewest complaints abroad are heard about cultural imperialism. But vaccines, telephones, and airplanes are as symbolic of America as Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald. Once American technology is in troduced-even though technology is generally considered non-imperialistic-a closer mir roring of America is likely to follow. For ex ample, once cars become important to a so ciety, road systems and cities designed to ac commodate the vehicles will result. Thus, a more. American-looking city is created. As a faster lifestyle comes about, fast-food restau rants ·such as McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken become more acceptable and neces sary.

This trend is especially well demonstrated by the success that these two chains have had in the rapidly developing Asian market. For ex ample, McDonald's highest sales per store have been recorded in Taiwan while Kentucky Fried Chicken's most successful franchise is found in Malaysia. The chains admit that their success has been greatly dependent on these countries' economic development and urbanization. The worldwide dominance of the English language is as much a result of America's intel lectual and economic prowess as it is of the legacy of the British Empire. The majority of the world's foremost academics and business men use English; to communicate with them di rectly, or indirectly through their writings, one must be able to understand English. When Americans, with less than six per cent of the world's population, have won 38 per cent of all Nobel prizes in science, it should come as no surprise that Scandinavian graduate students in engineering use American texts. Similarly, France's premier graduate iJ;lstituteof business management has switched to an English format. As the dean of the school insists: "Eng lish is the international business language."

What is the alternative for advocates of the theory of cultural imperialism? Should Amer ican professors be writing in French or Swa hili? American technical superiority also provides much of the basis for the omnipresence of our popular culture. American acting, writing, and designing is equal or superior to that of any Eu ropean country. As for the technical side, Americans are without match. In fact, Amer ican music and film have become, so wellTHE MYTH OF CULTURAL IMPERIALISM 451 known for their production wizardry that there has been a home-grown backlash in favor of less polished projects. Critics have become bored with movies that contain more special ef fects than plot, and rock music has a large and growing movement that has embraced the raw energy of "garage bands." Many would reject the law of cultural domi nance. To them, the reason American culture is popular worldwide is due to the power of multi national corporations and their manipula tive ad agencies. This view was succinctly stated by E. J. Dionne in The New York Times: ,'American culture is popular around the world . . . because it has behind it the enormous re sources of a very rich country. " But this is fur ther evidence of the movement's elitism. If we are merely the puppets the elitists accuse us of being, we would all be drinking New Coke in stead of Classic Coke (a fact that should be especially noted by those who describe cultural imperialism as the cocacolonialism of the world).

Rejecting Popular Culture The. ability to withstand America's popular culture is perhaps best illustrated by a commu nity within shouting distance of America's meg alopolis. A short distance northwest of Phila delphia lies a large community of Amish people living an eighteenth-century lifestyle. They have been able to reject T-shirts and tele vision, and have prospered, thus proving that not only is it possible to steer clear of twen tieth-century pop culture, but that acceptance of it is not necessary to thrive economically. The power of advertising is not an omnipo tent one. As even Ariel Dorfman realizes, "There is in men and women a deep refusal to be manipulated." Sixty per cent of all grocery products test-marketed fail in America despite the millions of dollars targeted for advertising. Conversely, many important recent musical movements, such as punk, acid rock, and disco, were popular long before they were no ticed by radio stations and record companies.

Moreover, without the influence of Madison Avenue in the Soviet Union, how can one ex plain the popularity of Levi's and rock music in that country? A more plausible explanation for the success of American popular culture abroad has been offered by a French writer, Pierre Billard, who hypothesized a melting-pot theory. As a nation of immigrants, the United States has absorbed talent from all over the world and has synthe sized it into a universally accepted culture. In doing so, columnist Richard Reeves states, "the world's great democracy has produced the great democratic culture. It may be the 'lowest common denominator' entertainment, but that's. just another way of saying 'universal.' " The immigrant can be found from the begin ning of America's-and therefore the world's - popular culture. Popular culture was born only in the last 100 years, during the height of the immigration influx. Because of the huge numbers of disparate peoples with little knowl edge of English, the purveyors of the new cul ture were forced into simplicity. Kurt Anderson of Time points out that comics were pushed by newspaper magnates Pulitzer and Hearst "to appeal to readers freshly or barely fluent in Eng lish. Vaudeville was a spangly folk theater of bold strokes that had to entertain first-and second-generation Americans."

This simplicity has, however, provided the elitists with much of their ammunition. One French writer, for example, likened the diffu sion of American culture to the Continent as the ,'cretinization of Europe. ' , This tradition of simplicity has continued with Westerns, war movies, and police flicks. These movies have been welcomed overseas largely because they are action-filled and thus better understood by people in foreign coun tries. (Of course, Hollywood has no monopoly on thrillers. Karate films from Hong Kong and Singapore do a bang-up business throughout the Third World. Indian films, which are gen erally romantic melodramas, do well because the actors use hugely exaggerated gestures better to tell the story. Despite the success In dian romances have had around the world, no one complains about Indian cultural imperi alism.) Another reason that these films do well is because they are created for mass audiences.

As French actor-singer Yves Montand, a former Communist sympathizer turned Reagan admirer comments: "If America has succeeded 452 THE FREEMAN. NOVEMBER 1988 in invading us culturally, it is because we like it. T-shirts, jeans, hamburgers: Nobody im poses these things on us. We like them." In contrast, countries such as France and West Germany spend a large part of their cultural budget producing films and T.V. programs that aspire to be "art." Critic Jacques Barzun com ments that this strategy has failed: "The French experience of 300 years is conclusive. In France, those who produced the works we ad mire today, had to survive as best they could, outside of officialdom and often in angry oppo sition to it. By contrast, the term 'official art' means art that is competent and safe." Furthermore, as any free-market advocate would be quick to point out, government projects naturally tend toward inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Thus any government-spon sored program faces double the struggle that any private production would not only in be coming art, but in attaining popularity.

Perhaps one.of the most ignored factors be hind the attractiveness and quality of America's cultural exports is that they are made in a free environment. Why would a creative Eastern European or Latin American risk producing a movie or album only to have it censored? Maybe one of the reasons literature flourishes in these two regions is because it is one of the few art forms that is a private accomplishment and can be easily hidden. The perils of censorship of the arts are well illustrated by the history of the Mexican movie industry. Mexican film, according to journalist Alan Riding, experienced a golden era in the late '30s and early '40s. This rise to promi nence was recognized throughout Latin America and occurred because Hollywood movies became more concerned with propa ganda and less with entertainment. This gilded age ended in the '50s when the Mexican government bought out the nation's largest studio, and eventually came to own most of the movie theaters and the Cinemato graphic Bank-which provides financing for most productions. Riding concludes that soon after, "The low quality of the movies exhibited in Mexico . . . reflected the government's· fear of political and moral subversion. Censorship remained tight, with only cheap and banal en tertainment considered appropriate for the masses." This situation has been altered only since 1970-1976 when the Mexican govern ment eased control and allowed the production of a number of movies that were both critically acclaimed and box-office hits.

Argentine films have been similarly trans formed in recent years. As one observer notes, "every time a democratic government assumes power in Argentina, the number of films increases-greater freedom releases cre ative talent. Financial problems are overcome and international recognition follows," as evi denced by the Oscar-winning The Official Story. Obviously, a foreign culture has a much better chance to dominate when local artists are inhibited. While radio, T.V., and film are often railed against as instruments of American cultural im perialism, the vast majority of governments show little restraint in using the media to fur ther their own interests. The Soviets encourage outer space exploration and development of Si beria through music and film. A song by one government-sanctioned rock group is entitled "I'll Take You Away to the Tundra." This strategy is shared by non-Marxist govern ments as well. One Mexican politico argues that popular culture should be used to con tribute to stability by diverting attention from social problems: "It's better to use tearjerkers than tear gas."

Cultural Imperialism in Miami One of the best environments to examine cultural imperialism lies not in Western Europe or the Third World but in Miami, Florida. Anglos and blacks in that city are tireless in voicing their objections to Hispanic cultural im perialism. As one bumper sticker states: "Will the Last Anlerican to Leave Miami Please Bring the Flag." With 40 per cent of the city's population Hispanic, non-Hispanics often feel like strangers in their own country. They point to Miami's two Spanish-language newspapers, two television stations, six radio stations, and the political domination of Hispanics. They are especially incensed that Miami residents in creasingly need to master two languages-an obstacle that has particularly hampered black employment opportunities. For instance, a reTHE MYTH OF CULTURAL IMPERIALISM 453 cent discrimination complaint was filed by two Miami women who were refused jobs as cleaning women in a downtown office building because they couldn't speak Spanish.

It is not difficult to relate to the problems of non-Hispanics in Miami. But a closer investi gation yields a different conclusion on cultural imperialism in Miami. What is taking place in Southern Florida is a hybridization of Hispanic and non-Hispanic cultures: evidence that cul tures are dynamic, making the history of cul tures a history of evolution. Cultures are adap tive, and as the needs of a society change, the culture is altered. The most conclusive evidence supporting this theory is the alacrity with which Cubans in Miami have accepted the American dream. With the help of Cuban-immigrant entrepre neurs, a dying port and travel destination has once again become a boom town. Equally im portant, for better or worse, Hispanic lifestyles are mimicking their Anglo counterparts. The vast majority of Cubans in Florida have learned English, are relatively well-educated, and for those between the ages of 25 and 34, earn a higher median family income than their non Hispanic white peers. Despite their staunch Ca tholicism, the Cuban divorce rate matches the U.S. national average and their birthrate falls just below the national average. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, approximately half of all Cuban women marry non-Hispanic men.

Older Cubans resent the Americanization of the younger generation nearly as much as Anglos and blacks grumble about the Hispanic influ ence in Miami. What all of this means is that America is as subject to foreign influences as other countries are. Americans do not suffer, but enjoy, Ja maican reggae, Chinese restaurants, and British comedy. As evidenced by the difficulties in Miami, hybridization of cultures is not always easy. But those who denounce America's cul tural imperialism should realize that closing a society is no solution to preventing outside influences. The most insular societies have the least to offer culturally to the masses. Despite its claim to the world's proletariat, it is ironic that the Soviet Union's most vital cultural ex port-ballet- has not been appreciated by the masses, but by the world's elite. A Classless Phenomenon Strangely enough, popular culture, the child of capitalism, is a largely classless phenom enon. As Kurt Anderson astutely observes, "Unlike serious painting or dance or poetry, the appreciation of popular culture requires no tutelage or special sensibility, not even close attention. Florenz Ziegfeld and George Lucas create art that is one-size-fits-al1. Except perhaps for Roman Catholicism, no other Western cultural genus has been as inclusive as modem pop, so truly classless." Perhaps only Levi's and Elvis Presley can fulfill the dream that Lenin and Marx desired. In contrast, with the exception of an occasional gymnast or tra peze artist, modem popular Soviet culture is a wasteland.