America's Cultural Role in the World Today

American + culture. Many people in the world believe these two words do not really belong together. The stereotype
of the clueless and uncultured American runs deep – and not just abroad. It is part of American culture itself – a
kind of “in your face” pride at being down-to-earth and everyday. The common man and woman with common
tastes have been celebrated in America since its independence. At the same time, the sophisticated and “highfalutin”
tastes of the upper classes have been viewed with satire and disdain. That is why it is a bit of a paradox that
American culture has become the world’s most widespread and influential today. Indeed, it has become so powerful
and ever-present that some fear it may actually damage their own national cultures.

The basis for the impact is, of course, America’s position as

the world’s dominant superpower. Not only does the USA
have “hard power” – the ability to get people to do what it
wants. It also has enormous “soft power” – the ability to
get people to want what it does. It was not always so.
Before the 20th century, America was viewed as a cultural
backwater. At that time the “American Dream” was the
USA’s greatest cultural export to the world – an open-
ended inspiration into which millions poured their own
dreams and hopes for a better life. It was around the time
of the First World War that things began to change, that
America first began to export some of its home grown
culture abroad through films and music. Charlie Chaplin Guggenheim Museum, New York (Copyright: Scanpix)
and “Westerns,” ragtime and jazz became familiar to
millions outside the country. It was not until after the Second World War, however, that the flood gates really burst.
The rise of the consumer economy and the “American lifestyle” in the 1950s had a terrific impact on the world when
American popular culture went global.

The English language

In the 1800s the American author Mark Twain once remarked, “There is no such thing as the “Queen’s English”. The
property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares.” Today, close to 70%
of all native English speakers are American, dwarfing all other groups. A constant stream of American TV, films,
songs, computer games and websites have spread American words and expressions far beyond its borders. Perhaps
the most obvious example is the expression “OK”, adopted by languages everywhere. Through sheer volume
American English has gradually replaced the British variety as the accepted international standard. In fact, it has
even made inroads into British English itself, replacing words like “stupid” with “dumb”, “angry” with “mad”.

It is the young who are particularly likely to pick up American slang through songs, films and TV. And not everyone
is happy about this. Many view the kind of language that “gangsta rap” singers use on MTV as obscene and vulgar,
but as they say in America “that comes with the territory”. Much of American popular culture shoots for the lowest
common denominator, and sometimes that can be very low indeed. Consider the MTV’s series “Jackass”. On the
other hand, American English and culture provide a common channel of communication and point of reference for
people all over the world. An estimated 2 billion speak some form of English, and most of those have the American
variety as their model. Now that is cultural influence.

The media
Turn on the radio, check the TV listings, look what’s playing at the local cinema, pull out a computer game or just go
online and search for a nice chat room – do any of these things and within a short time you will run into American
cultural influence. Why does America have such reach in these media? One answer is market. The United States has
a domestic market of over 300 million people in addition to a potential global market of more than two billion
English speakers. That means Americans can profitably produce a great many TV programs, films, songs, computer
games and other products for use at home and then export the same programs abroad at very low prices. No other
country has this advantage in both numbers and language.

Another reason is innovation. It is often in the United States that new forms of communication have either been
invented or perfected. TV broadcasting is a good example of this. In the 1950s American TV networks created a zoo
of new program types including game shows, soap operas, mystery shows, westerns and, of course, situation
comedies (sit-coms) that were later exported internationally. Later, cable TV expanded the variety and quality of
American shows creating such international best sellers as The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Heroes. And it also
set the foundation for the first international news network, CNN (Cable New Network). Perhaps the easiest example
to recognize is the phenomenal rise in the use of personal computers and the World Wide Web over the last decades.
Both were pioneered in the US and eventually spread world wide, carrying American cultural influences with them.
One wit went so far as to claim that cyberspace was American territory – an exaggeration, but only barely.

Yes, economics and innovation have their place in the story, but – hey! – so does style and quality. The fact is that
American programming is popular. It successfully appeals to the emotions and interests of a global audience. Sit-
coms like “King of Queens” or “Everybody Loves Raymond”, hospital dramas like “ER” or “House” have made fans
around the world because they stick to the basics – they portray regular people everyone can recognize and identify
with, however dramatic or fanciful the situation they may find themselves in. American culture celebrates the
commonplace, the average, the universal and as a result it has gained a universal audience.

Films
America’s cultural influence through movies has been particularly strong. Just the word “Hollywood” itself conjures
up visions of movie stars and Oscar nights and Western gunslingers getting ready for the shootout. Motion pictures
may not have been invented in the US, but modern movies were perfected there. The figures are imposing. For
example, in 2006, 64 % of all movies shown in the European Union were American. In comparison, only 3% of the
movies shown in the USA were from Europe. In addition, all the twenty movies earning the most money world wide
in 2006 were American or were made in partnership with an American film company. This included the year’s
number one hit, Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest which raked in over one billion dollars,
most of it from an international audience. This is what led former President Jacques Chirac to support putting a
limit on the number of American films that could be shown in French cinemas because he did not want to see
“European culture sterilized or obliterated by American culture for economic reasons that have nothing to do with
real culture.”

“Real culture” …hmmmmmmm. Let’s pass that by in silence.

One interesting effect of the dominance of American culture in films and other media is that many people who have
never been to the country nonetheless feel they have a good idea of what it is like to live there. The stereotypes that
American film and TV sell to their domestic public become the stuff of international opinion. For example, the
action heroes of movies like the Rambo and Die Hard series are regularly referred to when discussing American
foreign policy. (In that connection, the image of the Texas cowboy has been particularly popular recently.) Equally,
people may feel that they know what it is like to live in New York after seeing several years of episodes of Friends or
Seinfeld. Depending on what you watch, you can easily conclude that most Americans are gun-happy or girl-happy
or simply slap-happy. And, as much as these stereotypes may annoy Americans when they travel abroad, they have
only themselves to blame for spreading them around the world.

Literature
American literature spans too great a range to be quickly summed up, but American authors are certainly well-liked
in popular literature today. Names like Stephen King, Anne Tyler, Michael Crichton, Jacqueline Susann, John
Grisham, Toni Morrison, Dan Brown and Alice Walker dot paperback book stalls the world over, both in English and
in translation. Here, however, Americans must share the limelight with authors from many other nationalities, not
least the British.

If anything can characterize American literature in general it might be, first – that it began to make a serious impact
internationally only after the First World War with authors like Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost and
John Steinbeck. Secondly – that at the heart of many of the best American works of fiction can be found
individualists, misfits and social outcasts who view American society with varying degrees of disapproval and
distrust. Beginning with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, American authors have used fiction to
criticize and poke fun at American society, trying to force it to live up to the ideals it so often claims it stands for.
Overall, this may have given the world a somewhat darker view of American society than it deserves, but once again
the Americans can hardly complain. They are their own worst critics.

Music
It is no exaggeration to say that American popular music conquered the world in the 20th century. The list is
impressive – ragtime, blues, jazz, big band “Swing”, country western, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, hip-hop & rap. All
these forms of music have swept across the globe, most recently through international systems of music distribution
established by MTV stations and internet downloads. There is little point in reeling off a list of internationally
famous American music stars. There wouldn’t be room for all of them on this page. The really interesting thing
about this phenomenon is that it long ago grew beyond it roots and became international in scope.

Starting with the Beatles in the 1960s many of the greatest talents in rock & roll haven’t even been American.
American music has been re-imported into America with new sounds and impulses, creating a creative dialogue with
the world. And it’s not just rock & roll and jazz. Rap has been adopted as a style of musical expression across the
world. Even the entries in the popular Eurovision Song Contest held annually are now sung in American English and
heavily influenced by American music.

Not that America lacks important composers, directors, musicians or symphony orchestras. It need not bow to
anyone in quality or quantity. Classical music thrives in the United States, but it still cannot hold a candle to the
scope and power of its popular music. Once again the genius of American culture lies in its close connection to the
average citizens who make up its population, to their common touch and the common taste.

Art
As in literature, American influence came late to the international art scene. It wasn’t until the disasters of the
Second World War had thrown artists and impulses across the Atlantic that the United States became a center –
 some would say, the center – for modern art. New York City
came to rival Paris as a hub of new artists and art forms. In
the 1950s and early 1960s American painters like Roy
Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were at the forefront of the
Pop Art movement – short for Popular Art, a fitting name
for America’s entrance onto the international art scene.
Lichtenstein’s enormous reconstructions of cartoon images
and Warhol’s endless lines of Marilyn Monroe portraits and
Campbell Soup cans became icons of American art. Jackson
Pollock’s wildly experimental work inspired abstract
expressionist painters around the world. Susan
Rothenberg’s return to figurative imagery added yet
another voice to the mix.

In sum, America added its creativity and energy to the

cutting edge of art, a position it has never relinquished.
Today’s modern artists belong to a global community and it
is impossible to sort them out by nationality. But America
remains at the center of activity not least because of its
wonderful art collections and museums dotted across the
nation. Some of the most important of these are the
Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in
New York City, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles,
the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Art Gallery in
Washington, D.C. Artists have always needed patrons to
buy their work. The United States remains their greatest
source of patronage.

Sport
Oddly, for a country that loves spectator sports and spends enormous amounts of money on games, the United
States has not made all that great an impact on the world of international sports. Of course, it regularly dominates
track and field events at the Olympics and puts in a good show in winter sports, as well. But when it comes to
international sports contests, the US is often a world to itself.

There are two reasons for this. First, two of the most
popular games in the country are played almost nowhere
else – baseball and American football. Both share common
roots with the more international British games of cricket,
rugby and football (excuse me, soccer) – but they have
developed in their own separate ways in North America.
The second reason was just mentioned – soccer. Americans
do not play it much. Up to now, the world’s most popular
sport has been a no-starter in the US. Yes, a new Major
League Soccer confederation was set up in 1996. Yes, David
Beckham is playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy as this is
written. But it is not the first time this has been tried in the
States. Two soccer leagues have come and gone since 1921,
leading one wit to remark that “Soccer is America’s coming
sport, and always will be.” So, it remains to be seen if
America will now join the rest of the world in the “beautiful
game”.

Or maybe this is the wrong perspective to view the question

from. Perhaps the change will come in the opposite
direction, with Europe and the world adopting American
games. It has happened before. Basketball was invented in
the US and is a global sport today. Come to think of it, there
is now an American football league in Europe. Can baseball
be far behind? Certainly the last sixty years have shown
American culture in all its forms to be an extremely
exportable commodity. With its vast resources, energy and
ability to appeal to common tastes, American culture looks ready to remain “in your face” for many, many years to
come. Baseball, anyone?

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Sist oppdatert: 28.07.2008 © Cappelen Damm AS