Ideas and Issues

American Supremacy American Pop Penetrates Worldwide

By Paul Farhi and Megan Rosenfeld
The Washington Post
Think of three films, three TV programs and three pop songs.
How many of these were American?

I. Comprehension
1. What is Americas biggest export?
2. What was needed in the 1950s to view American culture?
3. How does David Escobar Galindo think the US differs from Europe?
4. In your own words, explain what is meant by mindless consumerism.
5. Explain what Fidel Castro means by transmits poisonous messages, in the social and moral
order, to all families, to all homes, to all children.

II. Discussion
1. Why do you think American culture has been so successful?
2. How popular is American culture in your own country? Do you think this is a good or a bad
thing?
3. How else did the United States dominate the 20 th century, for instance in politics, business or
technology? Give examples.
4. Why/how do you think America managed to dominate the last century?
5. Do you see America as a force for good or bad in the world? Why?
6. What can other countries learn from America? What can America learn from your country?
7. Do you think America will also dominate the next century? Justify your answer. If not, which
country/area of the world do you think will be dominant?
8. What other countries are becoming increasingly powerful?
 III. Listen and fill in the gaps:

Americas _______________ _______________ is no longer the fruit of its field or the output

of its factories, but the mass-produced products of its popular culture ______________,

________________, ______________, books and computer software.

Entertainment around the world is dominated by American-made products. Its The Young

and the Restless in New Delhi, Garth Brooks blaring from a Dublin apartment, or the eager

______________ ________ _____________ waiting outside a Nairobi movie theater to see As Good

as it Gets. Its Bart Simpson in Seoul, Madonna in So Paulo, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman on Warsaw

TV.

Sociologist Todd Gitlin calls American popular culture the latest in a long succession of

bidders for _______________ _________________. It succeeds the Latin imposed by the Roman

Empire and the Catholic Church, and Marxist Leninism imposed by Communist governments.

Tom Freston, president of MTV, the globe-straddling music network, sees it another way.

Todays young people have ________________ to two _________________ _______________ to

their own culture and to ours, he said.

Once, back when I Love Lucy was still in its first run, US made entertainment could be found

only in places with the _____________ to buy it, the _________________ to show it, and the

_______________ ________________ to allow it across the border. Now, even in tiny Bhutan, a

Himalayan nation so isolated that fewer than 5,000 people visit a year, street peddlers offer illegally

copied videos of Hollywoods latest __________________.

Global consumerism and expanding channels of distribution may create __________

______________ for entertainment, but neither says much about why people prefer the American

variety to that produced in, say, Venezuela or Japan or France.

The answer is partly _________________, partly ________________, and partly a reflect of

the unique historical racial and ideological development of the United States. To its admirers, US
entertainment is something ____________ and __________. The United States has little and it is very

open to new things, said David Escobar Galindo, El Salvadors foremost writer. Europe has many

wonderful, but it is very tied to its past. US culture is ____________.

Jack Lang, Frances former minister of culture who is renowned for his protectionist views,

appreciates American culture as pure entertainment. Its without _________________, without

______________ It finds the soul of the child in the adult. This is not pejorative.

There has long been another view, of course. To religious conservatives, American culture is

still the ____________ electronic spawn of the Great Stan, undermining traditional values and

encouraging wickedness. US movies and television promote _____________ consumerism, others

complain, and emit a toxic vapor that chokes the wellspring of native creativity.

In its most extreme form, this distaste can serve reactionary political goals. In July, for

instance, the Taliban militia, which controls most of Afghanistan, ordered that nations citizens to

_______ _______ ________ their TVs, video players and satellite receivers. Such goods were deemed

morally unacceptable by the Department for Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.

A fair number of Americans might even agree with Fidel Castros recent critique of the United

States ____________ _____________, which he contended transmits poisonous messages, in the

social and moral order, to all families, to all homes, to all children.

IV. Match the following words/expressions to their meanings.

1. to choke 5. renowned 9. bidder

2. border 6. eager 10. to deem
3. spawn 7. peddler
4. to blare 8. wickedness

( ) having or showing keen interest, intense desire, or impatient expectancy; anxious.

( ) someone who offers a price in order to buy something.

( ) to make a loud noise

( ) the line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a

boundary.

( ) one who offers merchandise for sale along the street or from door to door.

( ) the state or quality of being widely honored and acclaimed.

( ) offspring; brood.

( ) that which is morally bad and wrong.

( ) to constrict (someone's) throat and keep from breathing.

( ) to have as an opinion; to judge.