"American" Culture
by Jorge Vargas
Yesterday was an excellent day here in the capital. Warm but not too warm. Sunny but not particularly so. Excellent beach weather for a people who do not often get sun-burns while trying to tan.
Following eight hours at the beach, I then made my way back into Lima and away from the southern coast an hour outside of the capital. The destination was the neighbourhood of Barranco, far removed from the highly politicized Historic Centre and also distanced, though not quite as much, from the tourist swarmed Miraflores and the ritzy San Isidro. If one were comparing Lima to New York, Barranco would almost be like Lima's Greenwhich Village, only without the arrogance and with a richer, and far older, history.
The particular restaurant that I was sitting on was at the bottom of a deep ridge-line that cuts from some 500 meters inland all the way to the cliff's edge that overlooks the beaches and, of course, the Pacific Ocean. It was still warm out and the Sun was setting as I drank down my beer and looked around, watching the trees - themselves some two hundred years old - as their branches swayed back and forth in the winds, and watching the remnants of defenses that the Peruvians had constructed when Chile's armies invaded the capital in 1881. And as I was doing all of this observing, I was also ignoring the prostitutes and the transvestites who were trying to win over my interest though I could not help but be amused by some of their antics.
I was disrupted from my thoughts and observations, from my rest and writings, when I heard two really loud voices on the cobblestone walkway that made the base of the ridge. Having chosen a table just by the edge of the restaurant's balcony, I looked down and saw precisely who was talking and, after a few more seconds, I started distinguishing words in English.
Two American - pardon me for a moment as I ascribe to one nation the name of one hemisphere - tourists, both men, who were walking by talking about - of all things to discuss in Barranco! - Coldplay. Then, one of the U.S. tourists said to the other something or other about how much Peruvians like U.S. music. As an example, he started explaining to his traveling partner that he heard U.S. music in every restaurant he went to and so forth.
At that moment, the waitress came up to me and asked if I wanted to order something else, so I stopped eavesdropping on the two tourists and went about my life, more or less forgetting about them until early this morning when I read on the BBC something about Elvis Presley, the icon of U.S. culture - which is, in itself, something not all that laudable but let's not even go into that topic.
U.S. citizens are aware that in the world there is a heavy anti-U.S./anti-Yankee movement. It is widespread and, more importantly, its followers, if you can call them that, raise excellent points about U.S. abuses and U.S. imperialism. U.S. citizens are also aware of high consumption of U.S. cultural products - even among the anti-U.S./anti-Yankee groups. Here, they see a great hipocrisy.
By contrast, this cry of hipocrisy astounds the anti-U.S. crowd and also angers them. They, themselves, can offer little explanation for it.
And the rest of us, those of us who are neutral on this issue, those of us who are neither in favour or against the United States of America and its countless failures, its successes, its multitude of abuses, and its occasional acts of genuine good will, look on in amusement.
But now, let us end the amusement and instead offer an explanation.
Is U.S. culture really that inescapable? Is it really that awe-inspiring? Is it reallly so free and liberating that the world loves it?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Let us offer two explanations. The first is what most U.S. citizens believe and simply do not question: U.S. cultural products are highly entertaining and people love them and they consume them because they genuinely want to. Pretty simple. You like something, you buy it. For a people who have really never known great poverty, that is the only explanation for consumption.
Now, the second explanation. This explanation comes from humbler roots, from people who know what it is to be second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and so forth, in the global pecking order and who know what it is to want and be absolutely unable to receive.
Ironically, this explanation is tied up with marketing and business.
Can Mexico afford to produce films that compete with the special effects of Hollywood's countless trash films that come out and somehow, almost always, seem to lack strong plots? No.
Can Peru afford to produce films at the rate of Hollywood? Yes.
Can Peru afford to market them as efficiently to film houses, TV stations and to the general audience at a global level? No. Of course not. Can Peru's film industry afford to compete with Hollywood's films? No.
The same is true of every Latin country and of most of Europe, to say nothing of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
It is not the inevitable desire for U.S. culture that makes U.S. cultural products so sought out. It is, instead, the inevitable appeal of well-funded and skilled marketing experts who employ highly successful marketing programs.
So, in fact, the anti-U.S./anti-Yankee people don't need to be so confused, and the U.S. can stop calling the other crowd a big group of hypocrites.
You can not consume what you were never aware of. And if you do not see the advertisement, chances are that you will never be made aware of it.
That is why there is U.S. music in so many restaurants of Lima: Good marketing by U.S. record labels which enhances their control of the market share in Peru.
Or maybe those tourists, like so many tourists, never left the bars and restaurants that were specifically designed for tourists and which, obviously, would play U.S. music.
That last seems like the simplest explanation, so let's take that one, but if it's wrong, then the explanation is marketing.
Or do U.S. citizens really think that we want to see constant remakes of Friday the 13th and of Terminator? Yes, the world has noticed that Hollywood is running dry on ideas.
I mean, how many old or foreign books can you turn into movies? How many times can you re-make stupid superhero movies? Please, put Spiderman into retirement. The guy must be exhausted.
