Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

For my research I used an interview of Professor Marshall Fishwick published in Americana: The Journal of American Pop Culture located at: http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2003/fishwick.htm
    The cultural relationship between America and the rest of the world is not one-sided. American pop culture influences the rest of the world but the rest of the world also influences American art and pop culture. Some people think “pop culture” is a new phenomenon. However, Greek philosophers have been dissecting how pop culture was affecting everything even in Plato’s days.
    American pop culture could be anything from Fubu shirts, pink hair, McDonald’s, Walt Disney, or Harry Potter. If you would go to a remote village in Africa you would see someone wearing a fake Fubu shirt and jamming to rhymes from Tone Loc. In Budapest you may see a girl with pink hair, spiked, and wearing punk clothing to imitate punk artists from America. In almost every country you can find a McDonald’s, some countries have them on every corner. All of this has affected their music, literature, people, education, and art works.
    In other countries there are television shows that are essentially their version of an American show. Australia has ABC network. Australians watch shows like the Simpsons. They have our movies on their airwaves as well. I looked to see what is on television tonight in Australia (http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/TV/static/SydneyNight.html, retrieved 5/22/09 at 3:30 p.m.) and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is on and so is Anger Management. Both of these are very American movies.
    I think having influences from other cultures in a country is a positive experience. I believe that a country cannot shut their people out to other ways of life, styles, and culture. If they do, they would end up with a society like Iraq when it was run under a dictatorship. The people were suppressed and scared into submission. Allowing cultures...