Our Red, White and Blue filter
We think democracy and picture liberal democrats and conservative republicans. We think movies and picture Hollywood. Fast food—Mcdonald’s. Social media—Facebook. Rap—Eminem.
We think of culture and imagine the United States of America.
Never before has there been an era where cultural diversity is as highly regarded as it is now. Never before has there been an era where nations have voluntarily adopted the culture of another so completely.
Evidence of American cultural exportation is readily available. Hollywood movies capture more than 70% of European markets. The top 15 most widely used social networks in the world are all American. International media organizations from Germany to Hong Kong are fixated on the American presidential elections.
But it was a more subtle form of cultural homogeneity that I wanted to explore. A few weeks ago, this paper sent out a survey to the secondary students of Renaissance College and asked them to recall 5 examples of universities, celebrities and political issues.
After collating responses from over eighty students, we found that 258 out of 405 companies mentioned were American, with the most commonly mentioned brands being Apple and Microsoft. 121 of 370 historical figures were American, with Martin Luther King and Einstein as the most popular choices. 343 of 370 current or previous head of state candidates were American, with Barack Obama and Donald Trump topping the list. 349 of 370 of renown universities were American ones. But the most notable category was film actors, where 424 out of 425 mentioned were individuals living in America.
It is apparent that the culture we expose ourselves to, from the actors we admire to the candidates we observe, are overwhelmingly American. Case in point: for the question regarding political issues the respondent is concerned with, the word Hong Kong was used 4 times. Issues like gun control, the politicization of climate change and the vaccination debate—distinctly American issues—were mentioned more than 3 times.
But I refuse to be sanctimonious—when I filled out the survey myself I fell into the very same trap: my thoughts immediately turned to the United States of America. The honest reality is that sometimes the Americans simply do it better—their universities are ranked higher, their companies sell more, and their movies have the highest production costs in the world.
The United States is also the most data driven country in the world. The seven biggest media companies in the world (Comcast, News Corp, etc) are all based in the United States and so understandably tailor their coverage to that geographical region. The US is the easiest country in the world to research about, and so their political and economic issues make great points of discussion; they allow me, for instance, to have conversations where I sound like I know what I’m talking about.
And lastly, I think the fact that we are an international school based in Hong Kong might have affected our responses. As someone who is not proficient in Cantonese, I often find cultural references flying right over my head when reading the news—that is, when an English translation is available. I highly value the fact that students are given the chance to study Mandarin as a second language, but the language disparity that students like myself face is the perfect representation of the bubble than can sometimes, unfortunately, shield international students from wider Hong Kong. It’s no wonder we look to the west for cultural icons and political issues.
It would be silly to expect people to ignore global icons because they happen to originate from one nation. It would be unfair to criticize news organizations and students who look at Donald Trump as a prime conversation topic—the politician might possibly end up occupying one of the most important seats in the world. It’s ludicrous to demand that we stop reading American newspapers or tabloids because they make for excellent reading material in a language we all understand.
But what worries me is the cost of our selective attention. The more time we spend talking about the American election, the more informed we are on two-party systems, democratic versus republican ideals, and political polarization. But we also have less to say about a multi-party democracy like the United Kingdom. The more we fixate on movies or books about Americans in America, the less we explore, say, Chinese or Indian cultures. The more we fixate on gun control when the problem isn’t relevant to most nations around the world, ours included, the less we talk about climate change or suffrage in Hong Kong. Our fixation on the States also allows ourselves to make assumptions about politics and societies because our perceptual frame of reference is the United States. Granted, it is a diverse country, but a population of 300 million cannot generalize 7 billion people. If we keep entrenching in ourselves foreign values like absolute free speech or the American dream, we sacrifice our ability to decide on our own values based on our own contexts.
We’re living in unprecedented time period where teenagers like us might just be able to influence what happens to our city in the next decade, if only we decide to stop looking westwards and embrace where we are right now.
Every time we read a translated novel, every time we watch a film not from Hollywood, every time we discuss an issue that is not distinctly American, we become a little more the internationally-minded and understanding people we can be. I don’t ask that we distance ourselves from American culture entirely. I simply ask that we make an effort to introduce other forms of culture, whether they be Australian or British or Chinese, into our lives. I ask that every time we cite an example about America to prove something about the world, we remind ourselves that democratic systems aren’t always two-party, that freedom of speech isn’t absolute everywhere, that Hollywood isn’t the only film industry in the world.
Let’s start seeing the world in more colors than blue, white and red.
