SNL and the international comedy delay

Saturady Night Live is now being licensed, not just imitated, in other countries (see links): Japan, Korea, Spain, Italy, Brazil

Franchising of TV shows is nothing new, but with SNL the issue becomes whether a particular type of American humor, which is often ironic, political, and topical, can be exported or recreated. In all likelihood, only the format will be copied, while the humor will be the usual local one, but I hope some of the American style will establish itself.

Interestingly, Saturday NIght Live has only recently become known in much of the non-english speaking world. I know that in Germany, for example, most people I asked have never heard of SNL. I often have to explain that it is the most important satirical show on American television and that it has spawned many of the Hollywood stars that everyone there does know. SNL is not alone: stand up comedy, as well, has only recently come to Germany, where it is smoothly blending with what they call Kabarett, which can be extremely good. I often cringe, however, when I see the typical US style standup performance there it because it is so brazenly imitative (imagine ”Hey. How you doin’ Heidelberg?" translated in German) and many of the jokes seem merely lifted from US comedians, with the assumption that the locals won't find out. In time this situation will probably improve.

Also, believe it or not, Johnny Carson is practically unknown in Germany. This is probably different in Britain and The Netherlands, etc, where American shows are regularly shown without subtitles, but in Germany the local market is large enough that most shows are dubbed, and it would make little sense to dub Johnny Carson, Letterman or SNL. They did dub Seinfeld, which really doesn’t work very well. And, because they don’t know Carson, or Conan, or Letterman, someone like Harald Schmidt can get away with an amazingly shameless Letterman rip off (see clip starting at around 2:55).

So what has caused the delay of this kind of American comedy? I would guess that it is mostly a matter of language and market size. Obviously English speaking countries can simply air the American content. As a result, Australians and New Zealanders are extremely aware of US popular culture and its history. But, countries with a large enough local non-english speaking market like Germany and France tend to dub and thereby leave out humor-based shows because the jokes just don’t translate. Countries that are smaller, and generally more multi-lingual, like The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, tend to air the shows in English and with or without subtitles. Another factor is the content. Sex and action and violence translate visually, which explains why Johnny Carson is much less known than David Hasselhof in Germany, and than Schwarzenegger internationally. The third factor may be the internet. In most countries it is now possible to go around the official Television lineup and view American television, but it takes a while for the older generations to adopt to this newer medium and for the younger generations to find out about older establishments (like Carson, Carlin, Bruce, Pryor, SNL).

This disparity of knowledge points to a few bumps in the image of globalized culture. On the one hand Americans who travel abroad are often surprised by locals who actually know more about the US than many Americans (on some subjects, see Jason Jones interview with Iranians), but this erroneously leads to the assumption that they know everything about the US. Instead, there is always the national “portfolio” of international culture. The local still exists. In part, it expresses itself in very unpredictable combinations of knowledge and ignorance of the foreign.

I hope the export of SNL goes well. Of all the products to be exported from the US, I would prefer humor to be one of them, because it can be very subversive, cynical, progressive.

Related:
List of American TV shows based on British TV shows
List of international standup comedians (click on the United States link to get a picture of the difference in pure quantity).
Germany voted the least funny, US the most.

European and American population scales in relation to economic diversity

I wonder if there is a connection between the fact that Europe has countries with more similar population sizes and more equitable distribution of wealth within and between countries (than in the New World). In the Americas, there's "America," powerful and confident enough to call itself by the name of both continents, and there's all the others with far fewer population sizes, and much weaker economies. Within these countries, as well, there's more disparity of wealth. Is the greater economic equality of Europe contributing to a psychological acceptance of or demand for equality? Has the inequality between the Americas normalized internal inequalities? Has the exceptional wealth of the US simply attracted more people, contributing to its large population size, independently of internal politics? Are all the American economies based on resources and immigration first and foremost, and long-term economics second?

Has anybody noticed that the word "equality" has almost vanished from public discourse? It's more taboo than the word "liberal".

God, guns, and gold

A few decades ago it first occurred to me that American conservatism can be boiled down to an obsession with god, guns, and money (or to complete the alliteration, god, guns, and gold). When it came to joining church and state as in "prayer in schools," for example, they were for it. When it came to enlarging the military budget or "using force," or the death penalty, or anything having to do with the satisfaction of death, they were for it. And when it came to any issue where profits were in conflict with people or the environment, they usually sided with profits.

What I didn't realize is that many conservatives are proud to declare this obsession, which implies a different, curtailed usage of certain words and symbols, (or a profound cynicism maybe.). If you grew up with the combination of religion and guns in the home and with making a living, then "god, guns, and money" seems like a good representation of an honest, well-intentioned, and totally ethical philosphy. But these words have other meanings in different contexts. My main question is whether conservatives are aware that these words have additional meanings to other people in their own country and on the planet. Do they know what they are communicating to others? Do they have any empathy regarding their terminology?


from http://www.patriotdepot.com/ggag.aspx

Let's break it down:

God: For conservatives, it seems, this word has unambiguously positive meanings. It implies morality, humility, dedication, principled living, respect for a higher authority. But for many others it could also imply medieval, pre-enlightenment world views, narrow-mindedness, blind adherence to oppressive traditions, institutional corruption due to lack of checks and balances and critical thinking, intolerance of other belief systems, violence in god's name.

Guns: For conservatives this word stands for the right to bear arms in the defense of liberty and personal safety, and for the official mission of the military which is to defend the country. All that seems reasonable. But the word guns also conjures up violence, killing, war, destruction. The US military used to be called the war department. Now that it is much more war-oriented, it is called the defense department, and is the largest in the world and in history. Guns (meaning weapons) are also a huge industry with a long history of illegality and corruption. Guns are a form of power, and power corrupts. Not good, not christian, right?

Gold: I assume what is meant here is economic survival, self realization, productivity, prosperity, entrepreneurship, providing for your family, independence, personal fiscal responsibility as opposed to being taxed or receiving welfare. (I think gold also addresses a preference for the harder gold standard, as opposed to the fluctuating paper we use now.) But the word gold also connotes greed, selfishness, corruption, materialism, shallowness.

In short, the three words could easily be misread as intolerance, violence, and greed.

An additional question: do the promoters of this verbal trinity know that it could come across as essentially anti-democratic? Granted, the words are intended to promote rights: the right to worship, the right to bear arms, and the right to pursue happiness. But, conservatism is usually very protective of existing institutions. 

Politically we have three institutions here: the church (god), the military (guns), and the corporation (gold). All three are basically undemocratic. To be sure, many religious denominations have democratic traditions - protestantism is certainly more democratic than catholicism. But the language and the basic relation between humanity and the supernatural is that of the vertical aristocratic state: higher authority, to serve god, glory, lord, king, kingdom. The military, also, is explicitly hierarchical, with higher level members sporting their decorations like the royalty of old Europe. It doesn't use a system of one-soldier/one-vote to promote each person to the next level. And of course its culture is very much about obedience, service, loyalty, honor, uniformity, etc. The corporation, as well, is hierarchical. Yes, there are voting stockholders among "public" corporations, and some companies have worker input or some internal redress system, but generally corporations are run on a top-down model, with appointed positions, resembling the vatican and the defense department much more than the American democratic system. God, guns, and gold, although intended as a philosophy which values the individual over the government, politically prioritizes democracy's more undemocratic institutions. God, guns and gold, sounds to me like a call for everything that the ancestors of most current Americans escaped from.

Besides the assumed absence of god, guns, and gold's negative connotations, there is the greater problem of how the symbols contradict each other. If the first principle is god, which in the American context usually implies christianity, then the other principles need to be viewed according the bible. The new testament makes many diverse arguments, but its ultimate message, by shear repetition, is compassion for the less fortunate, i.e. peace and selflessness. Guns and gold, I would say, represent the exact opposite of peace and selflessness. In this internal contradiction of principles lies the ultimate creepiness of god, guns, and gold. 

A philosphy that mixes religion with weaponry and currency seems not only hypocritical, but eager to repeat history. It reminds one of the horrors of history, in which religion, despite its official messages of peace and selflessness, has been used in violent campaigns for very materialistic goals — think crusades, feudal wars, imperialism, colonialism.

In other words, do its promoters really want to call for a repeat of god using guns for gold?

Americans' knowledge of geography is inversely proportional to their influence on it.

Or, more precise but longer: The influence of the American economy and foreign policy on the world is inversely proportional to the American public's knowledge of the world.

No other country affects the rest of the world as much as the United States, through product and cultural exports, financial policies, and military interventions. Yet, the average American citizen, and especially younger Americans, are comparatively ill informed about world geography. There is a general world trend among youth away from geographic knowledge, but it seems particularly troublesome in the States. It is as if the US, in its educational institutions as well as through its media, presents itself as an island, as an independent universe, a world unto itself, with a few other nations somewhere else with far less significance. The cliché "America is the greatest country in the world" is often repeated, though rarely challenged or tested. "Greatest" implies not only "best" but also "most significant" and "largest."It is a personal opinion, presented as a fact.

I actually agree that the US is the greatest country in some ways— it has been for me, for my kind of needs and interests and emotions. There are many countries that I love, but none of them have such a broad range of aspects to appreciate. I would never claim American greatness as a general fact, as if the word "greatest" could ever be a purely factual statement. I think it would surprise many Americans that the US is not the greatest in these areas:

The US is not:
The most populous (China)
The largest (Russia)
The country with the highest standard of living (Norway)
The wealthiest per capita (Liechtenstein)
The country with the greatest upward mobility, a.k.a "opportunity" (Canada and all nordic European states have higher upward mobility).

This list could go on, and I'll spare you the "best" and "worst" lists where the US is on top. The point is that certain popular assumptions which primitively claim the US as greatest are ill informed. Feeling is not the same as fact. Belief is not the same as truth.

However, considering its size (though not the largest), its large population (though not the most populous), the US is remarkably well off and educated and well-run and democratic and peaceful (internally at least, notwithstanding the crime rate, police brutality, gun paranoia). So, I think this is where the US is truly "great." Countries of similar population size and land mass tend to be much more chaotic and less democratic, mainly because of the difficulty of management, but also because of the absence of a smart democratic system.

But when it comes to the US influence on the world, it does seem suspicious that Americans are not well informed on geography and statistics. Is it intentional (keep the population insular and distracted, while we use them to serve our interests abroad militarily)? It seems that way, but I haven't found any proof it this. Whether this is planned or not, the US underfunds education and overfunds the military, and the effects are not surprising.

Or is it a function of the country itself being so large and diverse, with a kind of "world replication" contained within? I assume this is at least part of it. The US has within it aspects of Latin America (the southwest and south Florida), northern Europe (the northeast and the midwest), the tropics (the Louisiana Bayou and the Florida Everglades), the steppes of Asia (the midwest), the Alps (the rocky Mountains), the deserts of Africa and Spain (in the southwest). The US has Chinatowns and Little Italy's, Korea towns and Little Switzerlands. So, whatever it is that propels people to travel, can be found, in diluted or partial form, within the US, for less. And, the only two borders you can drive to are Mexico and Canada. In most other countries of the world, cars and trains get you to a much larger number of countries cheaply.

There are numerous, well intentioned efforts underway to improve knowledge of geography, so lets keep our fingers crossed.

Link from National Geographic/Roper poll re: geography knowledge:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/roper2006/findings.html

Cars create an environment which demands cars.

Cars create an environment in which the pedestrian seems lost, inefficient, backwards, derelict. In the US, pedestrians on the side of the road seem in need of transportation. Just as a person who sleeps outside is homeless, a person who walks outside is "carless." In most of the rest of the world, where public spaces are older and thus planned without cars in mind, the car and pedestrian environments often have mixed without negating the role of the pedestrian. There, cars still seem to be the intruders, not the rulers. In North America, cars have defined place for over a century, and have almost completely edged out and demoralized pedestrian culture.

The short term reaction to pedestrian anxiety is to join the culture and use a car. The long term solution does not appear on the horizon. Perhaps overpopulation (resulting in density) or exploding gas prices will ameliorate this strange condition.

Switzerland is a clock.

This could be meant as a reference to Harry Lime in The Third Man: "In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Switzerland doesn't just produce clocks and watches, it functions like them.

The Netherlands repeat a picture of tall people on big bikes in front of small houses made of tiny bricks and gigantic windows.