FredCDobbs
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Posts posted by FredCDobbs
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> I think it would be next to impossible to find any
> example of American Culture being undermined by
> foreign cultural influences. (Punk Rock, Anime and
> the Macarena notwithstanding).
I never said anything about that. Personally I would like for some Italian art and opera music to "undermine" American pop music and art. A lot of our pop art and music is crap.
>
> The Twentieth Century is the story of the
> media/cultural domination of the United States on the
> rest of the world.
This ?domination? is NOT an example of ?Cultural Imperialism.? It?s an example of people around the world liking much of the pop culture turned out by American businesses, just like some rich Europeans used to like to drive large ostentatious American cars back in the 1950s.
I think perhaps my first post was misunderstood, which sometimes happens if I don?t go into a lot of detail in my early posts.
In the first place, the term ?Cultural Imperialism? is an old Communist term which implied that the non-communist countries forced their culture on their colonies. This did happen a long time ago, in the cases of the Spanish, Portuguese, British, and French explorers and their colonies. That?s why the locals speak French in Haiti today.
However, I heard this term used against the United States in the 1950s and ?60, even in the ?70s and ?80s, regarding the whole world, even though the United States never tried to force its culture on any other country, at least not much and not through government agencies. All we have to do is make our culture available and the whole world jumps at a chance to buy it and imitate it.
But even then, not all of our popular culture creators are of any one race. They are made up of all races of all people from around the world who immigrated here hundreds of years ago.
What happened in our situation, going back to the early days of movies and recorded music, is that US pop culture caught on around the world, where ever the world was exposed to it.
All anyone has to do is take some rock music recording into any country in the world, and within a few years rock bands will start up in those countries. I recently saw a documentary about the ?punk rock? movement in China, with the Chinese kids imitating our US punk rockers of the Seattle area. I hate punk rock, but it is a pop cultural trend that is catching on around the world, but it is NOT an example of ?Cultural Imperialism?, since China isn?t a ?colony? of ours and we aren?t forcing punk rock on the Chinese.
The Communists of Russia used to call this ?Cultural Imperialism? because they were so jealous that no one around the world wanted to imitate any of Russia?s pop culture, but punk rock bands in China today is not an example of Cultural Imperialism. No more so than when the US teenagers went bananas over the Beatles and other British bands in the 1960s. No more so than those of us who see Post War Japanese films and we like them and we want to see more of them and sometimes (when nobody is looking) we pretend to be great Samurai warriors walking with a sword and a swagger like Toshiro Mifune. But the Japanese didn?t force that part of their culture on us, just like we didn?t force our cowboy movies or rock music on them.
So, my first post pointed out one reason why current American pop culture is so popular around the world, and it pointed out some examples of foreign pop culture NOT being popular around the world, such as Arabic clothing outside the Islamic countries. Blah.
I was down in San Jose Costa Rica a few years ago and I noticed that most of the consumer products down there were Japanese, not American. Some of the clothing down there in their stores was Italian. But there is American pop music playing on their radio stations and there were American movies being shown in their theaters.
I watch a lot of TV from Univision, which comes mainly out of Mexico City and some out of Miami. Much Mexican pop culture is based on American pop culture, with some European influences. I?ve got some collections of Latin American music, and that?s why I said that Mexico tends to dominate the Latin American music industry. Most of the folk tunes and old ranchera type tunes in Latin America are based on old Mexican recordings. Evidently Mexico City had a big recording industry early in the 20th Century.
There is some modern pop music industry based in Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela, but for Central America and much of the rest of Latin America most of the folk type and old type music is recorded in Mexico.
For decades Hollywood movies have dominated the movie industry around the world (with the exception of some of the Communist countries which banned them). New York-produced TV shows and music spread around the world. Even Nashville music has spread around the world somewhat.
I mentioned Riyadh fashions because nobody copies Riyadh fashions outside of the Arabic countries, yet people around the world, including people in Riyadh, Moscow, Beijing, copy American fashions and some European fashions. But this is not ?Cultural Imperialism?. This is just a clothing fad catching on around the world, like the way Mr. Levi Strauss?s gold mining pants eventually caught on around the world.... blue canvas denim, made originally in San Francisco out of white sailing cloth. But again, this is not ?Cultural Imperialism? as the Communists used to claim back in the days when they tried to keep their people from buying and wearing American blue jeans.
During the past few years on the internet I?ve seen leftists complaining about American culture ?ruining? the cultures of other countries, but still this is not ?Cultural Imperialism?. In Baghdad today, is our government trying to force blue jeans on the local people? Rock music? Kentucky Fried Chicken? When KFC places began to open up in China a couple of decades ago, was that the result of our government trying to force the fried chicken on the Chinese? Of course not.
Are we telling the Arabs in Baghdad, ?You?ve got to stop eating goat meat and you?ve got to start eating hot dogs and hamburgers?? I doubt it.
Where I live, in the US Southwest, I like Hispanic things. I?ve got tons of Mexican music recordings. I?ve been collecting it for decades. I like Cinco de Mayo celebrations and the mariachi music that goes along with it. Out here in the Southwest, from Southeastern Texas to Southwestern California, we celebrate Cinco de Mayo because it?s a big fiesta day. It?s just like some of those old Technicolor shorts from the 1930s that are shown on TCM, where all the movie stars show up at a big Mexican type of fiesta. That?s not ?Spanish?, that?s ?Mexican?. But.... that celebration, that food, those fiesta costumes, and the music haven?t yet caught on in the rest of the US. We generally don?t celebrate St. Patrick?s Day. Not enough Irish out here, I suppose. So out here the Mexicans and other Latins have more influence on our culture than the Irish do. And of course Mr. Strauss?s pants are very popular out here.
>The rest of the world has had to
> financially support and legislatively protect its
> National Culture against the domination of American
> influences.
Good for the rest of the world. I hope they succeed in outlawing punk music and fashions.
>
> But you know all this, so why did you feel it
> necessary to be derisive of other cultures? It did
> come across that way. Just curious.
I wasn't being derisive of other cultures. I was pointing out that other cultures are not as popular around the world as American pop cuture. But we didn't "force" our culture on other people. All we did was make it available.
>
> But if you want to mock the love the French feel for
> Jerry Lewis or the German's adoration of David
> Hasselhoff, I won't stand in your way.
>
> Kyle In Hollywood
I don?t know why you brought up Jerry Lewis or David Hasselhoff. I didn?t mention them.
Fred
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> No, I don't see it as "communist propaganda". Just
> anti-colonialism. Once a country ceased to be a
> colony of the European power, it could determine it's
> type of government.
That?s what you?re supposed to think with this film, but that?s why I posted the links to all the websites about Algerian human rights violations. It's one of the worst countries in the world for human right violations.
They are far worse now than when Algeria was a civilized French colony. They?ve murdered hundreds of thousands of their own people just with the past 20 years. The communists always ignore this, the fact that some countries are better off being colonies of civilized countries than being independent fascists states.
I don?t believe in imperialism or colonialism in general, but in some cases I?ll make an exception.
For example, look at the millions of murders in various African countries during the past couple of decades. These countries need a civilized colonial country to bring them into the 21st Century.
http://www.google.com/search?q=algerianhumanrights+violations&btnG=Search&hl=en
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?The Battle of Algiers? is an idealistic Communist propaganda film.
----
?Gillo Pontecorvo?s famous film, Battle of Algiers (1966), was recently released in Italy on DVD.....?
?The demonstration scene at the end of the film, with its Algerian-flag waving, ululating protestors, is where Pontecorvo indulges and celebrates his communist convictions ? the victory of the people over their imperialistic oppressors ? not foreseeing where liberation and independence would lead: in 1991, the FLN government of Algeria cancelled the results of a free election in which the decidedly un-communist FSI (Islamic Salvation Front) was poised to win a majority and banned the party. In response, a splinter group of the FSI, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), set out to purify Algeria of all apostate and infidel elements. It is estimated that 100,000 Algerians have lost their lives as a result of the GIA?s zeal.?
?Battle of Algiers is gripping with its scenes that seem to have been shot today in Palestine and that possibly will soon be shot in Iraq. Though Pontecorvo was a communist who sympathized with the FLN, it is quite easy to watch and appreciate the film even if one identifies with France?s mission civilisatrice and believes in the superiority of Western over Eastern values.?
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:MJMiEFsrF00J:www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/beary4.htmlbattleofalgierscommunist&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/14/algeri10485.htm
?(New York, April 14, 2005) -- Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika?s proposal of a general amnesty for human rights abuses committed in the country?s brutal internal conflict may permanently deprive victims or their families of their right to truth, justice and reparation, a group of international human rights organizations warned today.?
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/04/algeri10260.htm
?Estimates of the number of Algerians killed in political violence since 1992 range between 100,000 and 200,000.?
http://www.algeria-watch.org/en/hr/human_rights_violations.htm
?Disappearance
Torture
Massacres
Asylum
Reports?
---------
Liberate Algiers. Bring back civilization and French Colonialism.
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Most studio-made silent films that were sent out in the teens and '20s had general piano music scores (sheet music) sent with them. Many of these for simple films would be a basic rework of older scores or just some popular sheet music tunes. Silent film studios had music departments that would work up appropriate sheet music for the piano and organ players in small theaters across the country.
Major silent films were sent out with full orchestra scores for big theaters in big cities, and also with piano music scores (sheet music) for small theater pianos and organs.
By the 1940s and '50s hundreds of silent movies had been saved and had been copied to both 35 mm and 16 mm film for showing to audiences in theaters, for showing on TV, and for showing as rental films to film clubs, universities, etc. These versions had musical scores recorded on the sound tracks of the prints that were sent out. Most contained piano music but others contained full orchestra music.
So, the dozen or so times I saw "The Great Train Robbery" on TV, in theaters, in university showings, etc., during my lifetime, it ALWAYS had a piano music sound track. I don't recall if it was always the same track or different ones.
The only time I've ever seen this film with no sound at all is when TCM showed it a few years ago.
What happened to those 50-60 years of sound tracks that this film always had with it in the '40s - '90s? I don't know.
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Oh? You hum Arabic tunes every day? You prefer French movies? You like Russian ?culture?? You eat rats and ride your bicycle to work? You dance to Japanese music? You like the latest fasions from Riyadh? Well you are a real help cat, man.
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I wonder if anyone here has seen an older movie on HD tv yet?
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I think it takes an artist to be able to cook the best fried green tomatoes. Some people cook them to the limp squishy stage but that?s not long enough. Others cook them to the crisp ?potato chip? stage and that?s too much. They need to be stiff but not too crisp.
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They were scored.
I saw "The Great Train Robbery" a dozen times over the years, starting in the mid-1950s. It always had good piano music behind it.
The only time I've ever seen it with no sound at all was on TCM a few years ago.
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Back in the ?50s there were thousands of uncopyrighted classical music tunes, such as Beethoven?s 5th..... Da Da Da Taaaaa.
Piano players could take that introductory theme and carry it on and on for thirty seconds or a minute, adding to it, without even having to read the original notes that Beethoven wrote.
Then they could switch to romantic music from some opera or old classical tune, and play around with that theme for a minute or two. Then for the chase sequences they could play around with the William Tell Overture or dozens of other chase-scene type of tunes from opera. For scary movies they could run a couple of minutes playing variations on Bach?s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
Since this classical stuff had never been copyrighted in the first place, anyone could use it for any reason.
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> I was watching the opening introduction to "The Show"
> and Robert Osborne said it was a film that has just
> been sitting on the shelf because it didn't have a
> score.
>
> It made me wonder how many other possible treasures
> there might be that are delayed until a score is
> created.
>
I don?t get this. Back in the ?50s and ?60s when silent films were shown on TV by the hundreds, they all had piano music on the sound track. A few had a full orchestra.
A couple of years ago TCM aired ?The Great Train Robbery? with no sound track whatsoever! Dead silents for 10 minutes.
What small theaters did in the 1920s was hire some local lady to play the piano. She would also usually be a piano player in a local church on Sunday, and she could be hired to play for private parties.
When the silent films began to be syndicated to local TV stations in the early ?50s, somebody would play the piano music for the sound track, and there were thousands of tunes out of copyright. Even classic music wasn?t copyrighted. Some of these ladies could make up music as they went along.
Just like that lady playing the piano at the beginning of ?The Spiral Staircase?. She was watching the movie screen and had no music in front of her. She was making up the music as she went along.
Can?t TCM find a lady piano player in a Church in Atlanta who could record some non-copyrighted piano music for them for films like ?The Great Train Robbery??
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Somewhere I've seen world population charts. They say things like when Columbus landed, there were less than half a billion people in all the world. When I was a baby there were less than 3 billion, closer to 2 billion. A few years ago there were 6 billion, now there are about 6.5 billion.
When I was in high school there were about 149 million people in the US. Now there are more than 300 million. During the Civil War there were about 60 million. In 1776 there were about 20 million.
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I like "dames" and "mugs."
I'll take a dame anytime, and I'll deep six all the mugs who get in my way.
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?Cultural? Imperialism seems to refer to cultures that dominate others, or cultural trends. I would say that Hollywood, New York and Nashville are the Cultural Imperialistic capitals of the world. Let?s see, where else.... hmm, Mexico City tends to dominate cultural trends for Latin America, and Rio dominates the Portuguese speaking Brazilians, perhaps Portugal too.
French and British movies and music are boring. German ?culture? doesn?t exist. Russian ?culture? is a joke. Chinese ?culture? is too Oriental. I can?t remember when I?ve last heard a Japanese tune on the jukebox. But of course we have Crocodile Dundee out of Australia and a few good Lion?s Gate films out of Canada.
Has anyone been humming any Arabic tunes lately, or wearing the latest styles from Riyadh?
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> And I can camp out under the stars that are so
> bright it?s like Times Square on New Year?s Eve.
>
> Fred, I grew up in Albuquerque in the 60's-early
> 70's, and remember the clearest skies I've ever seen.
> One thing struck me during my last two trips through
> New Mexico in the last 10 years: haze, and not just
> in Albuquerque, the whole state. Probably blows in
> from Colorado and Texas, but it's definitely not the
> same horizon I remember.
Albuquerque has grown into a big city. About 350,000 or more people now. It is in a valley and it tends to collect smog from all the cars and a few factories. I'm not in that part of the state.
Maybe we need to get rid of about 4 billion people around the world. Who shall we start with?
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Oh, that?s silly. The sky and air used to be toxic before there were humans. Floods and other disasters wiped out thousands of species. Before we invented antibiotics millions of humans and animals would die of diseases. Forest fires would rage uncontrolled for months and months.
This is a pretty good place to live now, as long as you aren?t in a big city like L.A., New York, etc. Heck, out where I live, I might not see a person for days. I can drive 50 miles in-between gas stations. And I can camp out under the stars that are so bright it?s like Times Square on New Year?s Eve.
One big problem with people is they tend to congregate in big cities. Blah!
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Yes I think this was just a quirk.
TV networks and satellite providers have an amazing number of circuit boards that the audio/video signal must go through before we receive the picture and sound at home. There are all sorts of technical reasons why they need to man, even though our TV uses only one basic circuit board.
On each circuit board are the little ?chips? (which take the place of old tubes and transistors) plus a lot of diodes, resistors, and capacitors, and some other mysterious things. Any one of these hundreds of little things can go bad during a broadcast, and one of the biggest problem is when the engineers try to track down which little thing has gone bad. A capacitor might cost only about .65 cents, but one can go bad on one of dozens of circuit boards, and it will take engineers a lot of time to track it down.
I suspect the problem was in a circuit board at Direct TV and not at TCM, since no one reported TCM going out on any system other than Direct TV.
I think a company should show a video camera view of their engineers scampering around whenever this happens. They look like a bunch of guys in a submarine movie when the submarine has been hit by some bombs or depth charges. They are running around yelling at each other trying to find the right circuit board to replace. When they finally find it, they can just pull it out and plug in a new one, but the finding of the bad one takes a lot of time.
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"Shane" is going to be on again tonight at 8 PM Eastern time.
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> > My movies are going to have murder as illegal and
> > immoral, along with robbery, theft, adultry with
> > someone's wife or husband, cursing, eugencis, Head
> > chopping, serial killing, etc.
> >
> > If you want this stuff in your movies, then make
> your
> > movies and watch them in your own home. Because
> I'm
> > not going to any theater to see them.
>
> Do you realise how offensive it is to accuse someone
> of being in favour of murder, robbery and serial
> killing just because they don't share your religious
> views?
Do you realize how offensive your prejudiced and uninformed bigoted remarks have been about Christians?
I?m showing you exactly what your remarks sound like to us. Your arrogance and bigotry is appalling.
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That's a good list of favorite movies.
Just jump right in. We were all new here once.
If anyone is rude to you, just try to disregard it. Sometimes we get into arguments about what movie is good and what movie is bad. Lol, so just join right in.
I was an old movie buff starting at about age 12, when the old classics first began to be shown on TV in the early '50s on late movie shows late at night, back when the TV networks signed off at 9 and 10 pm. Local stations showed old movies after the networks went off the air. I first saw "Birth of a Nation" when I was about 15. I saw "Svengali" when I was 14 and I fell in love with Marian Marsh. She was an "older woman". She was 19 in that film. Lol.
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>
> So long as you agree to keep your teaching out of my
> kids' movies. Is it a deal?
My movies are going to have murder as illegal and immoral, along with robbery, theft, adultry with someone's wife or husband, cursing, eugencis, Head chopping, serial killing, etc.
If you want this stuff in your movies, then make your movies and watch them in your own home. Because I'm not going to any theater to see them.
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> > Oh? So you want to teach your kids that it's ok to
> > murder? Ok to steal? Ok to rob banks?
>
> LOL. I know this may come as a great shock to some
> folks, but many atheists are not in favour of murder!
> Believe it or not you don't have to be a Christian
> to have morality. Surprisingly enough I don't rob
> banks either.
Well, look back through history and see where your secular "ethics" came from. They came from the teachings of the Hebrews and the early Christians. You've adopted Christian morals, except for a few exceptions, namely regarding sex and a few other issues, yet you deny it.
Once the Hays Code fell, Hollywood movies turned to crap. I remember the era of the late '60s and '70s when cursing in films started taking the place of plots and good stories. Look at all the cursing in The Bad News Bears. Adults cursing around kids was very popular in films of the '70s then kids and old ladies cursing became a fad by the late '70s. And films back then were terrible.
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She was a very versatile actress. Robert Osborne said that one time someone asked her early director, Joseph Von Sternberg, about the real Marlene, and he said, ?I am Marlene Dietrich?. Meaning, he made her famous character for her and he taught her how to act as only that character.
She played a different character briefly in ?Dishonored? and I didn?t recognize her. She played a little German maid. She was so different I just didn?t recognize her. The Dietrich we all know is a characterization created by Joseph Von Sternberg specifically for ?The Blue Angel,? and he decided to stay with that characterization for the rest of the films he made with her, then she stayed with it thereafter.
It?s like the way Cliff Arquette played the Charlie Weaver character in TV shows and films in the early 1950s. It?s like the way Louis Jones played the Grandpa Jones character in the country music world. He started playing the Grandpa Jones character when he was about 22 years old.
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> So which version of Christian
> morality would you have movies teach?
Cultural Imperialism
in Information, Please!
Posted
> Fred can speak for himself of course, but I find his
> post to be accurate in the sense that Europeon
> culture (and most sigificantly, politics) is passe,
> if not irrelevant. I don't think he was saying he
> doesn't like people of these cultures.
Right, exactly.
I never really said that American pop culture is ?the best.? No, it?s not. Maybe our movies used to be, but they aren?t any more. Much of our modern pop culture is pretty crummy today. But we aren?t ?forcing? it on other countries. We are just making it available to them.
If I had my way, I would bring classical Italian art and opera to America and ban punk rock and junky American pop art.
I would bring some French architecture to the US cities and do away with a lot of our own tacky strip malls and junky stories spread out along highways for miles and miles.
I would bring some European laws regarding keeping our farms and rural land clean and clear of junk and debris. Some lady in Switzerland told me that the reason why so many rural photo scenes of England and Europe look so neat is because of strict laws that make people keep their property clean. We need more of those kinds of laws in the US.
I?d bring more of the British/Australian language to our country.
I?d bring more Japanese Samurai movies to the US, and I?d help teach the Chinese and French how to make movies that are actually interesting to watch. The British, Germans, and Italians don?t need to be taught this because they already know it. But the Chinese and French movie makers are really in need of some ?movie missionaries? to help them out (in my opinion).
I?d recommend that a lot of people start enjoying Mexican Cinco de Mayo fiestas. 50 years from now they will be about as popular as our St. Patrick?s Day festivals are today.
For clothing trends in the US, I suggest that we pay more attention to Italian, French, and Hispanic designers (I watch the Miss Venezuela contest every year and those girls wear much more beautiful Latin type clothing and dresses than our Miss America girls wear).
I?d love to live in one of those apartments in one of those big old apartment houses shown in the film ?The Third Man?. Quite a lot of our modern apartments are too drab and plain. I saw a news report where some guy from England has just finished building a large British type of housing neighborhood in the suburbs of Beijing. It looks like a little old village in England. It has a large statue of Winston Churchill in the middle of it. I like that. Many of our American cities are pretty crummy looking.
So I was mainly objecting to the term ?cultural imperialism?. It?s an old term that doesn?t apply much anymore, since so many countries have gotten rid of their colonies. What we have with American pop culture around the world today is just a series of fads, and I?m not in favor of many of them. I can understand why France bans some of them.