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The pervasive American presence is producing a spate of protectionist measures around the world, despite vigorous protests by American trade negotiators. The 12 members of the European Community recently adopted regulations requiring that a majority of all television programs broadcast in Europe be made there "whenever practicable."
Leading the resistance to the American invasion has been France and its Culture Minister, Jack Lang, a longtime Yankee basher who has proclaimed, "Our destiny is not to become the vassals of an immense empire of profit." Spurred by Lang, who has gone so far as to appoint a rock-'n'-roll minister to encourage French rockers, non-French programming is limited to 40% of available air time on the state-run radio stations. But even Alain Finkelkraut, the highbrow French essayist and critic who is no friend of pop culture, concedes, "As painful as it may be for the French to bear, their rock stars just don't have the same appeal as the British or the Americans. Claude Francois can't compete with the Rolling Stones."
In Africa, American films are watched in American-style drive-in theaters to the accompaniment of hamburgers and fries, washed down with Coca-Cola. One of the biggest cultural events in Kenya in recent weeks has been the national disco-dancing championships. But in Nairobi last month, two dozen representatives of cultural organizations held a seminar on "Cultural Industry for East and Central Africa" and concluded that something must be done to roll back Western (primarily American) dominance of cinema, television, music and dance. "Our governments must adopt conscious policies to stop the dazzle of Western culture from creeping up on us," Tafataona Mahoso, director of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe, told the gathering.
In Japan too, where the influence of American entertainment is pervasive, $ the misgivings are growing. "Younger people are forgetting their native culture in favor of adopting American culture," says Hisao Kanaseki, professor of American literature at Tokyo's Komazawa University. "They're not going to see No theater or Kabuki theater. They're only interested in American civilization. Young people here have stopped reading their own literature."
Though movie admissions cost about $12 in Japan, customers seem willing to pay that to stand in the aisles for American films. "To the Japanese, American movies are hip and trendy, and Japanese audiences would rather die than be unfashionable," says William Ireton, managing director of Warner Bros. Japan.
Aside from the Islamic world, where laws based on fundamentalist strictures often forbid access to any entertainment, there seem to be very few places where that is not the case. Even in secular Iraq, teenagers jam the half a dozen or so little shops in downtown Baghdad that sell pirated copies of American rock-'n'-roll tapes and where the walls are covered with posters of Madonna and Metallica.