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Why don't Americans like foreign movies?
Tyler Cowen...argues that movies are about familiarity. "A feeling of comfort has to be there" for a movie to succeed, he says. That is the reason that "Americans don't like foreign movies," Mr. Cowen says. A Bollywood movie with Indian cultural themes and actors sells tickets with the Subcontinent's three-million strong diaspora in the U.S., but not with the average American.
And will India embrace Hollywood?
...some predict that as India liberalizes, the movie landscape may alter. "If India becomes like Bangalore then more Indians will start watching Hollywood," Mr. Cowen explains, referring to the whiz-bang technology capital of India, populated by upper- and middle-class youth. As more Indians get wealthier, their tastes will reflect that currently exhibited only by the upper classes.
Here is the whole article, most of which is about Bollywood. Here is earlier coverage on the same theme.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 27, 2008 at 04:38 AM in Film | Permalink
Comments
Not so sure about this. I - and many of my friends - like Asian cinema in general but I know nobody who could stand watching a whole Bollywood flick... It is pretty irritating to me and not because of the unfamiliarity I would say.
Posted by: Someone from the other side at Jul 27, 2008 4:49:54 AM
I have a coworker from West Virginia and another born in India but probably came to America when they were 2 or 3. They discuss Indian movies and I find absolutely nothing interesting in their discussions.
I don't know about familiarity, but I appreciate realism. This is why Michael Mann and Jerry Bruckheimer could each make a movie using the same script and I would hate the Jerry Bruckheimer flick.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 27, 2008 5:01:10 AM
I love foreign films because of the unfamiliarity. Too many of Hollywood's offerings are boring retellings of the same basic stories with the same small pool of actors.
Posted by: Mike at Jul 27, 2008 7:51:33 AM
Actually, if India becomes like Bangalore, then more Indians will start watching Pedro Almodovar and Jean Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman!
Posted by: Umang at Jul 27, 2008 8:25:35 AM
People who watch cinema for the sake of it have varied tastes. People who watch cinema as a social event (go with a date, go with friends...) get to the lesser common denominator movie, the american one.
Posted by: Geego at Jul 27, 2008 8:32:14 AM
"Familiarity" argument doesn't explain why Hollywood productions are popular in the rest of the world. A personal observation, American's are not very enthusiastic about things that are not American. Same thing goes for music as well. In Europe, people consume different types of movies and music, but in US, this consumption diminishes drastically. It would be interesting to look at top grossing movies/ top music charts to see the composition of nationalities in these two continents. It is a one way trade in a sense. The reason? I really don't know.
Posted by: Gokay at Jul 27, 2008 10:18:47 AM
I'm an Indian with a strong interest in classic Hollywood cinema as well as mainstream Indian cinema.
Even after making allowances for cultural differences, I think the best of mainstream Indian entertainment do not measure up to the best that Hollywood has had to offer over the years.
Most Indian mainstream movies are lazy, overdone melodramatic musicals. Even a second rung half-forgotten Hollywood classic like say Penny Serenade is better than most of the celebrated popular Bollywood favorites.
Hence, it is perfectly understandable for an American movie buff to be put off by Bollywood productions.
Posted by: shrikanthk at Jul 27, 2008 10:25:55 AM
I'm an Indian with a strong interest in classic Hollywood cinema as well as mainstream Indian cinema.
Even after making allowances for cultural differences, I think the best of mainstream Indian entertainment do not measure up to the best that Hollywood has had to offer over the years.
Most Indian mainstream movies are lazy, overdone melodramatic musicals. Even a second rung half-forgotten Hollywood classic like say Penny Serenade is better than most of the celebrated popular Bollywood favorites.
Hence, it is perfectly understandable for an American movie buff to be put off by Bollywood productions.
Posted by: shrikanthk at Jul 27, 2008 10:27:22 AM
I'm an Indian with a strong interest in classic Hollywood cinema as well as mainstream Indian cinema.
Even after making allowances for cultural differences, I think the best of mainstream Indian entertainment do not measure up to the best that Hollywood has had to offer over the years.
Most Indian mainstream movies are lazy, overdone melodramatic musicals. Even a second rung half-forgotten Hollywood classic like say Penny Serenade is better than most of the celebrated popular Bollywood favorites.
Hence, it is perfectly understandable for an American movie buff to be put off by Bollywood productions.
Posted by: shrikanthk at Jul 27, 2008 10:28:59 AM
A personal observation, American's are not very enthusiastic about things that are not American. Same thing goes for music as well.
Bryan Adams, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Celine Dion, Alanis Morisette, Barenaked ladies, Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachan, Nickelback, Avril lavigne, Michael Buble ...
And these are just Canadians!
Oh, and the Beatles say hi ...
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Jul 27, 2008 10:36:07 AM
I don't think it's about Americans disliking foreign movies at all. I think it's more about the fact that hollywood is good at making movies with universal appeal, while bollywood (for instance) sucks at it.
Spiderman? Universal appeal. Spiderman could be any regular guy, from anywhere.
A bunch of indians playing baseball against the british for 4 hours while singing songs and almost, but not quite kissing their girlfriends? Don't get it.
Martial arts movies have crossover appeal because people of any nationality can appreciate Jackie Chan beating up ninjas. Anime has similar (albeit more narrow) crossover appeal. But most other foreign genre's don't make sense to people unfamiliar with them.
Posted by: Ninja Zombie at Jul 27, 2008 11:11:40 AM
Well, there is no need to be sarcastic and it is not very helpful to hand pick couple of examples to support your argument and outliers don't always have that much influence. All I am saying is that it would be interesting to look at the composition of box office/top music chart compositions in different markets. To put it differently, US is a culture exporter but not an importer. When was the last time US was swept away with a Non-American cultural product? The only thing I can think of is Macarena and then think about rest of the world, there is always something appealing available from US. I am aware that US entertainment industry has a huge advantage since it has a big domestic market which relates through economies of scale. But there are also barriers to entry to the US market, if your "product" have accents, or even worse a different language (and hence subtitles) you are unlikely to "hit big" in the US market. This is my claim, which has to be tested of course.
Posted by: Gokay at Jul 27, 2008 11:46:28 AM
My theory is that everyone in the world likes two kinds of movies: locally-produced movies, and American movies. The United States looks odd because in the USA, those wind up being the same thing.
Are Italian movies popular in Norway? Is there a big Bollywood fanbase (outside of expat Indians) in South Korea?
Posted by: Aric at Jul 27, 2008 12:03:15 PM
Comparing domestic vs foreign movie consumption isn't that helpful. The "Americans are insular; Europeans are cosmopolitan" meme is tired and hackneyed (and typically blatantly self-serving).
Due to several factors (English as a global language, size of the American market, America's size and GDP during the rise of the film industry) America's film industry (Hollywood) has vastly more resources than other national film industries.
Hollywood can, therefore, afford to make and market the blockbuster movies that dominate the globe.
Bollywood movies have a fraction of the budget and are made to local tastes.
This says little about the cultural insularity of Americans.
In a similar vein the fact that Americans follow the NBA, but not euro-league basketball -- while European basketball fans follow both simply shows that the NBA is able to hire the best basketball players and coaches around the world.
A sign of American insularity would be if Americans prefer a local inferior product to a clearly and widely acknowledged superior foreign product.
...
More specifically Hollywood produces movies with an eye to the global market. At the same time, many Hollywood movies that do well in America fare poorly overseas. Which ones? The more localized ones. Comedies. Sports-movies. Tyler Perry's movies about Black Americans are reliable (if moderate) hits in America -- they make almost zero money overseas.
(Actually the rise of culturally specific "Black" movies, like Tyler Perry's, is very comparable to foreign movies. Most "Black" movies are financed so they can succeed without the non-Black market -- like Tyler Perry's movies. They have lower budgets and it shows. Occasionally there is a breakout to the wider mainstream audience, but that is gravy. The same thing happens with "White" movies. These movies are called Juno.)
In general, the more culturally specific a movie is the more limited it's commercial appeal. Occasional break-out successes are the exception that proves the rule. This is why comedies are much less reliable global hits compared to action or SciFi movies and are budgeted accordingly
If you have a great baseball movie then you'll get a much lower budget than the next Will Smith or superhero movie.
Posted by: jim at Jul 27, 2008 1:05:56 PM
Hollywood movies are often shown in India, and as more people start to understand American accents I'd expect greater popularity. There has long been an art-film scene in India -- Ingmar Bergmann has depressed people worldwide!
Bollywood has been highly successful over the years outside India. I've run into Latin Americans, Africans, Russians who saw "Mother India" (1957) after it came out (and if motherhood and the struggles of the peasantry are not universal themes I don't know what are); Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor were international stars in their time; folks in China today will ask visting Indians for a song because they've heard them in Hindi films.
So let's put the cultures-as-compartments silliness to rest. There *are* obvious questions of language (India also has vigorous non-Hindi commercial film industries) and genre expectations.
Posted by: Colin Danby at Jul 27, 2008 1:10:58 PM
It's because foreign movies in the US are never dubbed. While there may be something great and deep and artistic about the original, many of those abroad watching American movies do so in their native languages, without the extra effort that reading requires. If Americans could watch foreign movies in English, then these could gain appeal beyond the I-watch-foreign-films crowd.
Posted by: Willa at Jul 27, 2008 1:34:41 PM
It's not that Americans don't like foreign movies. It's that _everyone_ in the world prefer American movies, so Americans aren't that unusual from everyone else.
Take a look at the top box office hits of any country abroad, and count how many are of American origin. When a local movie is in the top 10 charts, that's big news simply because it's so rare, and a major source of national pride.
Posted by: LZ at Jul 27, 2008 2:05:28 PM
"The "Americans are insular; Europeans are cosmopolitan" meme is tired and hackneyed": but largely true?
Posted by: dearieme at Jul 27, 2008 3:03:15 PM
In 30 years when China and India run the world, I imagine that movies set in there will become a lot more popular.
Posted by: ad at Jul 27, 2008 3:34:55 PM
99% in Spain
51% in France ( by law)
% of americann movies over total in cinemas
Stiptease retired after 2 days in the USA, film n 1 in Germany, France, Italy and Latinamerica
Waterworld biggewst failure ever in the USA , made proffit worlwide, yesterday was in the cable here.
Forrest Gump even in the Usa, made proffit thanks to foreign markets.
heaven doors or somthing failure in the USA , a cult movie in France
when Star Wars 2 was released teh French stste owned tv ststion gave the new, You never see that with a french movie.
they love american pop culture
dr House, get smart, monster , adams family, zorro, batman are household names around the world.
Richard Gere told that he was in an island in the pacific , he needed a little boat and a litle plane to get to the middle of nowhere. When he was there a local began to screem " officer and a gentleman" staring and pointing at him
Posted by: k at Jul 27, 2008 4:34:56 PM
My theory is that everyone in the world likes two kinds of movies: locally-produced movies, and American movies.
Your theory is perhaps refuted by Latin American telenovelas (admittedly, not movies, but very very long mini-series), which are hugely popular worldwide... except in the US.
Posted by: at Jul 27, 2008 5:48:14 PM
"The "Americans are insular; Europeans are cosmopolitan" meme is tired and hackneyed": but largely true?
Actually no. Unless you cheat by comparing apples to oranges.
Do Europeans visit foreign countries more often? Yes, because Europeans live in tiny countries roughly the size of the country I live in. It's easy to get your passport stamped if all it takes is gas money and a few hours of driving.
This meme is based on ignorance. Americans visit Europe and think everyone walks everywhere and is oh so cosmopolitan. Of course, the American tourists only visit the cities. They don't visit the suburbs.
And the Europeans they meet are the wealthier, more cosmopolitan city inhabitants.
If you visit America and just visit Manhattan and San Francisco everyone will seem cosmopolitan, too. They'll also be disproportionately wealthy, young, and healthy -- and a number of other self-selected traits.
This ignorant meme is more easily exploded if you look at attitudes, and not just urbanization rates. By most statistical surveys, the average American is more open to change than the average European. Americans are more excepting of technological change and economic change -- the creative destruction of modern capitalism. Luddites are more heavily represented in Europe.
So if you mean cosmopolitan to just mean urbanization rate then sure Europe has a moderately higher urbanization rate.
But you probably mean insular as just some unthinking, ignorant slight against a stereotype you have of the average American. Surveys of public attitudes don't support such a claim.
Posted by: jim at Jul 27, 2008 6:13:26 PM
To follow up on Jim's point, Europeans are no more likely to watch movies from Thailand or Bollywood than Americans. So their so-called cosmpolitanism stems solely from their watching other European movies. Moreover, in Europe, the dominant movie product is still going to be from Hollywood, with local output a strong second in markets like France.
The main difference is the greater tolerance for dubbed movies among a large section of the European urban elite. Even this is an upper class urban and not a mass phenomenon in most countries.
Posted by: tor at Jul 27, 2008 8:35:50 PM
As a huge film buff this is something I think about a lot (or at least I used to).
There are a few trends which I think are responsible for the lack of interest Americans show for foreign films:
1) Subtitles. If you cannot read quickly (i.e. follow the text *and* what's happening on the screen equally well) then you just will not get into the movie. Dubbing is marginally acceptable, but for the most part I wish people could get used to subtitles.
2) Lack of proper distribution, largely due to the assumption that it's not worth it economically because it won't get a large enough audience. The lack of wide distribution leads to a lack of awareness which leads to a lack of interest. It's a vicious cycle.
3) Many of the best foreign films are far more mature and philosophical than the average Hollywood output, but mature and philosophical film-goers have been slowly weaned off of going to the movies like they used to. Movie audiences are dominated by a handful of narrowly defined demographics, rather than a broad spectrum of the general population.
4) Lack of quality. Fellini, Tarkovsky, Ozu, Kurosawa, etc., aren't making movies anymore.
5) The way the unions have the American film industry tied up, non-American, non-union product always has a hard time getting funding or distribution from American studios. The union's constrictions are also largely responsible, IMO, for the weaning off of mature film-goers, for reasons that are too economically complex to go into here.
In short, I don't think that the Benignis and Cocteaus of the world have the potential to be enormous blockbuster successes in America, but I do believe they could be more popular than they are, were it not for a few constraints on the market.
Posted by: Jacob Oost at Jul 27, 2008 8:52:06 PM
"As more Indians get wealthier, their tastes will reflect that currently exhibited only by the upper classes."
Well, watching Hollywood movies does not reflect class status (income as parameter). To watch Hollywood movie, people need to understand English. And, many Indians or the whole subcontinent itself is far beyond understanding English, often with jargons that they won't find in school books. Moreover, many middle class families do understand English but they definitely do not enjoy watching two hour long Hollywood movie as they do with Bollywood movie. The marginal utility of watching Hollywood movie would decrease at an increasing rate after some minutes of watching it. Subtitles also won't work if we are talking about attracting movie goers to Hollywood movies in India.
As you said "a feeling of comfort has to be there"...this is so true if you view this issue from Indian moviegoers perspective. Commercially, it would take decades for Hollywood to entice Indians to watch Hollywood movies!
Posted by: Chandan at Jul 27, 2008 9:17:51 PM
