{"id":31631,"date":"2013-02-22T09:25:37","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T14:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2013\/02\/22\/american-star-power-still-rules-the-globe\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T01:11:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T06:11:32","slug":"american-star-power-still-rules-the-globe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/global\/2013\/02\/22\/american-star-power-still-rules-the-globe\/","title":{"rendered":"American Star Power Still Rules the Globe"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Richard Wike, Associate Director,\u00a0Pew Research Global Attitudes Project<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n

Special to\u00a0CNN<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n

For decades, Hollywood has been a big part of brand America, and U.S. movies continue to break box office records around the world. Over the past year, blockbusters like\u00a0The Avengers<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The Dark Knight Rises<\/i>\u00a0have earned over half a billion dollars outside the United States. And this weekend, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, viewers in more than 225 countries will tune into the Oscars.<\/p>\n\n

Surveys consistently show that movies \u2013 and more broadly, American popular culture \u2013 are a strong suit of U.S. soft power. And, while studio executives spend considerably more time thinking about box office returns than public diplomacy, Tinseltown is actually pretty effective at nudging America\u2019s international image in a positive direction. (Certainly, with anti-Americanism still strong in the Middle East and among some other nations, brand America needs all the help it can get).<\/p>\n\n

American culture is especially attractive in Europe. The continent may have a long tradition of intellectuals deriding U.S. culture, but average Europeans embrace it. A 2012 Pew Research Center\u00a0poll<\/a>\u00a0found solid majorities in all eight European Union nations surveyed saying they like American movies, music, and television, including 72 percent in France, home to the Cannes Film Festival, Jean-Luc Godard, and (until\u00a0recently<\/a>) G\u00e9rard Depardieu. As is the case with nearly all things American, U.S. pop culture is more popular among Europeans in the Obama era than it was during George W. Bush\u2019s presidency, although even during the Bush years, when European anti-Americanism was surging, most still had a favorable opinion of American entertainment. And it\u2019s not just Europe \u2013 about seven-in-ten of those surveyed in Japan, Brazil, and Mexico, for example, say they enjoy U.S. movies, music, and television.<\/p>\n\n

In nearly all countries included in the survey, America\u2019s pop culture is especially attractive to young people. For instance, a stunning 94 percent of Germans under age 30 like it, while just 47 percent of those 50 and older agreed. Huge age gaps are also found in Russia, France, Britain and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n

In many nations, there is also an education gap. In China, where a growing middle class increasingly has yuan to spend on entertainment, 74 percent of people with a college degree enjoy American pop culture, compared with less than half of those with less education.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s true that Hollywood isn\u2019t popular everywhere. In particular, it has limited appeal in some predominantly Muslim nations. Among 20 countries surveyed by Pew Research, the only four where majorities said they do not like American movies, music, and TV were Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. Views about culture are intertwined with other aspects of America\u2019s image, and in countries like these, widespread opposition to U.S. policies and deep distrust of American motives continues to drive strong anti-American sentiments.<\/p>\n\n

But the Muslim world is not monolithic, and attitudes toward American culture vary among Muslim populations. Six-in-ten Lebanese Sunni Muslims express a positive opinion, as do almost half of the country\u2019s Shia Muslims \u2013 a fairly impressive number, given the fact that, when asked about their overall opinion of the U.S., only 7 percent of Lebanese Shia offer a positive response. Meanwhile, about eight-in-ten Lebanese Christians like American pop culture.<\/p>\n\n

Of course, even in countries where the U.S. and its entertainment exports are generally popular, many still voice reservations about the reach of American culture. Japan was the only nation among the 20 polled where a majority (58 percent) said it is good that American customs and ideas are spreading to their country. In contrast, less than a third in Britain, France, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Greece described the spread of U.S. ideas and customs as a good thing. In Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan the numbers were even lower.<\/p>\n\n

The reality is that resistance to American culture often goes hand in hand with a strong attraction to it. French sheep farmer Jos\u00e9 Bov\u00e9 may have become a hero to the anti-globalization movement by famously helping ransack a McDonald\u2019s in 1999, but it hasn\u2019t stopped the proliferation of golden arches in Europe or elsewhere. Similarly, the international demand for American films is growing, and Hollywood\u2019s profits are increasingly driven by the foreign box office.<\/p>\n\n

All this means that when the red carpet is rolled out on Sunday, concerns about the ubiquity of American culture won\u2019t stop millions across the globe from tuning in to see who wins Best Picture.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surveys consistently show that movies \u2013 and more broadly, American popular culture \u2013 are a strong suit of U.S. soft power. And, while studio executives spend considerably more time thinking about box office returns than public diplomacy, Tinseltown is actually pretty effective at nudging America\u2019s international image in a positive direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[525],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-31631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-global-image","formats-report","research-teams-global"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":751,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/global\/2013\/02\/22\/american-star-power-still-rules-the-globe\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"American Star Power Still Rules the Globe","parent_id":31631},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"American Star Power Still Rules the Globe","description":"Surveys consistently show that movies \u2013 and more broadly, American popular culture \u2013 are a strong suit of U.S. soft power. 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