Imagine a world where you turn on the TV and every character is drinking mate. It’s not even explained; it’s just how it is. All sitcoms are set in Buenos Aires, and characters make jokes about streets and landmarks there. Every character is from somewhere in Argentina, even from places you haven’t heard of, but you’re supposed to laugh at the jokes. They talk about their favorite football teams, maybe you haven’t ever heard of them. Every police and drama show uses Argentine law and politics as plot points, regardless of if it makes sense on other countries. Needless to say, there are Argentine flags everywhere.
Let’s watch some cartoons. There’s this hilarious one about a parrot and a coatí that go in surreal adventures; it’s always the same animals; yaguaretés, horneros, aguará-guazús… There’s this one about a kid from a version of Mar Del Plata who fights against space invaders with his alien family. And about ten or twenty shows about school. They are always drinking mate, playing football, and saying che (so much that you say it too). There’s a carnaval special, a semana de mayo especial, a viaje de egresados special. It happens everywhere, right? Los Argento, that hilarious show that maybe should’ve been cancelled long ago, make fun of Argentine celebrities and politicians, some who nobody knows about, but are so #relatable that all memes are about them.
How about the movies? Of course, the studios at Bosque Santo have produced the best movies of all time; all the best-grossing movies are from there, and they are watched all over the world. In the 40′s and 50′s it was war movies and gaucho movies. Now, there’s everything for everybody; alien invasion movies where the aliens always attack Buenos Aires, those romcoms about a busy executive porteña living the good life who falls in love with a charming country guy from Corrientes, roadtrip movies in the Ruta 40, fast cars and hot women running underground races in the Conurbano, and multi-million peso franchises about heroes (one even wears the Argentine flag all over and he’s so sexy) running around and kicking ass using superpowers and Argentine army tech. Who doesn’t love movies? They even film their action sequences in other countries sometimes!
Of course, all major internet websites are based in Argentina. So everybody has to learn Spanish (Argentine Spanish) one way or the other, if you want to read memes, understand jokes, play videogames, read scientific papers, catch up with news… if you want to be SOMEONE in life. Of course, what I’ve wrote above should have been wrotten in Spanish. Funny that.
Replace Argentina above with any other country. Thailand, Morocco, Ethiopia, Colombia… sounds weird, doesn’t it?
Now go back, replace everything above with the US. it’s not that hard. You don’t have to imagine anything. We live in that world. It’s called Soft Power. It’s called exporting culture abroad. We live inmersed in the culture of the dominant superpower, like it or not. All the stories, tales, heroes, themes, jokes, settings, values and plots we see in current media are made on the lenses of a single nation. And we should be aware of it.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Hollywood. I’m gonna watch Star Wars till I die. I love all the movies that come out of there. I love cartoons, I love videogames, I love memes. It’s not bad to enjoy another culture, it’s not bad to be part of a fandom, it’s extremely fun! You don’t need to overanalyze everything to enjoy it, though it’s good to be aware of some running themes. You can enjoy all those franchises and media, and it’s very cool we can have fun with them.
How many stories are we missing?
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