Photo by Lecates
It is sometimes said that America’s leading export to the rest of the world is its entertainment. If we take a broad view of entertainment—movies, television, popular music and food products (yes, food can be entertaining)—this is undoubtedly true. Why is America such a leader in the production of entertainment?
The answer to this question is linked to a topic I’ve been writing about lately, the American concept of person. As far back as the time of the Puritans, many Americans have been focused on examining and perfecting their lives and themselves. The Puritans had good reasons for such activities: they were concerned about their state of grace (saved or damned?) and they scrutinized their lives for signs that they were among the few destined for glory. As generations passed, this focus on the qualities of the self gradually became a broadly-based cultural conviction that with effort and time, persons can perfect themselves. In contrast to virtues like forbearance and humility, Americans have tended to cultivate virtues like self-examination, social mobility, and fame.
When, in the 19th century, our contemporary institutions of entertainment and advertising began to take shape, producers quickly learned about the American fascination with stories about how a person’s life was transformed into something more meaningful. These stories were first of all fictions—tales of how a young couple found happiness, a detective solved a murder and returned order to the world, or superhero staved off an alien invasion. But these fictions could also be presented as real possibilities: If you have no friends, it’s probably because you need our mouthwash. If you have no fun, it’s probably because you need our car.
Americans have been the world’s leaders in developing entertainment and advertising because entertainment and advertising fit so perfectly with our culture’s ideas about the world and the people who live in it. Entertainment turns our dreams into realities. This is also what we try and do with ourselves, it is what we call the American dream. We love entertainment because it is fun, of course, but it is fun in part because the stories we engage through books and films and TV are little moral fables about one of our most basic beliefs, the possibility of realizing our fondest wishes. When we export our entertainment to the rest of the world we are at the same time exporting something of our view of the world and of persons, our conviction that our dreams can be turned into realities.
