UK vs. US editions

[GulPlum]

"saintbacchus" <saintbacchus at y...> wrote:
> GulPlum wrote on the main list:
> 
> It's also dangerous: is it any wonder that much of
> the rest of the world considers Americans to be
> closed-minded and imperialistic, when they can't
> accept a culture as close to their own as the British
> one on its own terms without having to
> "domesticate" it?
> 
> Can't accept? How about never had a chance to? It's
> easy for someone who doesn't live in the US to say that,
> but as Catalyna pointed out, this kind of tinkering
> never used to be the case. There was never a problem
> before, and who knows why things have changed. Can you
> really see people clamoring for a translation from
> English? I myself am extremely offended that the
> ineptly-named Scholastic feels the need to change
> English words to other English words.

Sorry, you misunderstand what I meant (or rather, I didn't express 
myself as well as I may have done).

I didn't mean to imply that the American people wilfully refuse to 
accept foreign cultures, which quite patently is not the case (it is 
also absurd to suggest it, considering the importance people give to 
their "mother" countries). What worries me is that (to an extent) the 
entire power structure in the US abhors anything that isn't 
culturally "pure", ie *American* culture. Book publishers, film 
studios, TV stations, politicians et al cannot see the benefit of 
opening people's eyes to an "entertainment" which appeals to more 
than the lowest common denominator.

TV, the mass medium of our age, is very telling: from my limited 
experience of how TV stations operate in the US, everything appears 
to be divided into tidy niches. How many foreign-produced (let's just 
limit that to English-language) TV shows are shown on the major US 
networks? Would any of the networks consider showing *any* non-
English language show? I suspect not. It's relegated to the Spanish, 
French, Italian or whatever channel. Does an American WASP ever get 
*any* exposure to non-American culture without having to go to a 
great deal of effort to seek it out? It's generally accepted that 
British TV is among the best in the world. How much of it finds its 
way onto network TV?

For a nation of immigrants which used to use the term "melting pot" 
to describe itself, the US is doing very badly at opening its 
constituent ethnic groups to each other. Is it therefore any wonder 
that the powers-that-be consider anything that isn't bland and 
conforms to the lowest common denominator too difficult for the 
people to handle?

I really have no answer about how to get out of this impasse. All I'm 
trying to do is to identify a problem. The question, though, is: what 
are the more open-minded American population doing about reversing 
this trend? It appears to me that the answer is "very little". 
Getting rid of that buffoon you call a President would be a good 
start...