Another day, another international conference, another meaningless display of unity. But with lovely gift bags, we're sure.The latest example: a UNESCO compact, sanctified in October at a conference in Tunisia, supporting the rights of nations to control the import of entertainment from other countries, all in the name of "cultural diversity." Otherwise Bugs Bunny cartoons would pose a mortal threat to the state-controlled monoculture of most nations. The United States opposes the compact, because we're mean and hate everyone, if you read the press. But was the U.S. vote correct? Let us consider.
The original sponsors were France and its stepchild Canada; figures. No country is more prickly about preserving its own culture than France; they regularly have le panique attaq whenever small fragments of other tongues infect their pristine lingo. Their cinema is heavily subsidized, producing endless movies about older-yet-unquestionably-masculine men who pensively smoke while contemplating a girl's knee observed on a beach in 1972. Canada also mandates local content, because there's so much difference between someone who grew up in southern Manitoba and someone who grew up in upper North Dakota. The North Dakotan grows up without a sense of what it's like to be annoyed by bilingual candy-bar wrappers, for example. Might as well be from different planets.There are reasons to protect local culture, of course. American culture is The Borg, assimilating all. Drop a VCR and a TV in a remote Amazonian village, return a year later, and what do you find? Nothing, because you forgot to supply the generator. But leave one of those, and within six months the kids will be running around saying "No Luke I am your father" and making whoom-whoom lightsaber sounds. This fact gladdens the hearts of some, since it shows that American values -- freedom, justice, explosions -- are universal. But it also puts cultural conservatives in a bind, because modern pop culture is crass, rude, naughty, and often indefensible. Do we really want to defend the right of American record companies to export Li'l Kim diatribes against all the b-word rapperettes who set her up? Doesn't it bother anyone that China has entire factories devoted to pumping out pirated copies of "Scarface," because the global demand for that rags-to-twitches cocaine opera is so insatiable?
It was easier when the Yanks stood for nylons and chocolate bars.