Thinking about the image of america and the power of american culture. Note the last lines in the last paragraph from the excerpt.
The day before "Shrek 2" was set to have its premiere at Cannes, DreamWorks's representatives placed large plastic bags full of green Shrek ears along the Croisette, the bustling beachfront walkway that dominates the action in Cannes. Even before the festival began, it was feared that protesting French workers would shut it down over a labor dispute. On this day, a group of hundreds gathered outside the Carlton Hotel to denounce the war in Iraq. They were chanting in French for about 45 minutes, until the police broke up the demonstration. Then, as the protesters dissipated into the throng on the Croisette, I watched them, one by one, put on the free Shrek ears. They were attracted, it seemed, by the ears' goofiness and sheer recognizability. Immediately, the crowd, once filled with political fervor, was transformed into a sea of cartoon characters.
I felt embarrassed: America seemed, at best, an absurd, vaguely comic place. ....
Part of the reason I find the globalization of American movies unsettling is that I can't remember a time when the dialogue at cocktail parties or between friends or in office meetings has been so lively and political. The shift in the national conversation is missing in our global film identity. For the most part, present-day politics may be too complicated a subject for Hollywood to handle -- at least in ambitious feature films.
