Cultural Hegemony In Today's Popular Culture
American culture is taking over the world. That’s how many see today’s popular culture, and they could not be more wrong. America has been the biggest importer of culture since its creation. People have the freewill to choose what they want to wear, eat, and watch; American culture is not being forced upon anyone, it is simply just being adopted by many people because of it’s popularity. Cultural hegemony is a myth, American culture is not dominating other cultures, but simply being intermingled with existing cultures and traditions. The main idea of cultural hegemony is that one culture dominates and people assimilate to that culture. Hassan Ammar’s picture of the slovakian fan disproves this theory. The man in the picture is wearing
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Much of the American culture is taken from other nations. Mrs. Straughman puts the American culture into perspective, “... What is american culture itself, but a rich soup of the many cultures that Americans came from” (pg. 863, 2005). Today, Americans still import popular culture from other nations. The fan in Mr. Ammar’s photograph is seen blowing into a vuvuzela (pg. 873, 2010). The vuvuzela is a South African futbol horn, which was made popular in the 2009 Futbol World Cup. The vuvuzela craze spread to the U.S. and now one can see and hear them at most professional soccer matches. This importation of other cultures disproves the part of the cultural hegemony theory that says one culture will dominate all others. Clearly, American culture does not dominate other cultures, but instead the American people welcome foreign popular culture.
The theory of cultural hegemony is disproven by looking at how American culture has been influenced by other cultures, and how American companies tailor their products to the existing culture. Those who believe that cultural hegemony exists are narrow minded and fail to look at the big picture of global cultures. Will cultural hegemony ever exist? It may, but as of now it has been proven to be a myth. For one culture to dominate others it will take a major catastrophe, or a single global government. Both of which are worst case scenarios, and unlikely to happen in
Much of the American culture is taken from other nations. Mrs. Straughman puts the American culture into perspective, “... What is american culture itself, but a rich soup of the many cultures that Americans came from” (pg. 863, 2005). Today, Americans still import popular culture from other nations. The fan in Mr. Ammar’s photograph is seen blowing into a vuvuzela (pg. 873, 2010). The vuvuzela is a South African futbol horn, which was made popular in the 2009 Futbol World Cup. The vuvuzela craze spread to the U.S. and now one can see and hear them at most professional soccer matches. This importation of other cultures disproves the part of the cultural hegemony theory that says one culture will dominate all others. Clearly, American culture does not dominate other cultures, but instead the American people welcome foreign popular culture.
The theory of cultural hegemony is disproven by looking at how American culture has been influenced by other cultures, and how American companies tailor their products to the existing culture. Those who believe that cultural hegemony exists are narrow minded and fail to look at the big picture of global cultures. Will cultural hegemony ever exist? It may, but as of now it has been proven to be a myth. For one culture to dominate others it will take a major catastrophe, or a single global government. Both of which are worst case scenarios, and unlikely to happen in