International Business
Hollywood’s influence on global culture
2/20/14
1. Factors that can affect national culture in Hollywood films can be cross culture risk, cultural metaphor, and Idioms. Some movies can come off as offensive to other countries by how they are portrayed. As Americans we may think one saying or gesture may be fine but other cultures can find it offensive. Ethnocentric orientation is when people use their own culture as the standard for judging other cultures. Many times people can think their culture, race, or religion is superior to others. Idioms are expressions whose symbolic meaning is different from its literal meaning. Idioms can affect how one person or culture interprets it to mean another thing and could be seen as rude or insulting or even funny. Cultural metaphors that can also be seen in Hollywood movies can refer to a distinctive tradition or institution strongly associated with a particular society. Some examples of cultural metaphors are Swedish Stuag is a metaphor for love of nature and desire for individualism through self-development. All of these examples are portrayed in Hollywood movies and is left to the audience to make their own judgment on that culture.
Hollywood tires to promote the U.S. as low content culture and individualism. Americans are promoted as very straight forward and to the point and Americans put a great emphasis on communication. Other cultures that are low content cultures have a more emphasis on nonverbal messages. U.S is also a culture that focuses on individualism. In individualism societies people and organizations focus on self-interests over group confirmatory. Many Hollywood movies promote individualism and content cultures like The Rookie and Wall Street.
I think that there are some positive outcomes to Hollywood movies. Movies can bring tourism to different countries when featured. It can boost the countries economy and bring awareness. In the past decade more