Music Television (MTV) was launched in America in 1981, in Europe in 1987, and today reaches over a quarter billion homes in 100 countries on 5 continents worldwide. Many consider MTV to be the televised equivalent of Coca Cola; you can get it just about everywhere in the world, it rots your brain like Coke does your teeth, and it's American through and through. With our class on cultural imperialism and absolute influence theory in mind, I wondered what MTV's international success has meant for the cultural identities of those whose living rooms the channel has entered. Is every country under MTV's influence now Britney Spears obsessed, and totally Americanized- as they not only show American musical and fashion trends, but advertise American products- or does the channel change according to each country it is aired in? Are the chart toppers the Jonas Brothers and P. Diddy, or more native bands that suite the original tastes of the countries' cultures? I did a little research and reading of my own to find out. On MTV's Italian website, I counted 11 out of 20 "Hit List Italia" songs were by American artists like Beyonce and Pussy Cat Dolls, with at least one British singer as well. The Indian site's music section is appropriately divided into Hollywood and Bollywood, the site is written entirely in English, and the vj's all have uncharacteristically light skin. My efforts to figure out MTV Japan's leanings were largely fruitless as my understanding of the language is obviously zero, but I did note one of the female presenters of the Video Music Awards Japan had an Anglo-style facial structure, reminding me of a disturbing fad that has hit Asian women both in and out of America: a plastic surgery called blepharoplasty that creates an artificial crease in Asian eyelids. I wonder how glorified this look would be if it weren't for channels like MTV, that take American popular culture and make it into Mass culture, that reinforce international inferiority complexes instead of glorifying the thinks that make us unique. It seems as though MTV has to form to the culture of the country it's shown in, at least a little, so as not to upset artists and record labels to the point that it's banned in a country, but can still, in not so subtle ways, push and American cultural agenda of hip hop and pop, light hair and light eyes, sex, bling, partying and cleavage on the rest of the world. And the fact that the young teens and adolescents who are exposed to this crap eat it up and turn their backs on their own cultural values and traditions is equally absurd and saddening.
If MTV were to exist purely as an arena for the sharing of new music from the countries in which it operated, or did more to share Norwegian speed metal with Italian House junkies, Indian bollywood with Folky south-eastern Europeans, Japanese pop with New York rap, and stoped imposing Americana on the entire world, we might have a lot more respect for one anothers' traditions, values, looks, and sounds. Until then, women are going to keep getting plastic surgery to look more like J-Lo, men from the Middle East will wear tighter shirts and more gel in their hair while the women are covered head to toe, and maybe Americans will feel a little less superior, with their white bread music and looks as compared to the spice of the rest of the world.
