Cultural Globalization: Music Videos

So I think globalization is an absolutely horrible thing. (If you don't know what globalization is, read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization) But it isn't necessaraly the economic aspects that truly bother me, but rather the diffusion of American culture across the world into developing countries where the younger generation is not embracing the traditional culture. I am going to start writing a couple posts about this situation from now on. Today's topic: Music videos.

Okay, so the music video is a very American thing right? Mtv started it in the 80's and it is an entire industry now. This first video is from Egypt and is a cover of the hit song "Ahsan Nas" by the late egyptian pop star "Dalida". "Ahsan Nas" in Arabic means "the best people", and the song talks about various cities in Egypt and why they are so great, but the song ends by talking about how people from the city of Alexandria are "the best people". The song is way catchy and I have watched this video over and over again. The thing about this video fist of all is that there are a bunch of young upper-class Egyptians walking around in jeans and talking on cell phones which is a direct influence from America and to some extent Europe. Egyptian youth look up to the people in this video as the symbol of "cool" partially because it is very western. This mix of the song contains Arabic drum beats, but the synthesizer sounds are very western also. Secondly, when you watch the video all the way through, you find out that is actually a commercial for a cell phone company. Watch:



Ever heard of Tajikistan? I didn't think so. This video is really interesting because it is trying really hard to match the quality of music videos seen in other parts of the world. The former soviet republic of Tajikistan is on the fringe of civilization, and trying to catch up to the pop culture norms of the west...but they came up with something really weird instead. There are lot's of references to local customs as well though, such as traditional dress, a guy ridding a horse in traditional garb, but there is also a guy driving a Mercedes Benz and a guy wearing western scrubs as he portrays a doctor. Also,this is the most anti-climatic video I've ever seen because of the lack of any music besides drum beats that get more complex as the song goes on:



The Japanese have tried so hard to incorporate American culture into their's and this is a testament of that. It speaks for itself. Not only is the music American, the personification of the band members seems like something right out of the Spice Girls. Then there is a sequence where an animation of a mon rail is set against a backdrop of London and the members of the band are cartoon charecters like something from the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine". My favorite is the girl playing the mixing board and scratching the record:



This Indian video is probably one of the greatest things ever created. Bollywood is known for creating its own version of American film and music with a indian flavor, and this is probably the greatest example of that. This video is by the famous artist/actor/director Prabhu Deva of Tamil Nadu. The dance moves are pretty much recycled Michael Jackson moves, and the dress is very 80's, even though I think this was made relativly recently. They are probably behind though about twenty years in terms of American pop culture:



Here is another video from India that is more up to date, and is just as full of current American influences as the Japanese one. A word of caution though, this is pretty absurd. I had a hard time watching it all the way through. The dance moves are comical, the outfits are so blatenly American, and there is even some kind of crazy hip-hop sequence in a junk yard full of cars, as well as a scene that reminds me of a 70's black exploitation movie set to indian music:

Tamil Music Video

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Remember Borat from the motion picture "Borat: Cultural learnings of America make benefit for glorious nation of Kazakhstan"? Well here is a video from Kazakhstan. The interesting thing is that Borat was really making fun of Romania, but that would have been politically uncorrect. So instead he chose a country nobody has ever heard about in Central Asia where the people actually look Chinese. There is a lot of blatent American stuff such as the limo and the "hip-hop attitude", but it's also interesting since he is playing some kind of native insturment for the song as he raps over it. You will not believe this: