Thursday, March 08, 2007

(ir)resistible?

A recent IHT editorial posits that high-population, high-growth economies like India and China will "just say no" to America's culture of fast food and trashy entertainment. The writer's theory? Basically, he says these nations have their own fish to fry, while low-population centers like Scandinavia are starved for US cultural product. Would that it were so! I think a casual visit to the Saket Community Center and many other venues in Delhi suggests otherwise--it sure looks like to me that consuming "American" trash is a major aspiration for Indians, and lack of means is the main reason for low consumption. Which means more bad food, bad movies and bad music on the horizon.

This sounds like one of those "I can refute that argument in two words" kindof essays. The two words? Ben Stiller. Somebody stop that guy.

2 comments:

Zoey said...

Yeah, that sounds like a pretty whack theory. Case in point: When my New York-based boss came to Delhi and wanted to take our team out for a "nice dinner," she fielded suggestions from the group. The unanimous response? TGI Friday's. Uhh....yeah.

(By the way, pleased to meet you -- I'm an American expat who's been here for about two years; I stumbled upon your blog via DesiPundit. Mine's a bunch of crap, but I do a fair amount of jawing about the subconty.)

Jason Overdorf said...

Hey Zoey,
Like your blog. Some funny stuff there. The ones I loathe are the "professional" seeming ones. If I wanted to spellcheck and curb my rants and think logically, I'd call that "work." Then again, I'm not too keen on the pages and pages of diary-type stuff, either, unless the writer has more sex than the young Mick Jagger, mostly with embarrassingly hideous politicians.