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David Blumeyer
Professor Cooper
English 205
October 7 2008
In Todd Gitlin’s investigation of the theme of Americanization and its global influence in modern and post modern times entitled “Under the Sign of Mickey Mouse and Co.” he offers us an analysis from many interesting perspectives. I shall begin my analytical response by first examining certain carefully chosen qualities, values, and attitudes that Gitlin identifies with American cultures. In this area I shall try and explain why in his view, are these aspects of American cultures so attractive to most outside cultures. I shall also emphasize to what extent these qualities and attitudes can be determined as predominately American. However I would take to extend this argument by adding to Gitlin's list my own which would comprise of how America is passing on a culture based on amusement and simplicity. In my next area I shall focus on what influences the American media does to local cultures and how it shapes and reshapes other cultures regional identities. While discussing American entertainment, I shall dwell particularly on what Gitlin suggests, which is its appeal to the Freudian “id” instead of the “superego” and why it begins from the bottom up. My next area revolves around the tremendous influence that the American usage has generated to the rest of the world. I will try to show how this is relevant, according to Gitlin, to America’s triumphant capitalistic culture that has been and continues to be built on advertising, slogans, headlines, comic strips, TV and radio. In the conclusion part of my paper I shall focus on whether I see this dominant process of Americanization as a threat to the rest of the world, as an invitation to another’s cultures freedom or simply as a predominant source of pleasure. I shall examine both the advantages and limitations of what Gitlin defines as America’s celebrated “fun morality” and whether it applies favorably or disfavorly as Americas...