Glorification of America

Sledge Hammer? I loved that show! They don't make'em like that anymore.

But as to the OP's premise, I'm just not seeing a lot of glorification of America on American TV. For the examples mentioned:

I didn't see Band of Brothers as necessarily glorifying the US. I imagine for non Americans, the fact that the show didn't present US troops as genocidal monsters is probably off putting. In any case, that was a single miniseries on a premium channel, not really representative of US television.

I've never heard of Inside Combat Rescue so I can't comment on that, but JAG, again, by showing the US military as basically good guys,probably is counter to everything that non Americans think about the US military. Otherwise, is it that odd that US military members would be shown as basically supportive of US institutions?

I think there is far more American TV that enjoys showing the US and the US government in a bad light. If these 3 are the only ones you can think of they are probably the exceptions.

 

Well, there is a bias in American media.
WWII, which was a war between Germany and the Soviet Union, with smaller actions by allies, is shown as America defeating Germany or America defeating Japan, the German-Russian part, that was comprised most of the fighting is almost never depicted in US media.
We don't dwell on Vietnam, there hasn't been more than a dozen movies about Iraq, and I can't think of more than 3 off the top of my head, because that's the nature of media, to dwell on your glories and to avoid your embarrassing defeats.
So you won't see a movie about the US involvement in Haiti, because depicting US Marines gunning down unarmed civilians doesn't mesh with our national self image, even though it really happened, the same with the Philippine Insurrection, showing the US military torturing people and terrorizing civilian populations doesn't fit our image, likewise the invasion of Panama, where US forces killed 3000 unarmed civilians, not exactly a glowing moment we want to dwell on.
So we stick to the glorious parts of the history, and skip the parts where we appear to be sadistic butchers.

 

Well you do have to make a product that people watch.

There have been several Iraq related movies, mostly anti-war, or anti US policy in some way, and they've bombed in the domestic market, although I'm sure they do quite well overseas.

Meanwhile, there is a ton of TV and movies that show shadowy US agencies that assassinate people willy nilly, in which the constitution barely exists. I see that on the screen far more than I do anything remotely patriotic.

 

And so to a person that grew up in a country where there own native media emphasized the glory of their history, US made TV and Movies would seem to focus on glorifying America, and would seem to neglect the really important things in history, like when King Kolodny held off 10,000 invaders for 200 days with just 100 men in 1266, why is that never mentioned in the American media?

 

OK you've lost me. US media is responsible for the "glorification" of the history and culture of other nations, even though the media from these other countries are already doing that?

 

No, it's perspective, we see our history and our glory, and our media is filled with it, but it doesn't include what people in other countries get there, which is their history and their glory, which looks normal to them. If they see American media productions they appear to them to glorify America, just like if we watch things produced in a different country, they seem to glorify that country, well, except Italian neo-realism, but that's another discussion.....

 

Makes a lot of sense. The narrative viewpoint of any movie is that of the nation where it was made. What looks patriotic at home can seem glorifying in other countries. Some of the foreign (non-American) war movies I've seen were incredibly cheesy and glorifying. Most American movies are pretty well balanced in comparison (not icluding some terrible B-movies).

 

That's only a function of American TV dominating the world market. American TV shows are sold and watched all over the world. Other countries have a much smaller piece of that international market, and non American TV that does well on the international market is usually produced with that in mind, so there is little in the way of nationalism or patriotism in their shows.

 

Because 'America' is all about letting go of past collectives and moving on to building a future for yourself, which translates into growth for all. Take a look at 'immigrant' - minority - communities that have banded together and eventually stagnated. Those who have assimilated into the broader American experience have greater success. Thus the glorification of America. And the failure of current attempts to 'community organize' America.

 

Isn't it a National policy to glorify the US? In Bulgaria it is said that politicians use Hollywood (television, in general) to present Americans in the brightest light.

 

There is no national policy to do that. That should be obvious if you take the total output of Hollywood, not just their TV shows. Virtually any movie that has some sort of international conspiracy bent has the US as the bad guys. Although there may be a few movies coming out of Hollywood that might show the US in a good light, they would be few and far between.

 

Most American SCI FI shows are filmed in Canada and some of them use Canadian actors/actresses, like Battlestar Galactica / Smallville.

 

In most of the movies aliens attack USA, not England, China, or Nigeria, but always Los Angeles or Washington. When there is some menace, the Americans save the World, with no cooperation with other nations. USA is shown in life-saving, cilization responsible way. They do it for the sake of all people.

But I am not annoyed by this, like some of my friends, lets say. I like American movies and shows, 9 of 10 programs are from USA.

 

I'm hard pressed to think of many examples of that other than Independence Day for movies and Stargate SG-1 for TV.

In Independence Day, the aliens did in fact attack the entire world, not just the US. There were several cut away scenes showing alien attacks throughout the world. But yes, in that movie, America saves the world. I don't think it that odd that a US film would be set in the US however. They could have set it in Nigeria, but it would have been a different film. The aliens would have ended up selling their spaceships to the Nigerians in order to get access to London bank accounts controlled by Nigerian princes.

Actually, that's not a bad idea for an indie film...

But really, if there was a real alien attack, and one nation had a chance against them, which nation do you think that would be?

As for Stargate, to Cdnpoli's point, that was an American show with (mostly) Canadian actors portraying American military. And it did show the US saving the world on an almost weekly basis and presented the US military in a mostly positive light. I just don't think those two projects are typical of the bulk of Movies and TV.