American Culture Since the beginning of the Second World War in 1945, America appears as the first world economic power. Nowadays, it is the most powerful country in a lot of domains, that’s why it represents a model for most of the countries and particularly for the developing countries. However, like Ian Ralston said in The Christian Science Monitor, America’s supremacy is mostly spread through its culture. It leads us to wonder how American culture invades the world. In order to answer this question, we will see in a first step the different areas of it and the major role played by globalization. Then, in a second step, the consequences of this domination.

First, the term globalization can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. Obviously, we can say that the world is unified into the American society through its widespread culture. Indeed globalization implies all the communication systems such as television, radios, magazines, newspapers, advertisement…etc. These communication systems are essentials in order to diffuse the American culture. Moreover, as it is mentioned in the statement, by American culture, we understand Hollywood, popular music and literature.
Hollywood is the place where the most broadcasted and the most famous movies are produced like, for example, Gone with the Wind or Titanic.
Then, American artists, poor before to get rich and famous, have introduced new kinds of music like R&B, Hip Hop, or Rock’n’roll which are nowadays the most listened genres. Let us take the examples of two best cd sellers: Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson who represent the influence of popular music all over the world.
Concerning literature, we can find in every bookshop or supermarkets, an impressive number of American books translated in the country’s language such as Stephen King’s.
However, American culture is not only about, cinema, music and literature. This is also food (especially fast food), fashion, sport (basketball, baseball and football), and a typical language rather familiar and blunt.
On the whole, we clearly notice that American culture occupies a place more and more important in each culture. That’s why we can speak nowadays of a standardization of culture.

Secondly, a standardized culture implies some consequences, just as well positive as negative.
On the one hand, a standardized culture is a good way to avoid all the issues caused by too many different cultures like for instance in America. These conflicts can be avoided at the national scale but also at the worldwide scale. Besides, discrimination and social exclusion would be far less omnipresent in our society. Everybody would be on an equal footing.
On the other hand, it is clearly a worrying threat for each cultural identity and more precisely all the traditions. They are now liable to disappear and it is a shame because they are enriching for a foreigner. With a same culture for everybody, travelling would be no more interesting except in order to discover new landscapes. Moreover a multi cultural society is a good way to have different views and opinions on political questions.

Finally, after weighing the pros and cons, we can deduce that American’s policy is rather paradoxical because their will of domination on the world is totally opposed to the values of tolerance, freedom and multiculturalism this country pretends to defend.
From my point of view, America can be compared to an octopus which wants to extend its stranglehold on the world thanks to its different areas of its culture represented by the tentacles. That’s why we must struggle against the invasion of American culture in order to assert everyone’s identity and to avoid falling into their trap with mass consumption. I think that it is also a question of respect towards our ancestors who were attached to their own identity. Furthermore the multiculturalism is really important because it allows to live in a balanced world.