Cultural Globalization

Before I dive into my spiel, I would like to dissect the term “cultural globalization”. According to Dictionary.com, cultural is “of or pertaining to culture or civilization”, and globalization entails “extending to other or all parts of the globe; make worldwide: efforts to globalize the industry”. I really like the latter definition. Cultural globalization to me is summed up on one word: COMMERCIALIZATION; the popular culture of a particular society (media, music, movies, consumer goods) infiltrating another and being well-received and highly successful there. Sociologist George Ritzer coined the term “McDonaldlization” in his his book The McDonaldization of Society (1995) to describe “the process by which a society takes on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant”.

Prominent examples that strike me include the commercial “sell-out” route Korean pop stars and drama serials are heading down. Take the popular K-Pop star BoA for example, born in Korea and trained in Japan, she is molded to appeal to both Korean and Japanese markets, thus doubling her popularity and revenue. The 2004 Chinese drama “Love of the Aegean Sea” is another example of cultural globalization—the drama itself imitated the typical Korean drama love story plot and contained a very multicultural cast, with the main male character a famos Taiwanese actor, and the female lead played by a popular Korean actress, and a mixed cast with talents from Taiwan, China and Korea (each actor drawing his or her own fan base from the home country). The Korean actress did not understand Chinese, so she simply read out her lines in Korean and was later dubbed in Chinese. I feel that this takes away from the whole organic process of acting, and the art of film-making; not that drama serials are regarded as works of art anyway, but both leading actors basically did not understand a word the other was saying throughout the entire process, and even though all drama serials are created for the purpose of targeting a mainstream audience, I felt that the production of this particular drama was too explicitly a “sell-out”. Nevertheless, I’m ashamed to admit that I did enjoy the drama and getting lost in the love story and yes I did cry at the end because Korean dramas are infamos for being tear-jerkers. On another note, many (or most) Korean dramas are also dubbed in Chinese or have affixed English subtitles to enable the exportation to foreign markets.