3 My 2¢ May 2026 MAIN OFFICES 216 EAST 75TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 TEL: (212) 288-3933 WWW.VIDEOAGEINTERNATIONAL.COM WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG VIALE ABRUZZI 30 20131 MILAN, ITALY EDITOR-in-CHIEF DOM SERAFINI EDITORIAL TEAM SARA ALESSI (NY) BILL BRIOUX (CANADA) ENZO CHIARULLO (ITALY) LEAH HOCHBAUM ROSNER (NY) SUSAN HORNIK (L.A.) CAROLINE INTERTAGLIA (FRANCE) OMAR MENDEZ (ARGENTINA) LUIS POLANCO (NY) MIKE REYNOLDS (L.A.) MARIA ZUPPELLO (BRAZIL) PUBLISHER MONICA GORGHETTO BUSINESS OFFICE LEN FINKEL LEGAL OFFICE STEVE SCHIFFMAN WEB MANAGER BRUNO MARRACINO DESIGN/LAYOUT CLAUDIO MATTIONI, CARMINE RASPAOLO © TV TRADE MEDIA INC. 2026 American popular culture is no longer monolithic, but rather splintered. The end of America’s monoculturalism is creating division in the U.S. and making the rest of the world see Americans in a different light. In Italy in the 1960s, my father thought of all Americans as one big cohesive group, and, to him, they were better than any other people. They were richer, worldlier, more elegant, more demanding, and all were eccentric. “Even the bananas are better in America [than in Italy],” he was fond of saying. There used to be an American way of life that was clearly identifiable, well defined, and had a distinctive look. In 1954, a popular movie in Italy was called Un Americano a Roma (An American in Rome), and two years later, a famous song came out titled “Tu vuo fá l’Americano” (“You Want to Act like an American”). Both underscored the differences between the American and Italian ways of life. Indeed, in those years, the Americans looked as if they all dressed the same, listened to the same music, watched the same movies, and tuned in to the same TV shows. Even the immigrants wanted to immediately integrate and assimilate as soon as they reached U.S. shores. Someone arriving from Latin America, for example, quickly changed Jorge to “George,” or Juan to “John.” If they were from Europe, like in my case, the change was from Domenico to “Dom,” or Philippe to “Phil.” That was an era where the so-called “monoculture” prevailed. Recently, The Wall Street Journal pointed out that, in 1983, more than 100 million people in the U.S. watched the finale of the TV series M*A*S*H. Previously, in 1939, 200 million Americans bought tickets for the movie Gone With The Wind, when the population in the country was just 130 million (versus today’s 342.4 million). The generation gap always existed, but it affected domestic culture, not what came from America, which was appreciated by all age groups. Even my Italian Communist friends who used to parrot Lenin’s “The U.S. capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with” knew all the American songs by heart, especially Summertime (the 1935 tune that continued with “and the livin’ is easy”), and they sang that song while walking along the Croisette during MIP-TV in Cannes in the 1990s. In Italy, we grew up with Superman and Disney characters (in 1961 I became a Topolino — a Mickey Mouse club member), as American TV shows were all the rage worldwide. This was because of the fact that, in Europe, monoculturalism was controlled by the state (which owned TV networks and financed films, museums, and in Italy, even publications). Meanwhile, in America, in order to make sure that popular culture kept the country united, there were a variety of gatekeepers, including Madison Ave (advertising), Broadway (theaters), Hollywood (films), and Wall Street (financing). Today, American popular culture is no longer monolithic, but rather splintered. From “predictable,” viewers became “elusive.” YouTube, for example, has become the most popular TV channel because it offers something for everyone. It has been said that even the most popular influencer is not known to the large majority of Americans. And this new splintered pop culture is changing the rest of the world and how the world sees Americans. Dom Serafini “When it’s made into a movie, I can see Jack Nicholson playing you, and Demi Moore playing me.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5