02-16-2009

BARACK AND 'SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE'

Nathan Gardels is editor of NPQ and Global Services of Tribune Media Services. Mike Medavoy is a studio executive whose films have included "Apocalypse Now" and "The Silence of the Lambs." Gardels and Medavoy are co-authors of "American Idol After Iraq: Competing for Hearts and Minds in the Global Media Age."

By Nathan Gardels and Mike Medavoy

"In the global age," he said, "films must show the point of view of others, with respect and compassion, not as caricature."

That is exactly what British director Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" has done so splendidly, despite the misplaced rumblings of some Indian critics that it is "poverty porn." And, true to Gonzalez Inarritu's hopes, this film about class and social mobility on the dark side of shining India has garnered a stunning 10 Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.

Echoing a similar sentiment, President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview -- with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya -- that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but would pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband, Bill, has put it, America would now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power. 

Here lies the connection between Hollywood and Washington as America seeks to refurbish its luster. 

Though the foreign-policy establishment might like to believe otherwise, the fact is that, for good and for ill, most Americans see the world -- and the world looks at America -- as much through the prism of its mass culture as through the formal institutions of its foreign policy. Unlike most countries, Americans are seen not only for what they are and what they do, but through the images they project globally through pop music, TV shows and Hollywood films.

From the outside looking in, this Hollywood prism is a double-edged sword. Back in 1986, Regis Debray, the old pal of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, presciently remarked that "there is more power in rock music, videos, blue jeans . . . than in the entire Red Army" because they carried the vibes of freedom across the Iron Curtain. Thanks to satellite technology, Oprah has become a subversive presence on the TV screens of shuttered Saudi wives.

Yet, the spread of "entertainment values" where anything-goes-for-market-share has made many in the Muslim world wary of Hollywood. Her experiences trying to bridge the gap between traditional Islamic societies and the permissive West have led Queen Rania of Jordan to quip that American women are often seen in the Muslim world as "desperate housewives seeking sex in the city." 

Looking out from inside is a similar story. Since less than 10 percent of the famously insular and post-textual American public travels abroad annually, they get most of their impressions (and misconceptions) about the world beyond their borders from the image media, particularly from Hollywood films like the "Mission: Impossible," James Bond or, God forbid, the Rambo series.

If politics in the information age is about whose story wins, then, given this reality, America's storytellers -- Hollywood -- have a starring role in defining America's presence globally. For that reason, they ought to be recruited for the new "smart power" campaign, which must be twofold -- projecting America abroad and projecting knowledge of others to Americans.

The most important image to project abroad is that America is a plural, cosmopolitan society that works; a society in which each individual can write his or her own narrative despite race, creed or gender. Barack Obama, of course, is the poster child for this American idea.

Americans should, however, toot their horn globally with a good dose of humility. After all, Britney Spears, with her celebrity meltdowns, and John Thain, with his scandalous bonuses, are also poster children for the American way of life. To avoid hubris, it is best to remember the famous words of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr that, for all their qualities, Americans are not “tutors of mankind in its pilgrimage to perfection.”

Perhaps more important, traditional public and cultural diplomacy, which is aimed at persuading foreign publics of America's merits, should be inverted. In the global age, Americans have become inextricably tethered to others of whom they often have little understanding. Americans thus not only need to develop a cosmopolitan capacity for empathy and understanding of those with whom they share this shrinking planet; they need to be educated to embrace the rules of engagement for globalization that require forging common and fair rules of the game.

If there is any singularly poignant lesson from the disastrous course America took after 9/ll, it is that any alternative like "smart power" must be sustained by informed public support at home. Every misadventure of American foreign policy can be traced back to the insularity of the democratic public of the world's superpower. The cultural knowledge gap in our time is every bit as much a threat to national security as any military gap during the Cold War.

Imaginative knowledge, whether literature or cinema, is key to closing this gap. Azar Nafisi, author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran," says: "The news media is supposed to serve one aspect of our needs -- information. The other aspect must be satisfied elsewhere through imaginative knowledge. Part of the reason people liked my book was because they could experience through reading it what a young girl experienced in a country called an Islamic Republic. And they realized that her desires and aspirations were not very different from their own." Marjane Satrapi's 2007 film, "Persepolis," is a fine example of cinematic insight into others. So, of course, is "Slumdog Millionaire."

The "rise of the rest" wrought by globalization and the spread of technology has changed the equation whereby America could write the script for the whole world, both in Hollywood and Washington. In the coming "post-American" era, Americans will have to compete for hearts and minds just as Chinese epics like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" vie for the silver screen and Mexican, Brazilian and South Korean soaps challenge "Days of Our Lives" on the global boob tube.

Clearly, one important component of America's "smart power" strategy must thus involve the storytellers themselves who so influence the world's image of America and America's image of the world -- Hollywood's producers, writers and filmmakers.

In this way, Hollywood could become more than the purveyor of amusing distractions in hard times. It could be part of the "deep coalition" to help make the world safe for interdependence, which must be America's global strategy as it moves into an era where it will not always be on top.  

(c) 2009 Global Viewpoint
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