With the rise of Netflix and other streaming video sources, foreign films and television have become accessible to average Americans in an unprecedented way. Before there was access, I never thought much about foreign media. In fact, I had no idea they made so much, or that it could be so interesting. The occasional melodramatic european movie to reach American cinema did not do much for my perception of foreign media.
My interest in foreign media began with BBC television programming. A huge fan of Jane Austen, how could I not be enraptured? American film versions of her books fall far short. Then there are the epic nature and history documentaries. If any country can be said to have risen to the production standards of American Media, it is the British. More recently, Japanese animation from Studio Ghibli has been proving its mettle in the American market, raising our collective expectation of foreign production quality.
Production quality isn't everything. Even with fewer production resources, interesting story and fabulous acting can raise foreign television shows from unexpected countries into our cannon of "Must Watch" media. In addition to pressing their reading fluency to a new level trying to keep up with the subtitles, these shows expose my kids (& me) to diverse cultural ideals. They show how values differ and how cultures have adapted to their environment. I'm sure they don't think much of it when making their TV shows, but I never would have thought of Korea as so cold for so much of the year. Even though their clothes are modern, how they layer jackets and accessorize with multiple scarfs, gloves, and hats, is quite different from how we live in California.
The stereotypes are different and their concerns are different. You seldom see truly impoverished characters at the center of American tv shows. Yet the strength and tenacity of the poor is honored in many of the shows I've seen. They have pride, and the show is not about how they have to give up their pride to survive like we would expect in our media. It's about how a poor life with self-respect is better than wealth without it.
How they eat is especially fascinating. A two minute lesson on how to use chopsticks is so different from watching how they use them differently to eat different foods, or when they choose to use a spoon. No one would ever sit you down and teach you all these things. They don't remember learning them, like we don't remember learning to use a fork. You learn them by observation and trying, just like a child. This is our chance to sit at a foreign table like a toddler and watch without anybody looking back at us strangely.
These shows also show us how much we are alike. This week I stumbled on a show from Korea that felt incredibly relatable to me. We love our TV geniuses in America, but there's a mistaken idea here that genius is easy. "Bones," "House," "The Big Bang Theory," all center around characters that are passionate about a subject that they are also incredibly gifted in. Even college seems like it must have been easy for these characters.
That's not really the case for most geniuses. When everything comes easy early on in school, it's difficult to find a passion that will drive you through college into a narrowly focused career. I'm one of those high IQ people with that kind of potential, but had no direction. I didn't go to college, and I'd say about half of the Mensa members I know didn't. There are many ways for a genius to learn, and we all found other paths. Those who go to college often drop out when things get hard for the first time. They never learned how to work hard. I've spent every day since high school learning that lesson. School was easy, but life is hard. The people who know how to work hard succeed over the people who have good grades that came easy.
The show I found, "Playful Kisses," catches the genius character on the cusp of college with no understanding of how life is for students who have to work hard to learn. It places him into an uncomfortably close relationship with one of the academically stupidest girls in school. She has none of the intellectual gifts that he enjoys, but she has determination to keep trying anyway. It's ridiculously comical, and sweetly poignant. If you have a gifted teen lacking direction, drive, or empathy, this show is an excellent way to stretch their thinking in these areas.
If I hadn't ventured into foreign media, I'd never have found this gem, this piece of media that articulates the tenuous balance between intellect and effort that we all must find to be successful. Even the biggest idiot is happier than the genius because he knows what he wants to do and is prepared to work hard to do it. As comical as he is in his stupidity, you don't feel sorry for him because you know he will find success. You even think sometimes that the girl both guys admire might be better off with him. A simple life with love can be a happy one.
Clearly I'm in a Korean television phase. But I would encourage you to follow your own interests into foreign productions. Try one of the foreign options that pop up as recommendations "because you watched..." Be a little more tolerant of slow starts, subtitles, and weak production value than you typically would, and see how they build. Check on IMDB.com for reviews. Foreign media is showing up there too, and people are watching and leaving useful reviews. Let it expand your world view in all the little ways I've described. American media is not the beginning and end of educational and entertaining television. People in other countries are making "Must Watch" television and movies too.
*** This post was featured in the Redwood Mpire Mensa Bulletin, Aug. 2014 edition.
My interest in foreign media began with BBC television programming. A huge fan of Jane Austen, how could I not be enraptured? American film versions of her books fall far short. Then there are the epic nature and history documentaries. If any country can be said to have risen to the production standards of American Media, it is the British. More recently, Japanese animation from Studio Ghibli has been proving its mettle in the American market, raising our collective expectation of foreign production quality.
Production quality isn't everything. Even with fewer production resources, interesting story and fabulous acting can raise foreign television shows from unexpected countries into our cannon of "Must Watch" media. In addition to pressing their reading fluency to a new level trying to keep up with the subtitles, these shows expose my kids (& me) to diverse cultural ideals. They show how values differ and how cultures have adapted to their environment. I'm sure they don't think much of it when making their TV shows, but I never would have thought of Korea as so cold for so much of the year. Even though their clothes are modern, how they layer jackets and accessorize with multiple scarfs, gloves, and hats, is quite different from how we live in California.
The stereotypes are different and their concerns are different. You seldom see truly impoverished characters at the center of American tv shows. Yet the strength and tenacity of the poor is honored in many of the shows I've seen. They have pride, and the show is not about how they have to give up their pride to survive like we would expect in our media. It's about how a poor life with self-respect is better than wealth without it.
How they eat is especially fascinating. A two minute lesson on how to use chopsticks is so different from watching how they use them differently to eat different foods, or when they choose to use a spoon. No one would ever sit you down and teach you all these things. They don't remember learning them, like we don't remember learning to use a fork. You learn them by observation and trying, just like a child. This is our chance to sit at a foreign table like a toddler and watch without anybody looking back at us strangely.
These shows also show us how much we are alike. This week I stumbled on a show from Korea that felt incredibly relatable to me. We love our TV geniuses in America, but there's a mistaken idea here that genius is easy. "Bones," "House," "The Big Bang Theory," all center around characters that are passionate about a subject that they are also incredibly gifted in. Even college seems like it must have been easy for these characters.
That's not really the case for most geniuses. When everything comes easy early on in school, it's difficult to find a passion that will drive you through college into a narrowly focused career. I'm one of those high IQ people with that kind of potential, but had no direction. I didn't go to college, and I'd say about half of the Mensa members I know didn't. There are many ways for a genius to learn, and we all found other paths. Those who go to college often drop out when things get hard for the first time. They never learned how to work hard. I've spent every day since high school learning that lesson. School was easy, but life is hard. The people who know how to work hard succeed over the people who have good grades that came easy.
The show I found, "Playful Kisses," catches the genius character on the cusp of college with no understanding of how life is for students who have to work hard to learn. It places him into an uncomfortably close relationship with one of the academically stupidest girls in school. She has none of the intellectual gifts that he enjoys, but she has determination to keep trying anyway. It's ridiculously comical, and sweetly poignant. If you have a gifted teen lacking direction, drive, or empathy, this show is an excellent way to stretch their thinking in these areas.
If I hadn't ventured into foreign media, I'd never have found this gem, this piece of media that articulates the tenuous balance between intellect and effort that we all must find to be successful. Even the biggest idiot is happier than the genius because he knows what he wants to do and is prepared to work hard to do it. As comical as he is in his stupidity, you don't feel sorry for him because you know he will find success. You even think sometimes that the girl both guys admire might be better off with him. A simple life with love can be a happy one.
Clearly I'm in a Korean television phase. But I would encourage you to follow your own interests into foreign productions. Try one of the foreign options that pop up as recommendations "because you watched..." Be a little more tolerant of slow starts, subtitles, and weak production value than you typically would, and see how they build. Check on IMDB.com for reviews. Foreign media is showing up there too, and people are watching and leaving useful reviews. Let it expand your world view in all the little ways I've described. American media is not the beginning and end of educational and entertaining television. People in other countries are making "Must Watch" television and movies too.
*** This post was featured in the Redwood Mpire Mensa Bulletin, Aug. 2014 edition.
I would venture to suggest that BBC *surpasses* much of the mindless drivel our TV producers have been churning out for years.
ReplyDeleteWe've never had cable, but out TV free life was interrupted by the existence of Netflix and Amazon Prime. After a year studying foreign countries with the assistance of mediocre travel documentaries, perhaps we would have been better off wading into more actual foreign films.
Oh, and Mulan, the Chinese grown up version, is far better, and has a much different ending, than the Disney version.