"A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy"
About this Quote
Bertolucci’s jab lands because it yokes two American exports that like to pretend they’re opposites: entertainment and “freedom.” Calling both a monoculture isn’t just anti-Hollywood snark; it’s a director’s way of naming how a single aesthetic and a single political story can flatten local realities into something legible to American tastes. Hollywood sells the world a template for desire, heroism, and happy endings. Democracy-export rhetoric often sells a template for governance with the same confidence and the same demand for audience buy-in.
The line works on a sly, uncomfortable equivalence. Hollywood’s imperialism is easy to critique because it feels “soft”: box office dominance, English everywhere, global stars. Bertolucci drags in the “hard” version - foreign policy - and suggests they share the same operating system: simplify complexity, center the American protagonist, treat cultural difference as either exotic set dressing or a problem to be fixed. Monoculture here means not just sameness, but the power to define what counts as normal.
Context matters: Bertolucci came of age in postwar Italy, with a long memory of fascism, Americanization, and Cold War cultural influence. His films often wrestle with ideology as seduction - the way grand narratives colonize private life. So when he frames democracy as an export, he’s not dismissing democratic ideals; he’s warning about the missionary impulse that turns an ideal into a product. The real target is the certainty: the belief that one system, one style, one story can travel everywhere without doing damage.
The line works on a sly, uncomfortable equivalence. Hollywood’s imperialism is easy to critique because it feels “soft”: box office dominance, English everywhere, global stars. Bertolucci drags in the “hard” version - foreign policy - and suggests they share the same operating system: simplify complexity, center the American protagonist, treat cultural difference as either exotic set dressing or a problem to be fixed. Monoculture here means not just sameness, but the power to define what counts as normal.
Context matters: Bertolucci came of age in postwar Italy, with a long memory of fascism, Americanization, and Cold War cultural influence. His films often wrestle with ideology as seduction - the way grand narratives colonize private life. So when he frames democracy as an export, he’s not dismissing democratic ideals; he’s warning about the missionary impulse that turns an ideal into a product. The real target is the certainty: the belief that one system, one style, one story can travel everywhere without doing damage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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