Politics & Power Quote by Norman Spinrad

Spinrad’s line lands like a rude little postcard from the cultural marketplace: French cinephilia, that supposedly high-minded temple of taste, still queues up for the same global brand names everyone else does. It’s funny because it’s pointedly unfair and recognizably true in a particular way. He’s not claiming the French literally refuse anything non-American; he’s mocking the gravitational pull of “American” as a label that promises scale, glamour, and cultural centrality. The joke is the reversal of the stereotype. We expect the French to be the principled defenders of art cinema against Hollywood’s sugar rush. Spinrad flips that into a consumer habit: even France, home of the New Wave and the auteur myth, is susceptible to the blockbuster’s passport.

The intent is less Francophobia than a jab at cultural self-image. “American” here isn’t just a nation; it’s an operating system: marketing muscle, distribution, English-language dominance, and the prestige of being the default. The subtext: taste is often downstream from infrastructure. What gets screens, what gets subtitled, what gets press, what gets talked about at the cafe after the showing is shaped long before anyone claims to be “choosing” art.

Contextually, it fits Spinrad’s broader skepticism toward cultural gatekeeping and the stories societies tell about themselves. The line is a tight little critique of soft power: Hollywood doesn’t need to conquer; it just needs to be everywhere. France’s famous resistance becomes, in his telling, another brand identity - one that still sells tickets to America.