Spain is a more liberal country than the US; also it’s way smaller so the comparisons are a little bit limited. However Spanish cinema I feel, based on the movies I watched in one of my classes, deals more with problems that the society faces. American movies are about action, romantic comedies or games converted into movies. But in Spain for example they have “Te doy mis Ojos,” by Iciar Bollain. This movie deals with domestic violence, and tries to teach the public about this ongoing issue. Amenabar’s ‘Tesis” focuses on audiovisual violence and touches on the topic of violence in TV, movies, graphic images on the news, etc and how an immense amount of people watch this horrendous films just for fun. Personally I didn’t really like this movie because I don’t really like scary or very suspenseful movies, but the theme it focuses on it’s very serious. There is a demand for this type of movies, and that’s a type of media. And on top of that with the problem of piracy it makes it even easier to access from anywhere. In my opinion this actually really exists.
After Franco and after the censorship was lifted there has been an influx not only in movies but also in any kind of product to expose the realities of Spain, good or bad. The excess of pornography, nude images on regular magazines, prostitutes everywhere, TV shows with no censorship and a very liberal government makes it easier for Spaniards to see and accept these ideas.
There’s a big difference on what is shown in Spanish TV and American TV. There is more freedom as in they can show more graphic images, they can play with sexuality and be more open to political jokes and any topic as of that matter. We have more regulations in the US of what the public can watch or even find in billboards, etc. Big interesting differences…
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Paramount Pictures
This was a very interesting lecture I must say. I didn’t know Viacom was so big and getting even bigger, now with Paramount Pictures adding on to their team DreamWorks, at least in Spain. It’s very interesting to see the little monopoly that Viacom has, an American company who branches out worldwide and has so much success everywhere they go. American TV, movies, entertainment overall practically rules worldwide, influencing national media in every other country they show their product. For example in Spain Spanish Cinema is not as attractive and popular as is American cinema, so for a Spanish film to be successful it has to come from a very big name like Amenabar or Almodovar.
Something I found very interesting from the presentation was how much piracy exists in Spain. I honestly did not know it was that big, and successful. For some reason I forgot that in the US piracy is actually more controlled since they keep shutting down downloading sites all the time. Even Syracuse University has a very strict policy about downloading illegal files. If you’re caught you actually have to go to court and you get in a lot of trouble. My freshman year I actually met a girl who got in big trouble because everyone kept downloading from her computer, and she got caught, and she had to pay a lot of money to get this situation solved. However, piracy is everywhere and mainly in the Internet because it’s harder to control and to patrol.
Also it was interesting to learn about how the film industry works. They spend a lot of money to gamble in movies that no one really knows if it will succeed or not. Spanish cinema for example has a little extra help from the government. They subsidize a small portion of the film, trying to help and promote Spanish cinema, and I think that is good.
The EMA, which was the European Music Awards for MTV just happened to be in Spain like a week ago and it was very successful. They had different events throughout the week for free for everyone and that is something they don’t really do back at home. I think it’s a positive advantage Europe has over American channels. Sometimes they spend more time in marketing so they can get to the international business faster and fully, which means they kind of forget about the people back in the US, just a thought because we don’t get that many free events.
Something I found very interesting from the presentation was how much piracy exists in Spain. I honestly did not know it was that big, and successful. For some reason I forgot that in the US piracy is actually more controlled since they keep shutting down downloading sites all the time. Even Syracuse University has a very strict policy about downloading illegal files. If you’re caught you actually have to go to court and you get in a lot of trouble. My freshman year I actually met a girl who got in big trouble because everyone kept downloading from her computer, and she got caught, and she had to pay a lot of money to get this situation solved. However, piracy is everywhere and mainly in the Internet because it’s harder to control and to patrol.
Also it was interesting to learn about how the film industry works. They spend a lot of money to gamble in movies that no one really knows if it will succeed or not. Spanish cinema for example has a little extra help from the government. They subsidize a small portion of the film, trying to help and promote Spanish cinema, and I think that is good.
The EMA, which was the European Music Awards for MTV just happened to be in Spain like a week ago and it was very successful. They had different events throughout the week for free for everyone and that is something they don’t really do back at home. I think it’s a positive advantage Europe has over American channels. Sometimes they spend more time in marketing so they can get to the international business faster and fully, which means they kind of forget about the people back in the US, just a thought because we don’t get that many free events.
A trip to Africa...
This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to go to Morocco for four days and experience a completely different culture from its “original” or closer roots. It was amazing, it’s such a different culture shock that the one I experienced coming to Spain. Obviously the countries cannot be really compared because they’re so different, don’t have the same economic situation or religion but it’s a very tight connection to Spain, since the Muslims ruled for a very long period of time.
I was able to meet with some activists who are trying to promote education among the poor children, and some Moroccan college students and talk about life in Morocco, differences, stereotypes, etc. However it was very interesting to see that each one of them always touched on American media and how it has such an impact on Moroccans, as well as Americans themselves and the opinions of people worldwide.
We spoke about how media always speak negatively about the Muslim culture, and how we relate it to violence and terrorism, when is not really like that. One of the anecdotes of one of the activist was that once he had the opportunity to go to the US and visit CNN, and what he saw left him speechless. He said there are three different buildings: CNN Domestic, CNN International and CNN Latin America, and all three gave the same piece of news very differently. This plays on the idea that we trust the news but we don’t really see the real side of what goes on. We kind of have to make it our own interest to visit different news sites and see how there are different perspectives based on where we are. I don’t really like this because a lot of us based what we know on what we see or hear from our parents, and if all the news are scams and corrupted, whom can we really trust?
It’s also was very interesting to see how Moroccans look up to America media for their daily entertaining doses. They listen to American music; watch American shows and their favorites are the American movies. How ironic, isn’t it, that they know American media doesn’t portray the best image towards Muslim, but still they don’t have hard feelings towards it because they know everything is manipulated.
I was able to meet with some activists who are trying to promote education among the poor children, and some Moroccan college students and talk about life in Morocco, differences, stereotypes, etc. However it was very interesting to see that each one of them always touched on American media and how it has such an impact on Moroccans, as well as Americans themselves and the opinions of people worldwide.
We spoke about how media always speak negatively about the Muslim culture, and how we relate it to violence and terrorism, when is not really like that. One of the anecdotes of one of the activist was that once he had the opportunity to go to the US and visit CNN, and what he saw left him speechless. He said there are three different buildings: CNN Domestic, CNN International and CNN Latin America, and all three gave the same piece of news very differently. This plays on the idea that we trust the news but we don’t really see the real side of what goes on. We kind of have to make it our own interest to visit different news sites and see how there are different perspectives based on where we are. I don’t really like this because a lot of us based what we know on what we see or hear from our parents, and if all the news are scams and corrupted, whom can we really trust?
It’s also was very interesting to see how Moroccans look up to America media for their daily entertaining doses. They listen to American music; watch American shows and their favorites are the American movies. How ironic, isn’t it, that they know American media doesn’t portray the best image towards Muslim, but still they don’t have hard feelings towards it because they know everything is manipulated.
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