5/29/2002: Spidering American culture

[Undertoad]

This isn't really an outstanding image of the day, but it's on my favorite subject: the cultural invasion.

This guy is Indian; he's in New Delhi. He comes from a remarkable culture. He's been there while Gandhi taught his people nonviolent revolution to reach independence. He's watched his country slowly pull itself up from its bootstraps, as they de-nationalized the farmers and learned to feed their people.

But that growth was slow, and so, other nations have grown right past India -- and beyond.

As a result, a country with four times the population of the U.S. watches a film generated from entirely within the American culture. The economic power of the west spawned cultural power as well -- and now, it simply bowls over cultures that aren't as productive.

Yesterday CNN had a report on bootleg tapes being sold from a Kabul market stand. Including... you guessed it, "Spider-man". It's out three weeks and kids in Afghanistan are watching it.

What will the long-term legacy be? I don't know; shamefully, I haven't seen the film yet. <i>Yeah, that means there are thousands of Afghanis who are hipper than me.</i> But I'm betting this does incredible good. I bet it introduces pro-freedom concepts to societies that never saw such a thing before. At the very least, they're suddenly seeing a super-hero who wears a burqa.