Wulfrun wrote:

The problem for US cinema is that US filmgoers hate watching films with subtitles, and their dubbing industry is unable to cope with films from elsewhere in the world. They only watch a tiny fraction of the films available from outside the USA.

By contrast, other countries either have an excellent dubbing industry (like, say, Germany) or are accustomed to watching with subtitles (e.g. the Netherlands).

Hollywood films have so much money and industry-style capacity behind them that in a really free market they'd just swamp the world with wall-to-wall crap and kill off other film industries. They've effectively locked out most foreign films in the USA, but that's no reason why other countries should emulate them. The French still make some pretty decent films, as do the Germans, but while the French and Germans get to see those films (and other European films) in addition to US stuff, the Yanks don't get to see European films. Their loss!

I agree with a lot of what you write here, but with some significant nuances.

I think you are right that Americans hate sub-titles, but that is because we never needed them to enjoy a good film. There are many excellent English language films already coming out of Hollywood and most of them are, as you mentioned, well funded or pretty elaborate in comparison with foreign films.

So if your argument is that the richness of films available to English speakers, or more specifically Americans, makes them blind to other films I might agree to some extent. But certainly that is a better excuse for missing a foreign film than to have missed a film because your government restricts films in an effort to preserve "culture."

FREEDOM!!!!