Complete and Creative

American TV in Sweden (3/3)

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A further note on some of these TV shows: “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” are two of the most popular TV shows in the United States as well. Considering that Americans tend to specialize in slap-stick and even culturally sophisticated humor whereas Swedish humor is usually quite dry, it is surprising that “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” are as popular as they are in Sweden.

A view from inside Stockholm’s City Hall, where the banquet for the Nobel Prizes is held.

Swedish versions of “Law & Order” and “CSI” would be utterly boring, for the drama that can happen in American courts simply do not exist in Swedish law culture. If Swedish versions were to be made, which is highly unlikely considering the economic indications, the shows could not contain scenes within courtrooms.

“Friends,” “Seinfeld,” and “Sex in the City” see their characters having the time of their lives in New York City. This is partly why most students in Lund, the little Swedish town where I studied, think Lund is boring because it is not a big city. Most people prefer Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden, twenty minutes away from Lund by train, but even then there is a saying in Malmo that people who live in Malmo party in Copenhagen, the most cosmopolitan city in all of Scandinavia.

It is evident that American TV shows have made their way into Swedish society, but it remains to be seen whether or not Swedish media has even made a dent on the American lifestyle. As an American student, when I think of Swedish exports to America, I do not think of any movie or TV show, for America produces so many movies and TV shows that it is difficult for foreign films to get mainstream spotlight time.

I think of IKEA when I think of Sweden; however, I know for a fact that many Americans do not even know that IKEA originates from Sweden. Many of them only know it as a cheap place to purchase furniture.

On another note, another of my English professors, who got his Ph.D at Harvard University and has been to Sweden before, taught a course in popular American fiction. Included in the course was actually a Swedish novel about the detective Martin Beck called The Locked Room. However, he pointed out that the average American rarely thinks of Sweden whereas Swedes are constantly conscious of America because it is much more crucial for Swedes to know about America than it is for Americans to know about Sweden.

So far, this cultural exchange has looked horribly one-way, but recently there have been Swedish directors cooperating with Hollywood. However, even in this context, is the cultural traffic two-way?

Sweden is crowded with American TV shows because it is much cheaper to buy the non-exclusive rights to those shows than to produce them with their own actors, for the Swedish population of nine million is not able to sustain massive cinematic projects the way the American population of three hundred million can.

When Swedish directors wish to go big, they must turn to Hollywood. In this case, is the result an American film or a Swedish film? By production rights, it is without a doubt an American film, but what about on cultural grounds? I say that this at least resembles two-way cultural traffic more than American TV shows being all over Swedish television sets does.

Lastly, it seems that I must concede that cultural exchange happens on the terms of the globalizer, especially when the recipient culture is so receptive. In the case of the United States and Sweden, the globalizer is the United States.