A suggestion for discussion

[fpb]

In the last decade or two, the United Kingdom has produced two tremendous cultural phenomena that have gone around the world: the Harry Potter series and the Wallace and Gromit animated movies. SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION: Do they have anything in common, and do they have anything in common with other British successes such as the Dr.Who franchise or Alan Moore's comics?

Comments

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Well, my somewhat American-centric viewpoint is a reflection of your somewhat British-centric one, and for the same reason that Harry Potter has swept the world: American and British media does pretty much dominate the world. Where Hollywood and CNN don't reign supreme, it's the BBC and other British media filling the gaps more often than not.

So I think one problem is parsing out how much of the success of an American or British franchise is the result of it being popular in America or Britain, and how much is some additional quality that makes it universal.

I.e., I know at least part of the reason why Harry Potter caught on in the US. And being huge in both the UK and the US guaranteed that it would at least gain some popularity everywhere else. So was it just part of a pop culture phenomenon, or did it have some universal appeal?

It's easy to see the universal appeal of W&G. Ukrainian and Vietnamese children can appreciate the animation and the story as easily as British and American children. Harry Potter is much more culture-specific, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Please read more carefully. I was speaking of translating HP in Vietnamese, Ukrainian and Japanese. What is more, I know for a fact that it has been a massive hit in Italy before the movies. (And in spite of an unspeakable translation.) I can also tell you that some American and British ideas don't travel, especially in the field of humour. Anglo-American cultural dominance is not an acquired fact, and is less forceful now than it was forty years ago. In Italy, for instance, there is a strong Japanese influx, a huge (and, to many, incomprehensible) market for Brazilian telenovelas, and last but not least an increasing interest for local product, shown both in the rediscovery of formerly-despised local productions and in the vast success of recent items such as La Piovra, featuring heroic Carabinieri officers fighting the Mafia in Sicily. That Harry Potter should find its own place among all these was by no means a certainty, and in my view it did so quite simply because it is a superb piece of work.