Do you like entertainment from other countries?

[Stasisesque]

In literature, I don't read an awful lot of non-British authors. It's not a conscious thing, as I'm more likely to pick up a book based on its jacket blurb than its author or reviews. I suppose British authors take precedence in book shops here? Perhaps they're more accessible to the public in their style or potential references. That isn't to say I don't enjoy literature from other countries, The Phantom of the Opera is one of my favourites, as is Catch 22. But my bookshelf is almost entirely British.

When it comes to cinema, I admit I have a thing for foreign films. I seek them out, mostly because I enjoy seeing another country's take on cinema. Of course, an awful lot of them look like any old Hollywood flick, save for the subtitles, but I enjoy them nonetheless. Being British, however, means the vast majority of the films I see are already from another country, but as we're drip-fed both American and British culture from a young age, I don't often class them as separate from our own.

I don't enjoy manga or anime; and as for music, I like what I like I don't often know where it's coming from. Hell I rarely know who sang what. When it comes to classical though, Russian all the way.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Catch 22.

Fuck yeah, Catch-22 is my favorite.

OT: Of course, liking foreign music is sort of mandatory for heavy metal enthusiasts like myself. Sweden, Finland, and Germany have given me great music selections.

Also, I love Japanese soundtracks to Anime and Videogames, and also anime and videogames from Japan in general.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Well I'm Australian, so the great, great majority of music and video games I enjoy are from other countries. Musically, I listen to metal, so there are bands all over the world I listen to, hell there are some from fucking Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia of all places. So yeah, I do like entertainment from other countries.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Baroque music... pretty much all German (Bach/Handel), plus a fair bit of classical (Brahms/Beethoven) and whatever category Mendelssohn comes under, though Rachmaninov is up there, too.
Anime/manga... with a smattering of manwha in there as well.
Chinese cinema is, for the most part cheesy as fuck guff, but some of it is just priceless.

Oh, and the occasional American TV show.

So, yes, I suppose... -.-

 

[DoPo]

German (I've got lots of German rap)

Well at least it's music and not TV. German TV I find physically painful.

I find most TV physically painful. Can't remember when exactly I watched TV because it was something I genuinely wanted to do. OK, I can tell you the last time I watched TV was just over a year ago (around the previous new year, so 2011-2012) but it was either because I turned on the TV as a filler sound while I did stuff on my laptop or because...it was a filler sound otherwise. I did try to watch the news but I quickly remembered why I don't like doing it...I think something in my brain bled.

 

[Carrion22]

Yes.

recently most of the TV i have watched, being in the UK, has been from the US. UK tv has stagnated in the dash to the lowest common denominator. even the nature and science programs are dumb ed down so far that even Richards voice cant enlighten me. so i avoid UK driven TV as much as i can.

i still enjoy some of the UK cooking shows, but there is nothing to be exited about drama wise. it is just half assed. if you want to do it do it full bore. make it EPIC.


80% of the films i have seen have been US driven and thats only that low because i watch a hell of allot of foreign and indi films. we just dont get them here.

Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Russian, German, and god knows what else is sat in my DVD collection and on my HD's
infact i can happily watch the nightwatch in russian without subs and be able to translate it. (and yes hollywood bastardised the day watch despite there being several more books in the series)

book wise i will read translations with pleasure and enjoy seeing the different cultures aspects. again i have works from the world over and will be enjoying some voltaire on my holiday.

music is world wide with my all time fav band, electric eel shock, being a bunch of totally random japanese guys with a huge love of sabbath and maiden. but i also can enjoy chinese classical music, jazz, blues, rock and metal the world over, russian opera and ballet, (and the captcha is a manson song!)

honestly limiting yourself to only a single country of choice is very bad. the people who want to hate you for a choice which differs from them are the ones with the big problem. not you.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I'm not counting American stuff, but other than that it's fairly scarce.

Unless it's Kvelertak of course.

Spoiler

BLODTORST!!!

 

[MysticSlayer]

Most of the music I listen to is from European bands. The only TV I'm really interested in anymore is anime (granted, I really don't watch TV at all, but when I do, that is the first thing that comes to mind). Also, while my preference for games (as far as countries are concerned) is far more balanced than my interests in any other entertainment medium, I do tend to prefer Japanese and Eastern European games to those made in America. Now, I'm not necessarily against entertainment from the United States (I'd much rather watch American films than any other), but the styles of other countries tends to appeal to more.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Well, I?m British, but I seem to prefer American comedies to my native ones (e.g. my favourite sitcoms are Scrubs and Friends). I do like a good anime, as well as many of my favourite video games being from Japan.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

I'm Swedish, and all my comics come from Japan or America, all my cartoons as well, and most of my music is from another country, as is almost all of the books that I read. The few times I watch TV, it's a series from another country.

This, if you substitute Swedish with Norwegian.
F'example, Yahtzee's british-born and currently residing in Australia, and I enjoy his videos as well as his books (although Jam wasn't as good as Mogworld). He is not Norwegian. Hence, I enjoy entertainment from other countries.
And 99% of the entertainment I enjoy is foreign. Probably helped by the fact that I live in a small, sparsely populated country with mostly shit cinema and literature (Although I did really enjoy Dead Snow).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Well Argentine TV sucks, and we produce only a handful of good movies a year, so I kinda HAVE to like stuff from outside.

 

[Nouw]

I'm Korean and living in New Zealand so yeah, pretty much all my entertainment is foreign. I like the odd K-Pop song, sure, but I wouldn't really listen to it instead of whatever I'm listening to.

 

[YingDerpington]

Well I'm Australian and it's almost like a national past time down here to enjoy stuff from other cultures as opposed to our own. Almost all of our home grown shows are absolute piss, we also take a lot of the absolute piss from the US as well. There are probably 10% of all TV channels hosting good stuff from US, England and elsewhere, Australian music scene is pretty much all bands from US and Europe as well.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well the ABC (Australian, before you say anything) basically buys a lot of BBC stuff anyway, so yes, if through nothing other than general lack of Australian content. Although we have had some good series. And naturally, seeing as I like anime and manga there's only really one place that comes from. A lot of the sort of paid TV kind of stuff is from the US, along with a lot of our other channels than the ABC, and I don't watch any of that.

 

[Marik2]

Baroque music... pretty much all German (Bach/Handel), plus a fair bit of classical (Brahms/Beethoven) and whatever category Mendelssohn comes under, though Rachmaninov is up there, too.
Anime/manga... with a smattering of manwha in there as well.
Chinese cinema is, for the most part cheesy as fuck guff, but some of it is just priceless.

Oh, and the occasional American TV show.

So, yes, I suppose... -.-

Baroque music is really good and I am glad my uni class had classical music class

Ot: anime and manga really. and some of the BBC documentaries

 

[CrystalShadow]

Um... Yes. If I didn't I wouldn't watch American stuff. Then again, I've lived in 3 countries, and been exposed to a lot of stuff from a lot of countries along the way.

I find it's all interesting in it's own way.

Of course, the reality is that in several countries, if you answer 'no' to this, then you're basically saying you don't like entertainment, because some countries produce very little in the way of actual local content to speak of.

But if you're going to talk of production values, keep in mind that the US is huge.

What is a 'small, not very popular' series in the US, could, if it only appealed to locals, still have more viewers than the entire populations of some countries.

The more potential viewers, the more money you can afford to throw at something.

No, seriously. The current population of the US is about 400 million.
The current population of the entire EU is 450 million.

Let's say you can't sell something internationally, but that the proportion of people in a country that like something like that is about the same.

In the UK, a series is liked by say, 1 million people. That's about 1 in 60 people that like it. The budget will reflect this, most likely.

In the US, a series that one in 60 people watch would have an audience of about 6.7 million...

I'd be very surprised then if it didn't also have a bigger budget. Simply because it can afford to.

Money isn't everything of course, but it's hard to escape the fact that it's probably going to have consequences for the production quality...

 

[Adaephon]

As a Canadian I pretty much have to enjoy foreign entertainment (seriously, other than Air Farce, SCTV, and the Kids in the Hall, can anybody name a single truly good Canadian TV show?) but it sees to me that American, British, and Japanese culture (or at least entertainment) has completely eclipsed all other foreign stuff that comes here. Unfortunately though, Canadian culture laws say that a certain percent of all TV and radio has to be Canadian content so we get stuck with truly terrible entertainment like Nickleback.

 

[Reaper195]

I live in New Zealand. We have...like...three TV shows that are any good (That aren't bullshit soap operas or reality tv shows), and don't make enough movies. So practically everything I play/watch comes from the US and the UK.

 

[RicoADF]

I was just watching an episode of Downton Abbey to see what all the fuss was about and I really hated it. As I was reading about it on Wikipedia, it occurred to me that I really don't like very much entertainment that comes from outside the US. I find it... almost less quality in a way. Its kinda hard to explain. But shows like Dr. Who, Alphas, etc all strike me as lower quality shows than ones here in the US in terms of production values, acting, etc.
Now don't think I'm saying America does everything right in terms of TV shows and movie. We have our fair share of shit too. But I've just noticed a trend of myself personally to dislike music, movies, games, etc that come from outside the US. Even when I didn't know they were foreign.

So I'm curious, do you (whether you are American or not) find entertainment from other countries to be less enjoyable than that from your home country?

Edit:

I can see this getting out of hand so let me be clear:

In no way am I trying to insult you or your country; I'm only saying that I, personally, tend to dislike entertainment from outside the US.

I generally prefer Aussie shows, however they almost no longer exist due to Hollywood buying up all the major cinema's and refusing to show non American shows, same goes for our major TV channels, so we're stuck with American *ahem* crap. Don't get me wrong, I like some US shows, especially sci-fi and comedy, but I get rather frustrated at seeing the abuse of our local media by foreigners with bigger wallets.