Through the Looking Glass, But Darkly-

America, and American culture is known and promoted outside the US primarily through it's movies and movie stars. Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, and Arnold Schwarzenegger are just as popular in Tokyo as they are in Brooklyn. Of course sometimes things take on a comic twist. Here Costner is currently promoting canned coffee in a series of television commercials. Willis is featured in a really bizzare commerical for gasoline that features an oversized Cadillac style convertible, a fat Elvis clone, a falling paint bucket, and Bruce as some sort of X-men hero to the rescue.

Arnie, not to be out done, was just here promoting the Japanese release of his latest action flick - 'Collateral Damage". The picture of American behavior that he painted in order to interest crowds in his movie wasn't very pretty, though I am sure it served his purposes. How else are you going to draw people to the theater to see some one die from suffocation because a live snake is stuffed down his throat? One interesting story he told, factual or not, was that the day after 9-11 the US video shops had a run on movies about terriorist attacks.

It's also interesting to note that "Schwa-chan" has taken the Special Olympics under his wing as his own pet project to promote and foster. Kind of ironic that he makes his money on screen by doing the kind of damage that puts people in wheelchairs, then turns around and tries to help them out in real life....

Japan Today Japan News - Newsmakers - Terror attacks won't change Hollywood: Schwarzenegger
- posted by tempusmaster @ 9:56 PM