Whither originality?

The movie send-up of the old TV show I grew up with, Starsky and Hutch, finally arrived in Finland and, given the current movies playing in the theatres here, we went to see it in hopes that its solid cast might make for a fun 2 hours. I'll save the spoilers and just sum it up by saying, "Wait for the DVD bargain rental", as my review. The only highlights of the movie are Owen Wilson, who is always nice to look at, and Snoop Dogg as the pimp Huggy Bear. Even so, it's not worth the ticket price to see it in the theatre unless you still wear the Starsky and Hutch underroos or have your room plastered with posters from the original series.

I always feel slightly guilty when I go to see these movies that are shamelessly unoriginal and pandering to the nostalgia of the GenX crowd, who are old enough now to reminisce about "the good old days", since I think it encourages Hollywood to continue to make more of them because they are financially viable. While the soundtracks are often terrific with universally enjoyed classics, who wants to remember what fashion disasters we were back then? I've been noticing the bold geometric shapes and awful colours of the new fashions attempting to evoke the 1960s style and it makes me cringe. Well, given the choice, the 60s fashions are still far better than the 80s fashions. Still, are we doomed to live with recycled TV shows, movies, movie sequels of sequels, music, fashion and art due to an utter lack of creativity and fear of failure? Even computing has largely stagnated in creativity since noone wants to face a financial failure so companies tend to stick to the tried and true. There are small pockets of creativity out there, but they are seemingly unrewarded for their effort to buck the mainstream.

It is particularly disturbing when you discover that Finland did, in fact, air the TV series way back when. No wonder the world thinks the US is totally fucked up and weird. I mean, if TV is the window to US culture, then why aren't foreign syndication companies picking up PBS documentaries or something better than the Anna Nicole Show or The Osbournes? America is a pop culture machine and it does it bigger, better and faster than anyone else in the world and then exports it relentlessly. Inside of the US, most of these shows have context and an appropriate amount of ridicule, but outside of the US I can't imagine what a show like Starsky and Hutch would mean to someone living in Botswana or even Finland since they didn't mean very much to those of us living in the US outside of California. People around the world think that the US looks either like Southern California or NYC since that's where the vast majority of the older series were filmed and I've always been annoyed with that.

I've been trying to get a pulse on Finnish pop culture for over a year now and, aside from Pizza Enrico, a few bands that are really quite good, and the occasional film, it seems like most of it is imported from the US. Perhaps it is because I live in Helsinki, but everywhere I go I hear American music in the pubs and shops, see American movies, and notice a variety of other American products. I suppose that I should feel at home with all of this familiar stuff, but in truth it pisses me off since if I wanted American pop culture I could just hop the next flight home. Finland has plenty of traditions, folklore and identity, but the pop culture seems far less distinct and mingled with an abundance of Yankee imports. Whether or not this has more to do with my being sensitive to the presence of American pop culture and not being fluent in Finnish remains to be seen. But, as a reasonably fresh import myself, it's hard to pin down. Especially now when America is just recycling the golden oldies, I have really been hoping that other countries, including Finland, would seize the opportunity to show the world some dazzling originality.

**disclaimer: Don't get your panties in a twist as I'm not on a crusade here. Imagine yourself moving to the US and mostly hearing Finnish music in the pubs and Finnish movies and TV shows in the theatres and on TV, wouldn't that be irritating in the extreme or at least weird? Everywhere I go in the world, it seems like the US has followed me there with McDonald's, Pizza Hut, movies and music. Who needs big brother when the spectre of pop culture haunts you wherever you go? The great homogenizer, that's the US.