Cultures Through The Lens

Kady Sykora

MKTG 416

Cultures through the Lens

I have heard it said that one can learn a lot about a culture through its films. That is what I wanted to discover with this assignment. Prior to this assignment, my experience of foreign cultures is limited to my travels to Europe, more specifically France, Italy and England. On the other hand, I’ve seen at least a dozen foreign films with varying subject matter.

Criteria

In order to try to get the most out of this experience, I needed to have pretty strict criteria. I made the decision to include all continents, but because of a lack of available time, I had to leave out Asia and Africa. From each country I chose two movies because I wanted to get the best feel for a country without actually visiting the country. I excluded documentaries for the simple fact that the purpose of that the point of a documentary is to focus on a singular part of a society, and I wanted to gain a grasp the culture as a whole. I also tried to avoid any overlap of directors, since I didn’t want to experience one person’s view of a culture. No movie is set in or older than 10 years, because cultures tend to change over time, and I wanted to know what I might experience today. My final criterion is that I did not include any movie I had seen prior to this paper, because I wanted to come in with as little bias as possible. The final list of movies for this assignment is as follows: Amar Te Duele, Conejo En La Luna (North America/Mexico); O Homem do Ano, O Homem Que Copiava (South America/Brazil); Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei, Brudermord (Europe/Germany); The Rage in Placid Lake, Stickmen (Oceania/New Zealand).

All movie summaries are taken directly from the Netfix website

North America/Mexico

I chose Mexico as my country for North America for two reasons. One, most people assume that there are only three countries in North America; Canada, The United States, and Mexico. The second reason is that I felt there are not enough differences between the US and Canada to warrant spending a lot of time focused on learning about the culture of Canada.

The first movie, Amar Te Duele (Love Hurts): “Somewhere betwixt Mexico City's booming business district and its neglected barrios, romance is budding between Renata and Ulises despite the disparity in their social stratas.”

Basically this movie is a rehashing of the Romeo and Juliet story line. One thing that makes itself clear is the difference between the social classes. The rich are shown as super wealthy with people having personal drivers, and the teenagers making bets for 1,000 pesos with no second thought. The poor are shown in shacks and forced to choose between work and school. In my opinion, I think this movie does a great job of showing both sides of the culture, the business culture with large malls and fancy cars (not unlike that of the United States) and what most people think of when they think of Mexico, with barrios and street peddlers.

Although this movie focuses on teenagers, parents are shown as following the same status quo of no mixing between classes, and one could say that the parents are more vigilant against any sort of mixing, as at least two of the supporting characters aid the main characters in the quest to be together.

Overall, the biggest insight was the separation of classes within Mexico. I think that this is very important to learn about in order to conduct business in Mexico. Knowing that there are people who believe that the classes shouldn’t mix can affect how one markets a product. One may have to establish whether or not a product should be directed more at the upper or lower class.

The second movie Conejo En La Luna (Rabbit on the Moon): “When a white-collar Mexican man (Antonio) and his English wife (Julie) are framed for the murder of a politician, they suddenly find themselves pulled ever deeper into a dark web of corrupt government officials, bad cops and murderous henchmen.”

The first thing I noticed was the heavy use of English as well as Spanish. The vast majority of the characters are bilingual. Besides the wife, there are a few supporting characters that are from England. At the beginning of the movie, Julie is shown breastfeeding in the middle of a house party, and one of the Mexican says “the English will do it anywhere”, demonstrating that Mexicans prefer to keep that sort of thing private. Julie is shown to not have any knowledge of the corrupt government. On the other hand, her Spanish is flawless.

The vast bulk of the movie focuses on the corruption of the Mexican government. The reason that Antonio and Julie get pulled into the whole fiasco is because they make a deal for land with a man named Gordo, whom they barely know. Gordo is a henchman who works for the people involved with the corruption. When Gordo’s name comes up in the investigation, he is taken in and tortured by the police. The police find Antonio’s name, and Gordo tells them that the deal was to assassinate the politician instead of for real estate.

Overall, the theme of this movie was government corruption and the affect on the citizens. As a marketer, one would have to be aware of any corruption that the government may have. If the government is corrupt, one may have to reconsider entry into that area. Getting into business with persons unfamiliar may also be an unnecessary risk for a marketer. An unknown connection to the business sector may be corrupt and should not be trusted.

South America/Brazil

To be completely honest, the reason I chose Brazil is to watch Cidade de Deus. I have been meaning to watch this movie for over a year, and I figured when better than for this paper. However, that movie is set primarily twenty years in the past, so it didn’t meet my criteria. It did give me grasp on what to expect for the two films I did include.

The first movie from Brazil is O Homem Que Copiava (The Man Who Copied): “High school dropout Andre toils as a photocopier in a bookstore in the town of Porto Alegre, Brazil. He lives with his mother, and it would be a dead-end existence if not for his love for shop assistant Silvia. Trouble is, she's got a date with someone else, and it's up to Andre to come up with $38 for a dress that might impress her enough to keep him in the running for her affection.”

Right from the beginning we see that Andre has very little money. The opening scene shows