American Cultural Insularity and Global Online Video: Are Netflix,Amazon Prime and Other Digital Streaming Platforms Broadening Americans’ Foreign Film Consumption Horizons?

Introduction

The United States has a long history of being especially insular vis-à-vis foreign film. (Demont-Heinrich, 2020; Segrave 2004). Political economic forces antithetical to foreign film, most notably, the so-called Hollywood cartel, which has fought successfully for more than a century to protect its American market hegemony from foreign competitors, has almost certainly played the biggest role in comparative lack of consumption of foreign film in the United States. However, other factors, including American consumers’ own deeply embedded and long-running cultural insularity (Demont-Heinrich, 2019; Demont-Heinrich, 2020) have also played a role. In fact, the United States has long been characterized by American Cultural Insularity (ACI). According to a theory of ACI that I have developed in previous work (Demont-Heinrich, 2019; Demont-Heinrich, 2020), compared to most people in most other countries, Americans tend to consume much more of their own cultural media products and much fewer cultural media products produced in other countries than people in other countries consume. A theory of ACI holds that this tendency toward cultural insularity among many, though not all, Americans – diasporic and first- and second-generation immigrant Americans comprise notable and important exceptions -- occurs largely because Americans, and especially white middle-/upper-middle class Americans with English as their dominant and often only language, are the most Dominant Cultural Group (DCG) on a global level.

Shifting forms for the consumption of film in the 2010s and early 2020s, which have seen a massive move from film viewing in theaters to online video streaming, have the potential to shift American consumers out of their historic inward orientation and their ACI. Digital video streaming platforms provide easier, quicker and more convenient, though clearly not unlimited, access to a much larger number of films than local theaters or even local video and DVD rental stores, most of which have long since almost completely disappeared from the American landscape. Streaming revenues in the United States have more than doubled over the last four years––from $11.4 billion in 2016 to $26.5 billion in 2020 and have grown to surpass theater box office receipts, especially during the era of COVID with theatrical revenues falling to $2.2. billion in 2020, a total that represents a mere fraction of total streaming revenues for 2020 (Loria, 2021). In theory, these tectonic shifts toward film consumption via digital online video streaming platforms could nudge American film and media consumers out of cultural insularity vis-à-vis film and could also mark a more general movement out of their ACI. This paper compares long-running and deeply-entrenched American resistance to foreign and non-English language film to the popularity of foreign, non-American feature film-length content originally produced in a language other than English on 10 major digital online video streaming platforms, among these, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Google Video. It does so primarily via a discussion of, and analysis of, digital online video streaming platform popularity charts compiled by flixpatrol.com, to which I will refer from now on as Flixpatrol. A Netherlands-based online video streaming data collection and analysis web site/company, Flixpatrol charts the most popular streamed films and television series on a variety of top global and also American-founded and -owned digital online video streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney + .

In examining the question of a possible shift toward increased consumption of foreign film and non-English language film by American-based digital online video streaming services subscribers, this paper covers both new empirical ground and new theoretical ground. In global media and communication studies, little scholarly work has focused on the unique cultural insularity of American consumers vis-à-vis the global cultural system, though some scholars – Schiller (2000) among them – have indirectly invoked an idea of ACI. Most scholarly work within global and media and communication studies has tended to focus on American cultural hegemony abroad (Kuisel, 2003; Mattelart, 1979; Mirrlees, 2013; Pieterse, 2003; Schiller, 1976) and/or counter-hegemonies vis-à-vis American global cultural hegemony abroad (Billteryst, 1991; Katz & Liebes, 1987; Straubhaar, 1991; Winter, 2003). Little scholarly work has sought to empirically examine, or reflect critically upon, how the dominant cultural group, globally, Americans, has historically been situated quite differently vis-à-vis the global cultural system than virtually all other national groups. This paper explores the following questions:

How do some of the trends that we are able to discern by way of Flixpatrol's popularity charts compare to historic American trends in terms of the comparative lack of consumption of non-American and non-English language feature-film length content?

History: Foreign, Foreign-Language, and non-English-Language Film in the U.S

With the exception of a comparatively short time period in the very early era of film from the late 1800s through the beginning of WWI when non-American films did quite well in the American market, foreign films have historically fared poorly in the United States (Segrave, 2004). Although no one has kept a running tab on precisely what share of total film revenues in the U.S. foreign films have garnered across the past 125 years on an annual, or total, basis, according to multiple sources cited by Segrave (2004) in a comprehensive and deep look at the history of foreign film in the United States, even the highest estimates for the very best years of foreign film revenue generation in the U.S. since the end of World War I indicate that such films have amassed no more than 7% of total annual film revenue in the U.S. in any given year. According to multiple scholars (Coates & Peaselee, 2005; Hazelton, 2015; Segrave, 2004; Schiller, 2000), the primary reason for a comparative lack of foreign film in the U.S. has historically been, and continues to be, efforts by the Hollywood major film production studios, what Segrave (2004) calls the “Hollywood cartel,” as well as by major film theater distribution companies, to severely limit the number of foreign films released to, and distributed to, audiences in the U.S.

Even a cursory glance at film revenue numbers in the U.S. reveals that foreign films – with a few exceptions, including, of course, Parasite, the South Korean produced film that in 2019 become the first-ever non-English language film to win in the general Best Picture category at the Academy Awards – have continued to languish in the U.S. The majority of the top grossing films in U.S. history are films produced in the U.S. The majority of these have been produced during the last 20 years. IMDb Pro, on its U.S. Domestic Box Office Mojo web page, keeps a running tab of the highest grossing films in the United States (Top lifetime grosses: Domestic (U.S.), 2021). As of October 20, 2021, all of the Top 20 grossing films of all time in the U.S. were American films, with 17 of these American films having been made since 2004, or in the time since Segrave (2004) published Foreign Films in America. Furthermore, according to IMDb Pro, all of the Top 500 grossing films in U.S. history are Anglo-American films originally produced in English. In other words, not a single non-English language film has so far made its way into the Top 500 grossing films of all-time in the U.S. Despite winning best picture this past year at the Academy Awards, Parasite would not even make it into the |Top 1,000 grossing films in U.S. history.

Theory: Cultural Hegemony, Dominant Cultural Group Theory & American Cultural Insularity

I nest a theory of ACI and DCGT underneath a theory of cultural hegemony. Cultural hegemony occupies a sort of middle ground on the cultural imperialism to cultural globalization theory continuum that characterizes global media and communication studies scholarship. Cultural hegemony acknowledges both the reality of disproportionate Western and American cultural power and the reality of multiple consumer responses to, and readings of, hegemonic (American) cultural media products such as films, television series and pop music songs. Cultural hegemony holds that a number of national cultures, that of the U.S. in particular, typically occupy more space at what might be referred to as a global table of cultural options, or what Kuisel refers to as a global cultural “smorgasbord”. Those who hold a cultural hegemony perspective (Chalaby, 2006; Kuisel, 2003; Ritzer & Stillman, 2003) acknowledge that there is some -- but also often limited and often, though not always, American-tilted -- “choice” in terms of the cultural options available to cultural consumers in different places around the world. These scholars (Flew, 2020; Mirrlees, 2013) also tend to foreground the continuing relevance of the national and of national cultures -- especially in terms of populist nationalist ideology -- in a globalizing world that nonetheless has not seen the erasure of the national. The cultural consumption choices made by those in the DCG tend to be largely self-orienting, both for cultural and for political economic reasons. This is especially true in the U.S. which, comparatively speaking, since World War II, has been, and continues to be the world's most preeminent and predominant cultural media producer (Mirrlees, 2013; Schiller, 2000).

Methods

My methodology is straightforward: I draw upon Flixpatrol's list of annual Top 10 on Streaming in the United States charts for 2020 and 2021 (from Feburary 2020 through September 2021) on 10 major video streaming platforms – Netflix, Amazon, Google, iTunes, Hulu, Fandango, HBO, Disney + , Vudu and IMDb – and analyze the films on Flixpatrol's list in terms of their country/countries of origin and in terms of the language(s) in which the films were originally released. I define a “film” here as anything listed as a film by Flixpatrol, which also keeps track of the popularity of television shows/series in its rankings. Flixpatrol collates public data released by Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play etc. and draws upon this data to create its various global and national Top 10 on Streaming lists for each of the 10 American-founded and based global digital video streaming platforms that comprise its rankings. Flixpatrol's collation of this data is extremely useful and practical, both in terms of its chronological organization of popularity charts and the ways in which it centralizes and collates widely dispersed and also difficult to access data.

Flixpatrol provides a number of different chronological windows in on the most popular streamed feature films on the 10 different video platforms for which it creates popularity charts: Daily, weekly, monthly and annual snapshots of the Top 10 most popular streamed feature length films on each of the 10 different video platforms for which Flixpatrol collates data for and it does so across 125 different countries. Flixpatrol began collating data for its popularity measurement charts in February 2020. I examine and analyze and discuss the annual Top 10 Flixpatrol data for 2020 and 2021 thus far (through September 2021) for the 10 different American-based/founded video streaming platforms for which Flixpatrol collates data and creates its popularity ratings charts. In addition to drawing from Flixpatrol's Top 10 in Streaming (Films) in the United States annual 2020 and 2021 (through September 2021) lists, I also draw from IMDb's Box Office Mojo online listing of top global and USA domestic grossing films of all-time. Finally, I draw extensively from Segrave's (2004) book Foreign Film in America in terms of my historical data vis-à-vis the popularity, or, really, the lack of popularity of foreign film in the United States.

Overview of American Digital Video Streaming Platforms in Flixpatrol's Population Rankings

Flixpatrol provides Top 10 popularity rankings for streamed content on 10 video streaming platforms for 2021 and 9 for 2020 (HBO is missing from Flixpatrol's 2020 rankings). The 10 platforms upon which Flixpatrol's Top 10 on Streaming lists are based are:

(1) Netflix

Data Overview: Flixpatrol's Top 10 on Streaming in the U.S. in 2020 & 2021 Popularity Lists

Overall, an analysis of the most popular streamed movie titles as ranked by Flixpatrol for 2020 and for 2021 (through September 2021) reveals that non-American and non-English-language movies were not especially popular among American-based subscribers on the 10 streaming platforms that Flixpatrol includes in its popularity rankings. Indeed, depending on how one defines “foreign film” and non-English-language or English-language film and depending on how we count movie titles that appear multiple times across streaming platform Top 10 most popular films, either as a single entry or multiple times for appearing on multiple Top 10 most popular streamed films for the different platforms Flixpatrol assesses, anywhere from 2% to 6% of the total movie titles ranked by Flixpatrol were non-American-produced films released originally in a language other than English. The total of 2% of 6% of titles being non-American produced and/or produced in and released originally in a language other than English aligns precisely with the typical percentage of annual box office revenue that has gone to foreign films in the United States for roughly the past 100 years (Segrave, 2004).

Analysis: Flixpatrol's Top 10 on Streaming in the U.S. in 2020 & 2021 Popularity Lists

An admittedly initial look through a selective window in on the popularity of non-American and non-English-language films on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes and Disney + through Flixpatrol's annual rankings across a period of about 18 months shows that, at least so far, and as measured via this mechanism, no evidence exists of significant change in Americans’ film consumption habits vis-à-vis non-American and non-English-language feature length films: They simply are not very popular among Americans. That this is not so is not particularly surprising given the general lack of popularity of foreign and non-English-language produced film historically in the United States: For more than 100 years, American domestic and English-language film has dominated the American market with foreign films typically never making up more than 7% of total major film revenue. As measured by the Flixpatrol Top 10 most popular films streamed on major streaming platforms for American audiences, it appears that the digital platforms may be doing something rather similar to what has been done by Hollywood producers and distributors in the US for 100 years: They appear to be putting mostly American content in front of their American subscribers who then go for that content in (large?) part because that is what is being put in front of them. It is beyond the scope of this initial investigation of the most popular streamed feature length films among American-based video streaming platform audiences to get at why Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Disney + , etc. appear to be pointing their American-based subscribers almost exclusively toward American-produced and English-language produced content, at least as measured by Flixpatrol's popular streams schemata. Getting at the whys behind what films various American-based digital video streaming platforms offer would require, among other things, access to the streaming platforms’ subscriber data (something that they essentially do not release). However, it is possible to put forward reasonable initial speculation about why, so far, when measured by Flixpatrol's popularity rankings, comparatively little foreign and non-English language film appears to be being consumed by American-located/based media consumers. First, much historical precedent exists: Foreign and non-English language film have not historically done well in the United States. Second, because consumers bring their previous orientations to new distribution platforms and outlets such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and iTunes, and those orientations and habits have been shaped for decades by a market that has not been very open to non-American and non-English-language film, it seems likely that the previous preferences and habits – again, shaped not only by consumer “choice” but also strongly by decisions by producers and distributors of content – will continue into the new distribution mechanisms such online streaming video. Third, the digital online video streaming platforms themselves are located in a specific historical and economic market, one that has long been characterized by the domination of American-produced and English-language films. Clearly, the economic decision makers at these platforms are going to make decisions about licensing, creating and producing, and distributing content that they believe will make their company the most money. And, in a market characterized for 100 years by the domination of American produced and English-language film content, it makes economic sense to continue with an approach that places that type of content in front of American-based audiences. Fourth, there are many assumptions written into the creation of the algorithmic code that ultimately directs subscribers on digital video streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Video and iTunes. Perhaps the most overarching of these assumptions is that consumers will opt for content that is quite a bit like content they have already chosen. In the American market, the film content that's been popular has been American and English-language content. Because that has been popular, and because algorithmic codes are written in (large?) part to push consumers toward content that is (very) similar to content that they appear to already prefer – creating an algorithmic consumer bubble, the content most likely to be put in front of the majority of American-based consumers the most often is going to be American-produced and English-language content. In short, it appears that a self-fulfilling and self-constructing formula according to which the past and current popular is used to determine the future popular dominates on digital online video streaming platforms. The result is more of the same, as the Flixpatrol popularity charts for films for U.S.-based digital online video streaming platforms clearly show: More American-produced and English-language content pushed in front of American-based consumers because, historically, that is what they have appeared to prefer – at least in (large?) part because this is what has been placed in front of them before.

I have discovered in this study and analysis of Flixpatrol's Top in the United States streaming popularity annual popularity charts for an 18-month time period across 2020–21 more evidence of ACI, or a comparatively anomalous American self-orientation. This American inward orientation is rooted in cultural power relations and the political-economic power relations that undergird these: Comparatively, no other national cultural content producer has as much historic and contemporary global power and presence as the U.S. (Boyd-Barret & Mirrlees, 2019; Jin, 2019; Mirrlees, 2013), though, of course, other national cultural content producers hold comparative power in the global cultural media product and distribution market, with many European producers and Asian rim producers among these. Still, their comparative historic global power and presence does not equal that of the U.S. (Jin, 2019), and, although the U.S. has seen its cultural hegemony erode across time, once again, generally speaking, globally, no other cultural producer that can (yet) compare to the U.S. and its global hegemonic cultural reach. This is especially true when the comparison made is an historically grounded comparison that takes into account not only the present, but the past as well. The comparative global domination of the U.S. as a cultural media content producer and distributor – most of the most dominant truly global digital online video streaming platforms, in fact, originate in the U.S. and are American companies – creates the conditions for what I have called American Cultural Insularity (ACI), or the idea that American-based consumers are especially insular and self-oriented in terms of their cultural media product consumption preferences, habits and patterns. It also underscores the reality of a broader theory that I advance here and elsewhere (Demont-Heinrich, 2020) called Dominant Cultural Group Theory (DCGT). DCGT holds that members of dominant cultural groups are more likely to be inward and self-oriented, culturally and linguistically, than members of less cultural dominant groups precisely because their culture and language dominate. DCG members are also, I have suggested, generally speaking simultaneously relatively ignorant, unaware and also often largely uninterested in cultural (media) products created outside of their dominant culture, especially those products produced by producers located in much smaller, much less dominant cultural and linguistic national settings and groups than in their own national cultural setting, in this case in the U.S.

Conclusion

Foreign film and non-English-language film has historically not done well in the United States, never exceeding more than 7% of annual domestic box office shares, and often garnering considerably less (Segrave, 2004; Mojo Box Office, 2021). The reasons for this are varied. Most notable among these is the hegemony of the Hollywood cartel (Demont-Heinrich, 2019; Peaselee & Coates, 2005; Segrave, 2004) over its own domestic market, a hegemony that has lasted more than 100 years. The emergence of a new mechanism for film consumption – digital online video streaming – as a major distribution platform for film during the 2010s and 2020s has created the opportunity for American media consumers to more easily and conveniently access foreign film and non-English language film than was possible before. In theory, this development could increase Americans’ consumption of foreign and non-English films. However, as an analysis of Flixpatrol's Top Streaming in the United States popularity chart for 10 major digital online video streaming platforms from February 2020 to September 2021 shows, no evidence exists of a movement among American-based consumers toward more consumption of foreign, non-English-language feature length films, at least not when we train our empirical lens on the upper-levels of the most popular films on those platforms as charted by Flixpatrol.

This result aligns with a continued ACI vis-à-vis cultural media products, in particular, cultural media products such as film and to a somewhat lesser but also still significant extent, television and pop music (Demont-Heinrich, 2019). The fact that, so far, digital online video streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and Google Play do not appear to be ushering in any significant change in terms of the (lack of) popularity of foreign and/or non-English-language film among large numbers of American media consumers is not particularly surprising. A theory of ACI holds that primarily due to their status as members of the world's most Dominant Cultural Group (DCG), most American consumers point much more inward in terms of their practices and habits vis-à-vis cultural media products such as film than consumers in other national contexts and publics. This is in large part because American consumers are the DCG in the global media and culture arena – their culture and language predominate, comparatively speaking, and, according to DCGT, dominant groups tend to strongly, even exclusively, gravitate toward their own dominant cultural and linguistic media products while largely ignoring those produced by non-dominant (national) groups.

Little scholarship exists that examines the unique positionality of American consumers in the global media and cultural system and the impact upon this uniquely situated dominant cultural group of this globally hegemonic culture on their attitudes and practices vis-à-vis the consumption of cultural media products. In fact, most scholarship within global media and communication studies concerned with American global cultural hegemony has looked outside of the borders of the United States in terms of the impact of this hegemony (Kuisel, 2003; Mattelart, 1979; Mirrlees, 2013; Pieterse, 2003; Schiller, 1976, 2000), not within the United States. A theory of ACI, and this paper, which applies a theory of ACI in one instance, that of the (lack of) popularity of foreign film and non-English-language film streamed on major digital online video streaming platforms, focuses precisely on the unique American instance and on the globally DCG. It thus aims to fill a scholarly, empirical and theoretical gap. Examining ACI stands also as an important critical and progressive scholarly and pedagogical exercise: Highlighting domination and the concurrent insularity and inwardness as well as the ignorance and even arrogance that typically accompany these tendencies, draws critical attention to problematic inequities in flows, awareness and, ultimately, in storytelling (lack of) reach in the U.S. and among American cultural consumers. That is, if foreign film has historically been relegated to a tiny slice of the American film market – as has been the case (Segrave, 2004) for more than 100 years – and if, in an era of new, theoretically more convenient and easily accessible distribution methods such as digital online video streaming foreign and non-English language film continue to still be largely marginalized, as appears to be the case based on this analysis of Flixpatrol's Top 10 in the United States streaming popularity charts, this means that millions, really, hundreds of millions, of people in the U.S., for the most part, continue to look primarily, even exclusively, at their own cultural media products, narratives, stories and world (re)presentations while ignoring and remaining ignorant of the narratives and stories of so-called “others”.

Viewed from a critical perspective for which I, and other critical global media and communication researchers such as myself, advocate – or from a perspective which holds that more exposure to more ways of cultural seeing, doing, being, speaking, living are indeed better and something to be strived for in all national and cultural contexts, including in the most dominant ones, in fact, especially in the most dominant ones – ACI and the long-running and strong tendency toward popularity of film content being heavily linked to whether a film is domestically produced and/or produced originally in English, are both problematic and in need of change. The digital online video streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime represent an opportunity to create this type of change. Such change could happen if they were to, for instance, acquire and place more non-American produced and non-English language films squarely and directly in front of more of their subscribers. In fact, based on the admittedly somewhat limited but also useful window of Flixpatrol's Top 10 in streaming in the United States popular films lists for 10 different major digital online video streaming platforms in 2020 and 2021, this does not appear to be happening, at least not in a significant way.

This is unfortunate but also not particularly surprising given that companies such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Google Video operate in a cultural historical context and moment in which foreign film and non-English-language film have not, so far, made many inroads into American domestic film hegemony. These companies are profit driven and are thus primarily motivated to put in front of their subscribers films and content that they believe will consistently and reliably create the biggest profit. If most, not all – diasporic communities, for instance, don't fit the mold of the white, (upper) middle-class English monolingual of the dominant American media consumer -- subscribers have been shaped by long-running historical hegemonic forces that have seen Hollywood dominate its domestic market, these subscribers are going to gravitate toward that which they already know, and that which they already prefer. This is deeply circular and self-fulfilling process, according to which more American-produced and English-language original films will be put in front of most American-based Netflix and Amazon Prime, etc. subscribers because that is what the digital online video streaming services “know” these subscribers want, and that which they will “choose” and, because subscribers “choose” this film content, it is also that which will make these digital online video streaming platforms the most money. And subscribers will “choose” this content because it is being placed in front of them, continuing the self-fulfilling cycle.

My assessment of possible reasons for more ACI in relation to foreign film on digital online video streaming platforms is admittedly largely speculative. However, it is reasonable speculation given the history of foreign film and non-English language film in the U.S. comprising only a tiny percentage of the annual domestic market revenues and also given the overview and analysis of Flixpatrol's Top 10 on Streaming in the United States popular charts. Future research could make the reasons for the decisions made by various digital online video streaming platforms less speculative. Such research might include interviews with managers and decision makers at firms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and Google Video probing them about the decisions and decision-making processes vis-à-vis the films to pay to license for distribution on their platforms. That research would also pose questions about the decisions they make regarding what type of films to put in front of different subscribers, and even, though it is unlikely much detail would be provided by digital online video streaming platform executives and managers, the underlying logics and elements of the algorithmic structures the platforms use to curate film content for subscribers. Future research might also include surveys of American-based subscribers to digital online video platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney + querying their preferences on foreign and non-English language film. It would also probe if, when and how they access such content as well as their thoughts regarding the algorithmic and app and web-site based structures used to direct them toward certain types of film content. In addition, future research could also take a more in-depth look at Flixpatrol's popularity charts and examine, for instance, daily, weekly, and/or monthly charts and shifts occurring across these shorter time increments rather than look exclusively at the annual popularity charts, as I do in this paper. This type of more detailed and granular look might reveal different kinds of patterns and tendencies vis-à-vis Flixpatrol's United States streamed film popularity charts than what I have unearthed in this initial study. More broadly, it would be interesting and revealing to compare Flixpatrol's popularity charts across some of the 130 different countries for which it has created these charts with a special focus, in the case of researchers interested in ACI and the unique American positioning vis-à-vis the global cultural system, on comparisons that include the United States Flixpatrol popularity charts. Such a comparison would, as would the other avenues for potential future research I have suggested, not only provide more insight into trends vis-à-vis American-produced and foreign-produced films on digital online video streaming platforms but would also contribute to building toward a better understanding of ACI and its possibly shifting status across time.