MovieChat Forums > Meet the Spartans (2008) Discussion > Americans might actually be smarter...

Americans might actually be smarter...


So I have a quick argument to share regarding the popularity of inherently crappy films like Meet the Spartans (scientifically verifiable, it is crap, there are no arguments, no debates. Anyone who says different is a moron, scientifically speaking). With movie after movie of increasingly bad (again scientifically proven, like gravity or you sucking at life) parodies I was beginning to feel ashamed of being an American. I mean only in a country with a 'culture' like ours could such trash exist...right? Not really. If you look at box office statistics, if this movie had relied solely, or even primarily, on domestic grosses it would have been a huge flop. That statement is true even when you take account the porn-like budget these films have. However, the foreign grosses nearly double the domestic grosses. I look through the statistics on many 'Not Another...' movies as well and it was roughly the same with each one. There is a large audience in foreign countries who inexplicably desire to digest Hollywood's crap.

The lowest possible garbage that can be released by a studio will find a willing audience by overseas crowds. This reality is part of the reason why other countries think Americans are stupid. Yet here's where the table turns. These films only exist because of them, because there is a market overseas for the worst most aggressively unfunny movies in existence. Yet why do 'intellectual' Americans think that French films, British films, Korean films, Chinese films, etc. are so superior and so much smarter? Because the films we import are generally the best films from those countries. Believe me France, England, China, Korea, Japan, India, Mexico, etc. all make crappy films. Every film making country makes mindless cliche garbage. We just don't see it because there isn't a market here for there crap. Nobody would watch it. So we import only the smart stuff while they import the good and the bad. Our worst films would never be greenlit if it wasn't for the fact that there will always be a foreign audience somewhere somehow that will guarantee that the film profits. Frankly, the evidence speaks for itself, and once again I am indeed proud to be an American.

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Forgive me, but your post... Are you by any chance European and trying to make Americans look bad? If so, you've done a pretty good job, but you might have carried it a bit too far: a little more subtlety might have made it harder to spot the fake.

(At least I hope - for the US - that it's a fake!)

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I think this dumbass is serious. You crazy Americans...

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OK I don't actually think anyone thinks that French, Chinese, or whatever films are better than American films. Hollywood is like 18,000 (I checked) times bigger than any other film industry, except for Bollywood (which produces films so bad its painful), so it undoubtedly produces some utter crap, like Meet the Spartans, but it also produces many, many more quality films per year than any other movie industry. If it weren't for hollywood, cinemas across the world probably wouldn't be able to function, since there wouldn't be enough films to fill their screens at any given time (unless they started importing really bad films from other countries). Sure every year, each country makes a few good movies but they also make plenty of crap, and most countries don't really have a proper studio system in place to make lots of big budget movies so its very difficult for them to make big budget films like Iron Man, or The Dark Knight, but at the same time, also harder for them to make crap like Eagle Eye.

HOWEVER
I also don't think most foreigners use Hollywood films as evidence that Americans are stupid. There is plenty of other ammunition for foreigners to use to show the stupidity of Americans, such as the fact that Sarah Palin may be voted Vice President (and the fact that she thinks dinosaurs existed 6000 years ago).

PS. Meet the Spartans cost $18 million to make and grossed $38 million domestically, so it would've been even if it didn't gross a single dollar internationally.

"Even my parents called me Mulder" -Fox Mulder

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POLITICS!!

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You do realise Meet the Spartans was ment to be bad.

...but you're so smart..

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