Reason piece on why American culture is not the dominate force in the world that it is constantly made out to be.

An even more dramatic shift may be going on with theatrical films. In 2001 "business for American films overseas fell by 16 percent against local product," according to Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. Writing last August in the British newspaper The Guardian, Kapur noted: "The biggest success in Japan last year was not an American film, it was a Japanese film. The biggest success in Germany was not an American film, it was a German film. The biggest success in Spain was not an American film, but a Spanish film. The same in France. In India, of course, it’s always been like that."

Kapur believes that "American culture has been able to dominate the world because it has had the biggest home market." But the growing commercial importance of Asia -- China, India, Japan -- along with the larger markets of the Mideast and North Africa will change that, he argues. In other words, cultural globalization is far from a recipe for American dominance; it is an opportunity for other cultures and markets to assert themselves.