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Popular Culture
{Lassie) were equally re-broadcast in the 1990s, most probably to supply a similar
nostalgic demand of some elderly viewers. By watching old American television
serials, the Romanians were trying to bridge the gap between pre-1970, when the
people enjoyed some liberties in Romania, and post-1970, when communist pro
paganda banned any western interference.
Regarding the relatively recent American television serials, they give the gen
eral impression of coherence and continuity in the Romanians’ addiction to Ameri
can film culture. They usually fill the afternoon or early evening programs, and
most are re-broadcast in the morning. They actually vary from classic soaps {The
Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days o f Our Lives, Melrose
Place, Beverly Hills), to drama {ER, NYPD, The Practice), and from light com
edies {Friends, The Nanny, Dharma and Greg, Ally McBeale, Everybody Loves
Raymond), to science-fiction {Star-Trek, X-Files). Interestingly, the American com
edy Bundy was the inspiration for a Romanian TV comedy series, which adapted
the target criticism patterns of the American serial to the Romanian society.
American television serials obviously offer a varied, yet unrealistic, picture of
American society. While the Americans may, theoretically, distinguish myth from
the reality of their everyday lives more easily because they live it, the people who
have never known the American way of life first hand find it harder to differentiate
between the mythical and the real. Most Romanian viewers usually take for granted
what they see and, consequently, build up a distorted image of America. To the
large majority, this is the only image they will have. There may be several reasons
why these image-distorting soaps are bought and broadcast on Romanian televi
sion. They probably go cheaper on the film market, on the one hand, while sup
porting the politics of America’s export of pop culture, on the other. They may also
be meant to feed “culturally hungry people” with American ideology, as America
is still working on maintaining its myths in the east. Therefore, the Romanians as
well as other Eastern European people are offered a credible, yet false, image of an
allegedly well-off, careless “western” life, which intentionally, or coincidentally,
mirrors both the popular myth of American eternal wealth and the popular belief in
immediate success and prosperity.
There are, of course, other ideological values attached to these serials, such as
family and religion, which have also contributed to their large popularity in a genu
inely traditional country like Romania. By illustrating the major American popular
stereotypes, the serials have helped create a number of “local” myths which the
Romanians have derived from, and associated with, America. Thus, one of the
widely spread popular beliefs in Romania today is that the WEST is GOOD and
the EAST is BAD. In other words, everything that comes from the West (by which
the Romanians understand Western Europe and North America) is inherently valu
able because it mirrors the capitalist society, which proved to have been more