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Popular Culture Review
American serials could be watched both in America and in Romania, which made
me feel very much at home. The difference was that in America there was a dis
tinction between North American and Latin-American soaps as the latter were
broadcast only on the channels for the Spanish-speaking community. There is no
such distinction in Romania. Yet, the Latin-American serials tend to surpass the
American ones in number and percentage of viewers.
Several questions may arise. Why would Romanian TV channel owners choose
to buy North American and Latin-American serials at the expense of French, En
glish or Italian ones? Romania is a European country after all. One possible an
swer may be that the serial production in the two Americas is much higher than in
Europe. Then, the success of these serials makes the public and private channels in
Romania compete as to which programs could keep the Romanian people glued to
them for a longer time. The formula, which is probably applied, not without suc
cess, to the causes and consequences of purchasing TV serials, may be: “WE know
what YOU want and we want YOU to WANT it”. Though more common with
shoppers in a mall,1 this slogan shows not only the commercial purpose of any
market (the serials one included), but also the beliefs and values of the consumers
(i.e., audience) which it apparently both reflects and shapes. Some critics may call
this standardization and imitation, while others may call it globalization.
The effects of this intense import of foreign popular culture in Romania will
probably lead to hybridized forms that will soon be known. Situated at the eastern
most end of the “European west,” as we understand it, Romania has also under
gone influences from the Orient (habits, food, fashion, etc.). One of the latest in
fluences, a fascinating example of creolized music, is a widely popular form (known
in Romania as manele), which resembles Turkish/Arabian tunes, but also remind
one of Romanian folk music. The mixture of Romanian and Oriental music has
given birth to easy-to-sing-and-remember tunes with oriental rhythms which people
use both for singing and for dancing. The TV channels have immediately responded
to this and broadcast special music shows for the manele fans.
Television, as we have seen, is instrumental in promoting popular culture in
Romania. As much as it was hated before December 1989, when it was entirely
ideological and was allowed to broadcast only three hours daily, it suddenly turned
into the center of people’s lives during the December events, when the whole country
could watch the Revolution live. Since then it has been the Romanians’ major form
of entertainment (with the exception of soccer, which fills the leisure time of Ro
manian men).
In addition to the pleasure of watching television, the Romanians have been
seduced by other forms of American popular culture such as malls, fast food res
taurants, and theme parks, which they have imported or adopted. The mall fascina
tion is actually another manifestation of the Romanians’ genuine interest in the