| HomokHarcos said: I've found it strange that compared to the other major developed economies of the world, that Germany's popular culture doesn't seem to be as popular worldwide. The UK has The Beatles, Harry Potter, James Bond and the Premier League. Japan has popular video games such as Super Mario and Pokemon, manga and anime. The USA pretty much goes without saying. Why is this? |
As for movies, the Nazis basically killed the great german film industry we had in the twenties and thirties. It never really recovered. There are some famous directors and actors though, but usually they go to the US if they get enough fame. Just look at Roland Emmerich, Wolfgang Petersen and the likes.
Music, let's be honest, german mainstream is quite shitty most of the time. Other stuff usually is more underground or not really recognised as german, like Tangerine Dream, Scorpions or others. There is decent to good german music that doesn't get international attention, often because it is in german. There are many successful producers and composers from Germany though. So there is more german influence than many would expect.
And honestly, Knorkator or Die Ärzte only really work if you understand what they sing about. German Kraut Rock has had some influence most people don't know about on the other hand. And yes, we do have good metal bands for sure.
Books are a different story. I think there are some well known authors and way more that should probably better known than they are. At least even people that don't read should know Michael Ende. :p Again, after WW2 there was a heavy tendency against escapist or seemingly escapist works that probably hurt many authors.
German games: There's Factor 5, Crytec, Daedalic and lots of companies that do every kind of strategy games. But german game developers came from the home computer corner and never got that big in console gaming. German devs not being so much into action probably has it's roots in very restrictive anti violence policies in the eighties and nineties when there was no official rating system for games.
Finally, there's humour. That one usually is either pretty simplistic or very ironic if not satirical. You need a very good translator to let verbal humour work in another language.
Finally, while japanese pop culture for example is quite different, the german in many ways is far closer to american and british.
