Travel Through International TV

6 min readApr 5, 2023

For a while, I thought my interest in International Television was coming from a desire to escape, to be so far from my own world that I couldn’t even understand the language or the norms. That may still be a factor, but lately I’ve found that watching these things has revealed things about my own culture, the patterns that were underneath that were previously invisible to me because they were just the air I breathe.

Of course a TV program is not the culture itself. A TV show tends to reveal things about a culture that it wants to be seen doing that aligns with its values or pushes them in illuminating ways. American TV is not American culture but it is how we like to imagine ourselves — and there a lot of things we DON’T do in our TV that reveal as much as we do.

I’ve talked about Men Crying before. Men don’t cry much in American media and I thought it was just Spain where men cried beautifully on TV. Since I wrote the piece, I have also enjoyed men crying in Korea, Turkey, Poland, Norway and more. Some of the countries have a reputation for machismo — and yet seeing so many men crying for a wide range of reasons, I gotta say, we may have some of the most screwy tropes of masculinity going here in these United States. Given our recent (and current) political situation, this is probably not a surprise.

We also don’t do a lot of kindness and consideration in American media, I’ve realized. I’ve been watching the Korean mega-hit Crash Landing on You and the thing that moves me over and over about the main characters’ relationship is how considerate they are of one another. Sure, they save one another’s lives by shielding each other from gun shots, that’s pretty usual in American movies, but the stuff that touches me is, like, thinking about what their partner would like or what would make them more comfortable. The male lead, who is very tall, bought some groceries for his beloved and he put them on an empty shelf — but then squatted down to his partner’s height to place them where she could reach them. The grand gestures are very American but the small ones are things I can’t think of ever having seen in an American show or film.

There was a whole sequence of this character making coffee for her before they get together and it was almost erotic, the way the camera lingered on the process. First there was a scene of him searching for beans in the market, then boiling the water in a cauldron, grinding up the beans by hand, pouring it into the cone. It is not a short moment.We know he loves her by the way he makes that coffee. Which just points out for me the way American romantic leads will take a bullet for you, but make you a cup of coffee? Only if you’re both cops at the station’s machine and it happens to be convenient. American media loves a big gesture and cares very little for small acts of devotion. Because of my exposure to American media, I feel like it took me way longer than it should have for me to work out how important kindness might be in a partner. The most kindness an American partner might demonstrate is pulling a blanket over a sleeping person, which, you know, is nice — but not, like….exceptional.

Another thing I find myself moved by in a lot of International TV is friendship. It’s not true of every country’s TV I’ve seen (I’m looking at you, Norway and Germany) but a lot of countries have incredibly powerful groups of friends who are as devoted to one another as romantic partners. I first noticed it in Cable Girls but I’ve seen it in many Spanish programs since ( Morocco: Love in the Time of War, Valeria, The Time Between, Velvet) as well as Brazilian shows ( The Girls from Impanema, Maldivas) and of course Italy ( My Brilliant Friend). You don’t see this kind of camaraderie in American Media — unless it’s a war film or a heist. Pretty much you can’t enjoy one another’s company unless you’re killing people or working together to steal things. American media has a lot going for it but there are a lot of gaps in how we represent relationships and given the influence of the American media on our culture (and other people’s culture). I wonder if the gaps are reflective of gaps in our actual relationships

I have a lot of great friends but they are scattered across the globe so I haven’t enjoyed the joy and power of a strong friend group in ages. I find myself very jealous of these groups on TV when I see them and wonder if our media had shown us more of them in your youth, if we might have held together more. Prioritizing one’s friends is a little unusual in these United States. That’s probably clear in the way we present to the world.

One of the most interesting things about traveling, like, real-in-person get on a bus in a foreign country type traveling, is how much it can reveal about one’s own culture. I have never felt so American as when I am far away from home. I have come to appreciate aspects of my culture that I might have previously never considered. It is fascinating to be identified as American, not because of my accent or appearance but because of some aspect of my behavior. The smiling will often give me away. Or some effusive expression of enthusiasm.

Watching a lot of international TV seems to have a similar effect as real life traveling can but on a broader cultural scale. I feel and understand my culture’s Americanness in a new way. I can see some things we’re missing and the impact that might be having on us, as a nation. Like, maybe if we weren’t such rugged individualists, we might value our friends more, we might cry more freely, we might show love, not just to our romantic partners but to the world at large in acts of service or devotion. I feel like it would be good for us as a nation — which might be good for the world, too. Like, if we stopped romanticizing men who shoot bullets (or take them for us) and leaned into men who make coffee and kindness, well, maybe we’d stop sending bullies to govern us. Or something like that. I know other cultures have their troubles and issues, too, and sometimes I can see those peeking out beyond their engaging works of television — but it’s the things that showcase our differences, our cultural contrasts that really teach me something. And maybe, someday, if I get to travel for real, someone can show me how to ride a bus in those places.