National Treasure

            After our class discussion about American television shows being aired in other countries I thought of how last week I watched a few minutes of National Treasure on a Spanish channel.  The more I thought about it, I realized there are so many things in the movie that people of another culture would not understand.  National Treasure is about a group of people given different clues taking them to different American landmarks in order to find treasure.  The movie mentions different landmarks and figures that all Americans typically know such as the White House, the capital building, the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin, the Liberty Bell and so on.  Throughout the movie it is suggested that the audience should assume why these symbols are so important to American culture.  The importance is suggested that these items represent freedom, independence, etc and therefore they are able to uncover the clues and find the treasure.  The more I thought about it I realized that these symbols that are so important to American culture are completely insignificant to people in other countries and of other cultures.  Many countries have different forms of government and might not even understand the type of government we have or our interpretation of freedom and independence.  Even countries that do have a similar government as the U.S. probably have their own set of symbols and figures to represent their own country’s culture.  Therefore, I think it is interesting to air this movie to people of different cultures because they most likely will not understand these representations in the same way as we do.