Global Convergence Between San Fransokyo And The Swiss Alps

In November 2014 Disney Studios released their new animation adventure Big Hero Six, a movie about a special bond between a big, soft, inflatable robot called Baymax and Hiro Hamada, a young brilliant robot maker. Together they team up with a group of friends to form a band of high-tech heroes (imdb.com). What makes Big Hero Six special is not just the message it conveys that intelligence is your greatest superpower but also the amalgam between Japanese and American culture. The film is set in a fictional city called “San Fransokyo”, a mash-up of Tokyo and San Francisco. They kept many of San Francisco’s familiar landmarks in the film, the Embarcadero and Coit Tower for instance, but close-ups of the streets recall Tokyo’s Shimbashi, Kanda and Ueno districts. (www.japantimes.co.jp) As you can see in the movie's stills, Disney's animation team created a world in which Asian and American influences are converged into one new global culture. Much to the happiness of many people who feel like they are living in a global village, rather than in one particular country or culture.

This transcultural flow of popular culture that inspires new forms of global consciousness and cultural competency (Jenkins, 2006:156) is what Jenkins coins as 'Pop Cosmopolitanism'. He mentions the interplay between two forces; that of corporate convergence; and Grassroots convergence (Jenkins, 2006:155). In the case of Big Hero Six, the latter bottom-up pull of grassroots convergence is applicable here. The grassroots intermediaries play a big role in shaping the flow of Asian cultural goods into Western Markets (Jenkins, 2006: 162) and Big Hero Six is the example par excellence in which global convergence give rise to a new cosmopolitanism. The fictional city of San Fransokyo embraces its cultural difference and escapes the gravitational pull of local communities in order to enter a broader sphere of cultural experience (Jenkins: 155). This interplay between cultures is not without reason. Disney, a western company, incorporates popular elements of Japanese culture in the west, to appeal more to the western audience on the one hand. While on the other hand they use this relation to appeal more to the eastern or, more specifically, Japanese audience. Disney hits two birds with one stone by using a grassroot approach instead of collaborating or merging with an eastern producer. Producer Roy Conli calls the move a “love letter to Japanese culture” (www.japantimes.co.jp). A “thank you note” might be a more apt metaphor according to Olivia Waring. Walt Disney Animation Studios owes a great deal to Japanese audiences, who accounted for 29% of the international revenue from Disney’s Frozen. The Disney franchise in general commands a wide following in Japan (www.asiamattersforamerica.org).

However, it is not just The West that is appropriating from the East, it goes the other way around as well. Another piece in the children's film and television genre deems useful as an example of global convergence. Heidi, Girl of the Alps is a 1974 Japanese anime series by Zuiyo Enterprises based on the Swiss novel Heidi's Years of Wandering and Learning by Johanna Spyri (1880). (www.imdb.com) This classical piece of Swiss children's literature was adapted into the popular Japanese anime that reached stardom in Asia, Europe and Latin America where the anime was dubbed in multiple languages. This shows the great interest the audience has in global media convergence and the power grassroots intermediaries have in the entertainment industry. 

Returning to our western example of Big Hero Six, apart from the demands made by an audience that is thirsty for eastern media, there are opportunities to maximize profits. As we know, this is a very known field for western film industries. Once the movie is released, the market is filled with products in a variety of forms and this move requires horizontal integration that are categorized as cultural synergies (Vaughan, 2011). ‘The process of exploiting cultural synergy extensively creates an accompanying intertextuality that exists beyond the original property’  (Vaughan, 2011: 177). Seen from the perspective of the film industry, it is a way to enlarge their audience. Seen from the audience’s perspective, this commodification turns into a extended experience, that matches just perfectly with the above mentioned grassroots convergence as a continued effect.

These are just two examples of the many blending processes of global media convergence that are currently happening. According to Michael Latzer, media convergence refers above all to the blurring of boundaries between the different medias and particularly, telecommunications and mass media. (Latzer, 2013:123) Consequently, the uniformisation of this sector as a global media sector is creating a new digital creative economy by the interplay of technical, economical, socio-cultural and political factors. (Latzer, 2013: 128,129) In this way, by the digitization, the intensity of innovation, the liberalization and the globalization, our society is reshaping to become a kind of global village with different cultural features: “an organization of diversity rather than a replication of uniformity” (Jenkins quoting Ulf Hannerz, 2006: 155) where the cosmopolitans, as he calls the new consumers of this digital creative economy, embrace cultural difference in order to enter a broader sphere of cultural experience. 

Indeed, media convergence, by the transcultural flows of popular culture is forming a global awareness in the consumers’ mind and opening them to alternative cultural perspectives as we have already seen in the given examples. The mixture between Western and Japanese popular culture give birth to a new global culture, enriched by its diversity which correspond to the new expectations of the cosmopolitans.

B.L., E.K., L.C., N.R., R.H.

Thesis proposal:

Grassroot empower consumers and new shapes of entertainment industry

Literature

Michael Latzer (2013), ‘Media convergence’, in: Ruth Towse & Christian Handke (eds.), Handbook on the Digital Creative Economy. Cheltenham & Northampton: Edward Elgar

Henry Jenkins (2006), ‘Pop Cosmopolitanism: Mapping Cultural Flows in an Age of Media Convergence’, in: Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York & London: New York University Press

Nathan Vaughan (2011), ‘Maximizing Value: Economic and Cultural Synergies’, in: Janet Wasko, Gragham Murdock & Helena Sousa (eds.) The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications. Malden & Chichester: Whiley-Blackwell

Websites

http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/10/big_hero_6_baymax_san_fransokyo.jpg (September 14, 2015)  

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070968/ (September 13, 2015)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2245084/?ref_=nv_sr_1 (September 13, 2015)

Kaori Shoji (December 17, 2014) Disney’s ‘Big Hero 6′ reassembles Japan without the ‘cultural cringe’ The Japan Times http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/12/17/films/disneys-big-hero-6-reassembles-japan-without-cultural-cringe/#.VfVAPBGqqkp (September 13, 2015)

http://media.tumblr.com/6938be5ce9d7341a2176efe9c8104587/tumblr_inline_nf01byvrMP1t4rdhz.png (September 13, 2015)

Olivia Waring (November 19, 2014) Latest Disney Release Billed as a “Love Letter” to Japan Featured in: Asia, Japan

http://www.asiamattersforamerica.org/japan/latest-disney-release-billed-as-a-love-letter-to-japan (September 14, 2015)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6b/ca/43/6bca4309e92e815e0593e62f03838b6b.jpg (September 14, 2015)