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Just a quick nitpick, the Swedish series is Real Humans (Äkta Människor) and Humans is a British production. There was also a (much dumber) Russian action series on the same topic called Better than us on Netflix. To anyone who hasn't seen Humans I'd like to recommend it. Purely subjectively speaking, it was one of the best sci fi series I've ever seen.

Thanks for the correction!

I got the copy/paste backwards.

I've watched Äkta Människor and loved it even though I've watched it in Swedish, without subtitles. Highly reccomended.

I have to disagree with the evaluation of Better Than Us - it's problem isn't that it was dumb, it's that it was too long. Humans was the dumb one. Humans literally had a robot grappling with lesbianism. In that one, the androids were just awful middle-class British people, and they cast based on the actors looking like the actors from Äkta Människor, which is the surest sign of a bad remake.

I think the difference is the volume. Previously locally produced content had to be sold into each market, and was limited by the broadcast schedule of relatively small numbers of channels. Sure, I grew up with childrens programming from across Europe - including East Bloc countries - and some shows like Derrick were popular in Norway too, but the limited broadcast schedule meant there was only ever going to be a small number of shows from most countries.

When Netflix produces content itself, or contracts it, the cost of putting it into other markets is reduced to translation, and they have a strong incentive to maximise the value of their investment by making the content available more broadly, and they don't have the same limitation of broadcast schedules limiting what they can make available.

I'm Norwegian. I've lived in the UK 21 years. I've seen more Scandinavian content pop up on my UK Netflix subscription in the last couple of years than on the regular UK TV channels for the last 21.

To what extent people get shown or find content from other European countries is another matter - my Netflix homepage is still very much dominated by US and UK series.

Not to disagree with what you said, but my point was that Netflix is not "creating a common European culture" it's simply broadcasting content, more than it was possible before, but it wasn't something unheard of in Europe and it doesn't really spread "culture" (us Italians are not like the characters of Gomorra and German policemen are not like Derrick, that's simply entertainment)

I think Schengen and herasmus program were much more important for the common European culture and to build a sense of belonging to a shared sovra national space where we are all Europeans.

Also most western Europe has been in close contact since the end of WW2, developing those relationships that led them to the first treaties in 1957 and us where we are today.

We don't need Netflix for that.

That Netflix isn't intending to, and that we don't need it doesn't mean it isn't contributing to it.

I don't see what Schengen had to do with anything - lack of passport checks is a nice convenience but that is all. Freedom of movement, sure, but that is separate from Schengen.

And I think dismissing light entertainment as not being culture is pointlessly elitist. A whole lot of culture is light entertainment, and often what spreads to the most people.

Most of Western Europe has close ties going back much further, but close ties does not translate immediately to the extent of shared culture diffusing through populations.

Not least because there is a stark difference between ties that are confined to a subset of the populations vs. those that are more widely shared.

I live in the UK, and have done so for 21 years, but come from Norway, and one of the first things I realised on moving here was how superficial cultural exchange often is - most people have no conception what it's like to live in another country. Even one they in many cases have often been to as a visitor.

And e.g. shared entertainment is part of that. Growing up watching different things, talking about different things etc. contributes to cultural differences even decades later. I still experience people bringing up cultural references that they share that I don't for that reason.

I agree with you regarding Erasmus for that reason, but I also think that seeing more shared programming will matter more than you think in giving more people shared reference points because it is a lasting and ongoing part of people's lives.

Irrespective of Netflix' motivations.

> Freedom of movement, sure, but that is separate from Schengen.

True, I meant Bosman not Schengen.

> And I think dismissing light entertainment as not being culture is pointlessly elitist

I am sorry if it came out that way, what I meant is that entertainment is more tied to personality and familiarity than culture as "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a social group" because those things are usually misrepresented in a fictional show made to entertain the general public.

I love Southpark because I love that kind of harsh sarcasm, but I know it's not a perfect honest to god representation of the US society and I usually also don't get all the references, because you can't spread pop culture to other cultures or generations by simply citing or mocking them. you have to go deeper than that.

> but close ties does not translate immediately to the extent of shared culture diffusing through populations

I think it does on a basic level.

All of the countries on the west side share very similar views about worker rights, welfare state, public education and healthcare, women rights, minorities' rights, democracy, etc. etc.

French is the language of diplomacy because French invented modern diplomacy when they were an important global empire and imposed their language on everybody else (and the reason why until the 80s in Italian schools French was the primary foreign language - I had to study it in elementary school from 1982 to 1987)

For the same reason German is #1 mother tongue language in Europe, beating English.

Think about religion in Europe: 75% are Christians,or at least they claim to be.

I am an atheist so I have no horse in the race, but that happened through centuries of close relationships (and wars)

Think about Europe before and after the USSR collapsed.

If we compare western Europe to former eastern block countries we will find fundamental differences and that's completely normal (and sometimes scary), because we have been separated for a long time and we are still compensating for that time.

> s more tied to personality and familiarity than culture as "the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a social group" because those things are usually misrepresented in a fictional show made to entertain the general public.

That entertainment often misrepresents traits does not mean that it itself does not form part of those traits. E.g. nobody would suggest Monthy Python accurately reflects British culture, but Monthy Python is part of British culture, and in many ways shines a mirror to it that most people won't get unless they've lived here for a while. The more those things are shared and become a common heritage the more they come to form a shared culture.

Shared fairy tales is a good example.

> All of the countries on the west side share very similar views about worker rights, welfare state, public education and healthcare, women rights, minorities' rights, democracy, etc. etc.

All of which had to do with extensive organising across borders for many decades, often out of necessity due to extensive repression (e.g. Marx had to flee both Prussia and France). If that is the level of ties you talk of, then sure, but that is a far more complex process, and it took a couple of centuries for Europe to harmonise on those issues despite that extensive effort.

If anything this is a good example of my point of how slow this process is.

The other examples you give are examples of diffusion of culture over far longer (centuries to millennia) periods, so hardly makes the point.

> If we compare western Europe to former eastern block countries we will find fundamental differences and that's completely normal (and sometimes scary), because we have been separated for a long time and we are still compensating for that time.

Those differences did not come into being with World War II. They were pronounced for centuries before that.

The point is not that contact does not matter. Of course it does. It is that diffusion of culture takes a long time, but shared cultural heritage - including light entertainment is an important part of that, because you're never going to understand someone perfectly without sharing their cultural references, and they go all the way back to childhood.

All those things you mention matter, but spreading them are easier the more people understand the same terms and references, and laugh at the same things, and know the same stories, and have heard the same music.

Heck, you pointed to the EU, whose anthem was chosen in part because it is a piece of music that is near universally known, and as such provides a reference to a shared heritage.

> The more those things are shared and become a common heritage the more they come to form a shared culture.

I only argue that we already had that kind of sharing.

I know about Monthy Python since late 80s, I was barely more thank a kid.

The article talks specifically about Netflix, an American paid subscription service whose primary objective is "growth" and "profit".

With less than 40 million accounts in Europe over a population of 700 million people it's barely relevant.

Maybe it's relevant among youngsters and parents using it as a nanny for their little children, but a large part of the population ignore it completely and, frankly, the catalogue does not contain anything barely resembling the cultural impact of Monthy Python.

I can speak about the Italian material: they are airing shows and movies made for the Italian TV (low quality, low budget, same old actors' faces everywhere, nothing that we haven't already seen somewhere else, it's basically recycling garbage) or recent cinema productions made buy the "usual suspects" to get the government's funds (that usually go to the same "usual suspect" aforementioned)

That's completely missing the point about what the "Italian culture" could look like.

There were a few gems before, but now that the big guys are in, forget about it, they are going to air only those things that they own the rights for, so now they are being paid two times.

There is no Fellini, Antonioni, Leone, Bertolucci, Fulci, Bava, Argento, but there is this shit

https://www.netflix.com/it/title/81304753

a movie so bad that even bad movies are ashamed of being in the same category.

The other scary phenomenon is that they are conflating the ratings, every movie on Netflix must be great according to Netflix, so "Piccolo grande amore" has rating around 90% even though Raoul Bova himself doesn't want to talk about it.

It was considered utter tash, off and online, until Netflix picked it up.

If everything is good, nothing is good.

That's the opposite of culture.

> you're never going to understand someone perfectly without sharing their cultural references, and they go all the way back to childhood

Exactly.

Hence my point about not completely getting the references in Southpark.

I've never heard of them as a kid, they mean nothing to me, even though I know what they are.

It's not Netflix that is going to do that, it's internet that did that.

Netflix is only one player and who knows for how much longer, now that major studios are creating their own platforms.

Wanna talk about shared cultural heritage?

Disney+ with all the Disney movies in catalog has much better chances of spreading it.

>isn'it a bit of an exaggeration to claim that Netflix is creating a common European culture

It's the Economist after all. I mean, I loved reading the Economist when I travelled every week as it's always available on flight and trains. You just have to accept the pretentious tone as a part of its "brand". It's extra funny when you consider dodgy track record in actually predicting things correctly.

> First of all Netflix productions are not great in general, there are a few very good ones, the rest is just mediocre.

What you describe is much better than the average situation where 80% of everything is shit.

I like to be polite in public, but what you described is the unpolite version of what I think of Netflix lately.

In other words: primevideo is cheaper and has a much better catalog. My ISP also offer the same things I can find on Netflix for free with the subscription.

I'm just using the usual quote about these matters, which posits that the quality distribution is such that the overwhelming majority of the items are below average ("long tail distribution").

Meanwhile your claim is very different from mine : you posit a very different distribution, where the overwhelming majority of items is around average ! ("the rest is just mediocre" => assuming there are still a few very bad ones that you don't mention, this would correspond to something like a gaussian distribution.)

Also, Komissar Rex.

Of course! It was never as popular as Derrick, but it became so popular in the 90s that in Italy a remake of 8 season was produced.

Also Der Alte (different seasons had different names in Italy) with over 400 episodes.