Americana, What we See Dictates Who we Are

I was watching a story on CBS's Sunday Morning Show today on the Alex Trebek of the TV show Jeopardy!  Trebek at one point during the interview said regarding Saturday Night Live's hilarious parody on him and his show, "When you make fun of someone like me, and a show such as 'Jeopardy!,' it means we've arrived.  We're part of Americana, we're part of the American cultural scene."

There was something profoundly important, it seemed, to Trebek that his show was such an integral part of American culture.  I also found it especially interesting that Trebek is Canadian, yet finds it to be a final destination for his show to make it in America.  As an American, I do not think I've ever fully understood the vast cultural effect my home country has on the rest of the world.  America's influence is immense, yet it is only 236 and a half years old, relatively young compared to some places, like Rome or Greece whose cultural heritages span thousands upon thousands of years.

This influence is not always a positive one, however.  In the sobering hit documentary Supersize Me, the director interviews a group of first graders on who they think various figures are on different cards.  Although it is never true for each of the kids, the majority of them have trouble recognizing George Washington and Jesus Christ, yet have no issues with recalling how they know the Ronald McDonald character.

McDonald's, originally an American company, has, along with most other fast food restaurants, experienced humongous growth over the past decades.  It used to be one restaurant in southern California, but now, the chain even has stores as far away as India, a place where Mickey D's most-used animal, the cow, is considered sacred.  The Golden Arches can be seen everywhere, and other American-based companies like Starbucks have seen similar success.  In fact, recently the coffee giant changed their logo to not even have the name of their company anymore upon entering an elite business strata.

To quote an article from The Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture, this type of "globalization of the world by the United States" has been colloquially dubbed "Americanization" or making everything become "the 'American way'.  Such globalization can be attributed to many things, especially media the article says, due to how the world can now more than ever see what it's like to live like an American.  This entails a sense of businesslike efficiency, it seems, due to how America is known for its immense productivity (cue Henry Ford's assembly line methodology).  The article even says Coca-Cola's influence in other countries has caused for "coca-colonization" or "the importation of American goods and American values into a local culture."  These values can include the Henry Ford-esque productivity, causing for such phenomena as "McDonalization", as the encyclopedia article says, in other countries.  This seems to be quintessentially American; for instance you may have heard of the term McMansion used in your area.  These are gigantic homes built seemingly from midair in a matter of days, thus showing the U.S. to be an a consumer-oriented and efficiency-based society.  Do you think this is a good thing?  Should the world really be more like America?  On the other hand, do you think that the U.S. and the rest of the world is changing to be less like this?  Why or why not?