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Ambassador Snookie?

My favorite film from two years ago, Michael Clayton, is on that list, so there's hope, but I wonder if American tv is our best foreign policy hope. I do like the idea of movies depicting supportive men as breaking down barriers in their own societies, where men can be a tad bit dictatorial to their families.
You're right about movies making a difference in lives and giving us heroes and people to emulate, though the choices Hollywood has been making of late would leave most people simply glad they DON'T live the lives they see depicted.

I can just see some young terrorist saying, "Dammit, I was going to commit a suicide bombing and cleanse the world of more American pigs, but after that episode of Friends, I'm just laughing to hard to care."

Jamesaritchie said:

I can just see some young terrorist saying, "Dammit, I was going to commit a suicide bombing and cleanse the world of more American pigs, but after that episode of Friends, I'm just laughing to hard to care."

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Heh. I have had quite a few conversations with -- I'll call them "overseas friends" -- who enjoyed cataloging America's domestic outrages for me. One in particular was typical: whenever I asked him how he attained such expertise on the criminal nature of a place he'd never visited, he would yell, "Because I've seen it in the movies!" Exact quote.

But all that stuff about the freedom and prosperity of America, which we overlook completely and take for granted, did fascinate them. I read once that showing "Kramer vs. Kramer" to a Soviet audience as a lesson on the corruption of American society (families falling apart, divorce, single parents, runaway moms) completely backfired when the viewers saw all the cool shit in that New York apartment. "WOW, that's what they have in America? They gotta be doing something right!"

A very special episode of Blossom can change the world!!!
American tv does give us some good value lessons, now and then. The movie biz, not so much.