Daniel Lubetzky

Hollywood has for many years taken for granted people who speak languages other than English.  It is the most annoying thing to listen to actors break their teeth as they pretend to speak in "Spanish" – or French, or Hebrew, or Russian – and I gather any other foreign language.  It is bad enough that foreigners tend to be the villains, but at least let them be legitimate sounding villains!

I wonder if this results from carelessness from the Directors, or if desperate actors claim they "speak" a language and nobody bothers to ask a native to check it.

It’s even sillier when movies like Vantage Point (which we just wasted 90 minutes watching) try to philosophize about the arrogance and blindness of American foreign policy, all the while using actors that don’t nearly resemble the nationalities they pretend to represent. I guess Hollywood figures most Americans won’t notice. 

But this is what worries me about America.  As globalization continues, more people across the world are learning English and learning about other cultures, but Americans are not investing enough into learning about other cultures and countries.  This will have very real implications for American competitiveness.