Americanization as creolized imaginary: the statue of liberty during the cold war

In 1991 and 1992, a team of six scholars spent a year together at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, researching the phenomenon known in the lingua franca as “Americanization.” The project, which focused on Europe, was the brainchild of historian Rob Kroes, and the result was several individual books and six volumes of essays. ¹ One of these, American Photographs in Europe, is a collection of essays (edited by myself and Mick Gidley) that focuses on the transatlantic movement of images during the twentieth century. ² This chapter reconsiders this theme. Notably, the scholarly vocabulary has changed since the 1990s: while the term “Americanization” endures, it continues to be redefined, expanded, and contested. This chapter recasts the concept of Americanization as creolization. This is a process in which senders and receivers of cultural messages continually reposition and reinterpret cultural icons to suit their needs. The term “creolization” references how American images were changed and adapted, tinkered with and selectively appropriated—in Europe and elsewhere. This chapter examines this often playful reconception of American images outside the United States during the Cold War period and the forms of creolization these images represent. To exemplify this process, the Statue of Liberty provides a case study of an American icon that acquired many new meanings.