'Happy Days' ran on ABC from 1974 to 1984. IMDB

The show, combined with other American entertainment widely available in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, shaped my perception of the United States long before I ever set foot in the country. Today, I call the US home, and I have developed my own understanding of its complexities. I am able to see “Happy Days” as a nostalgic revival of an ideal, conflict-free American small town.

“Happy Days” was a product of Hollywood, which is arguably still the epicenter of the global entertainment industry. So recent news that the streaming service Netflix is opening an Italian office and will begin massively funding original local content with the intent of distributing it globally on its platform – following a strategy already launched in other European countries – struck me.

This could be a potentially game-changing move in global entertainment. And it might even change how the world perceives, well, the world.

 Learning by watching:

I have explored the global media landscape from the privileged vantage point of Los Angeles for the past 15 years.

TV and movies are one way that people, as we go through life, make sense of the world, building on the archive of our personal experiences and opinions of other places.

Absent direct experience with a people or nation, we speculate on what we do not know. This process involves a variety of sources, including reading, Googling and accounts from somebody we trust. But often it is media that exposes people to other cultures, above and beyond our own.

TV and movies fill the knowledge gaps with powerful images and stories that inform the way we think about different cultures. If the media’s messages have consistency over time, we may come to understand these as facts.

But media portrayals may well be inaccurate. Certainly, they are incomplete. That’s because movies and TV series aren’t necessarily meant to depict reality; they are designed for entertainment.

Actor Angelina Jolie, filming ‘The Tourist’ in Venice, Italy, in 2010. Barbara Z anon/Getty Images

As a result, they can be misleading, if not biased, based on and perpetuating stereotypes.

For example, there is no shortage of Italian and Italian American stereotypes in American entertainment. From the award-winning “Godfather” saga to the less critically acclaimed “Jersey Shore” TV series, Italians are often depicted as tasteless, uneducated, linked to organized crime – or all three.

 Media is a window to the world:

But the way people are exposed to media entertainment is changing. Today streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Disney+ collectively have 1 billion subscribers globally.

Being a relative newcomer to producing original content, Netflix cannot rely on a large library of proprietary content to feed its 204 million paid members in over 190 countries, as legacy Hollywood players can. So it is increasingly creating original productions, including a number of non-English language originals from places such as Mexico, France, Italy, Japan and Brazil.

A snippet of Netflix’s international lineup on April 2, 2022. Screenshot, Netflix.com

We might call this an example of “g localization of entertainment” – a company operating globally, adapting its content to meet the expectations of locally situated audiences across the world.

This is already the modus operandi, for example, of many popular reality TV shows. “American Idol” is an American adaptation of Europe’s “Pop Idol.” “The X Factor,” “Big Brother” and “Dancing with the Stars” have similarly international origins.

Now, however, g localization comes with a twist: Netflix intends to distribute its localized content internationally, beyond the local markets.

It is not the global reach of Netflix’s platform per se that would break down old stereotypes. French critics panned the American-produced, internationally distributed Netflix series “Emily in Paris” for its clichéd, romanticized portrayal of the city.