Popularity of American Action Movies among Ethiopian Marginal Youth

The early 1990s saw a major change in Ethiopians'' media consumption practices history. The ‘Iron Curtail’ prohibiting the viewing of Western symbolic products was lifted, which in turn led to a surge in demand for American media texts. To supply this demand, informal video houses showing primarily American action movies were opened in Addis Ababa. This resulted in a significant shift in Ethiopians’ films consumption practices which were previously limited to watching films produced by socialist countries mainly the former Soviet Union. This book probes the reasons for the attraction of American action movies shown in selected video houses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia amongst the urban unemployed male youth. Particularly, it examines how the meanings produced by, and embedded in, the cultural industries of the West are appropriated in the day- to-day lives of the youth. The importance of video houses as a shared male cultural space are the main focus of this book. It also highlights that the video houses have contributed to the creation of marginal male youth identities in the Ethiopian patriarchal society.