Old Europe, New Europe and DVD Discrimination

While Donald Rumsfeld, together with most of Americans, prefers "New Europe" (post-Communist countries in the eastern part of the Continent) to "Old Europe", at least one of the major Hollywood studios takes the opposite view. For some of them treacherous French and Germans are more valuable than America's allies.

At least, this is the conclusion you might make if you compare various Region 2 DVDs of some movies (Royal Tennenbaums, Signs). Those intended for West European ("Old Europe") market are equipped with the usual set of additional material – deleted/alternative scenes, documentaries, audio-commentaries etc. Those intended for East European ("New Europe") market – at least those that end up in Croatian video-stores – don't have any additional material except the film itself.

So, while treacherous "surrender-loving cheese monkeys" might enjoy the stuff like audio-commentaries with French subtitles, America's noble allies are considered to be untermensch not sophisticated enough to understand or appreciate anything beyond the simplicity of an average Hollywood movie.