You Can't Say 'Yeah, But It's Different'

[This is a backdated post] 

There's a big old stereotype that America knows a lot about America but doesn't necessarily know a lot about the rest of the world.

Various comedians have had a great time going over this, it pops up in jokes, entertainment media, arguments, debates, the whole shebang.

As with many stereotype it may have a grain of truth for some people and be completely inaccurate with regards to others.

When I was 19 I spent 3 months living, working and travelling in California with a friend.
We were asked various questions by the people we met, some a bit baffling, others perfectly reasonable.
I had the experience of my cousin who had done two terms of high school in the US to prepare me for the weirdest things I may be asked, or in his case told.
A student at the school he was attending insisted that the national language of Australia was French and refused to believe him when he (the Australian) said that it wasn't.

When I took a video of my workplace one of my coworkers did a rendition of  Denis Leary's 'Because we've got the bombs!' bit that I a) didn't recognise until several years later when I saw the original and b) thought was the way that a certain percentage of the world saw Americans and a way that a certain percentage of Americans saw themselves.

While I was there I borrowed a couple of Australian movies out from the library because I was feeling a bit homesick and then got indignant when I realised that the versions released in the US had been altered.
In The Castle they changed the reply to 'what's this love?' from 'rissoles' to 'meat loaf'. Probably because they decided that the US audience wouldn't know what rissoles were.
Well yes but that's how you learn, you hear something you've never heard of before and you look it up.
Assuming people will get so annoyed by strange and unfamiliar things that they'll just tune out seems kind of insulting to me.
You wouldn't believe the stuff I know now because I read or watched something produced in another country and had to look up what it was or work it out from context.
Also anyone who doesn't like things that are different or unfamiliar would have turned the movie off 5 minutes in because The Castle is considered a cult film for a reason, it represents a particular kind of person at a particular point in time.

The change that really cheesed me off, however, was made to the movie The Dish.
In the original - and one true! - Australian version, the people operating the satellite dish at Parkes lose the signal from Apollo 11 and were panicking trying to work out how to find the vessel again before they are asked to report in. A local girl who was just coming around to bring them some sandwiches says 'Why don't you just point the dish at the moon? That's where they're heading, isn't it?' and it's a lovely 'oh yeah, common sense, ha ha' moment.
In the version I saw in the US, they reshot the scene so Patrick Warburton, the American character came up with the solution because apparently they decided US audiences wouldn't be able to deal with the idea that an American was present but wasn't the one who saved the day.


This was all 'experiences and anecdotes that support the stereotype*'.
Not all my experiences and the stories I heard supported the stereotype but enough did that it remained the subconscious default that applied to X% of people.

But then as life bobbled along and I accumulated more experiences I started to hit more 'wait a minute' moments.

The ones where you saw people somehow manage to plaster the stereotype and its attendant assumptions all over well-read, well-travelled Americans even after hearing them talk about the places they had been and the things they were passionate about and had looked into for their own curiosity.
The stereotype was so strong that even evidence jumping up and down in front of them wasn't powerful enough to overcome it.

And then you noticed the big old hypocritical moments.
The ones where you would see fellow Australians asked questions about foreign countries and realise that their answer is 'yeah, we don't know that shit, we're Australians, the rest of the world is so far away that who can be bothered to- uh I mean LOOK OUT FOR DROP BEARS, ALL OUR WILDLIFE IS POISONOUS, WHEEE!'

And then you notice it everywhere.

Every country has some people who don't bother to learn about other countries.
Every country has some people who think all other countries are doing it wrong.
Every country has people who are very vocal about these two points of view.

It's just that statistically there are more Americans, and y'know what, they have the bombs, so them not being 100% up to date on the facts is a lot more nerve-wracking in certain situations.

People living in countries jammed right up against each other, geographically speaking, should know a lot about each other but you just have to listen to some of the jokes and stereotypes that different Europeans countries hold about their neighbours to know that this is often not the case.

As a species we're getting better, we are actually learning more and we're more connected and we have more opportunities to get the facts and not rely on old material or stories we heard from a cousin of an uncle's friend etc etc.

We just have to be aware of these stereotypes and the part we each play in keeping them alive because they are lodged pretty deep in there and they inform your attitudes and actions more than you might think.

No country is perfect.
No country is completely terrible.
All countries have points of achievement or beauty or interest in their history.
All individuals within that country deserve to be seen for themselves.
Being proud of your country is fine.
Being a douche about it isn't.
Getting all defensive if somebody points out your country isn't perfect usually isn't that useful.
Sometimes people will react to you based on how other people from your country has treated them. This isn't any more fair than the original shitty behaviour that they experienced.

Basically, be interested in the world, don't stamp 'case closed' on what you know about people and places, and don't be a dick.



*And rather cheesed me off. Wind it back, America, sometimes other people work shit out, tcha!

The Danger Of Stereotypes

[This is a backdated post]

America, we have a confession to make.

When I say 'we' I mean most of the rest of the world.

I've appointed myself spokesperson.

I'm sure this will cause no problems whatsoever.

Anyway, America, here's the thing.

We kind of don't think of you as real.

I mean we know you exist, it's kind of hard to pretend you don't what with your citizens who travel and all the stuff you do and produce but it's the producing thing that's kind of got us screwed up.

You make a lot of movies.

And TV shows.

Most of the movies and TV shows.

And because of this your country kind of seems like a giant living movie set...

You drive on the wrong side of the road - just like in the movies.

You have diners with drip coffee and a bewildering selection of pies - just like in the movies.

You make fun of each other's states and accents and the various wide range of communities and lifestyles.

And this is problematic for some of your citizens because, well, you typecast them.

People with certain features or specific Americanised genetic backgrounds are cast in the same sorts of roles and then their real world counterparts have to deal with being seen through that lense.

Some of the stereotypes people are fond or proud of, others not so much.

People from one part of the country only know what hilarious accented sidekicks or ominous accented villains have taught them.

That's kind of goofy and funny for us foreigners until we realise that our ignorance about what the people of Louisiana or Minnesota are actually like is an ignorance shared by many of their countrymen* and women.

When we were travelling in Europe my brother and I met an awesome writer from Texas who reacted with suspicion to our curiosity and enthusiasm to know what being from Texas was really like.
She was used to people from her own country slapping 'Yosemite Sam' type assumptions over her and then being jackasses based on those stereotypes so it took us a while to convince her we were genuinely interested.

The amount of times we spoke to people from different parts of America and were told 'We're not actually all gun nuts in my state**' or 'Yeah, we're not all a bunch of tightly wound prudes where I come from' was fascinating.

You get some of the same lack of representation of people with stronger regional accents in most countries, there are some accents you just aren't going to hear on national broadcast radio or TV in the UK for example.

But it just seems like given the size of America and the size of the population that this phenomenon is much more pronounced***.

It's that very size that leaves many people operating under the influence of these stereotypes as they have a finite amount of time, brain space, and in many cases damns to give about such a broad range of communities and their traditions.

I suppose what I'm saying America is that, even though we can often catch ourselves out here thinking of you as a giant movie set, sometimes it feels like you treat parts of yourself like they aren't real either.

So while we as a global community are working on making sure there is a more representative array of people of different genders, races, sexualities and religions in TV shows, movies, books and on radio; you could make an effort to toss some people from your less represented states into bigger roles and just make them normal people expressing their differences without comedic effect or self-consciousness.

I know it'll take a bit of effort but I figure it'll be worth it for the kids who get to say 'Hey, that person sounds like me and they aren't getting laugh-tracked out of the room every GD time they turn up! Hooray!'

And then the rest of us will get to learn more too and even if we're still staring at you like slightly creepy weirdoes because holy crap, you're actually real and not just on my DVDs! we'll at least be more accurately staring at you and you'll be more accurately staring at yourselves.

[I am sure there are quite a few shows where people from different states get to roll along, contributing to the show without having to fulfil a special extra purpose but speaking as a casual viewer of a selection of comedies, dramas, crime shows and movies, there aren't as many of them as would be helpful. Feel free to recommend some good ones to me though!]



*What's a gender-neutral term for that that doesn't sound clunky as hell? Co-nationals? Yeesh

**This lad qualified his statement with 'There are quite a few gun owners but we grew up respecting guns, that trigger happy bullshit is not tolerated'.

***Or at least we see a lot more of it because you make so many of our TV shows and movies and books.