blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2011-01-08 04:37 pm
blamebrampton) wrote2011-01-08 04:37 pm
A case in point ...
So, there we were, having a chat on a friend's LJ about the differences between the US and the UK for purposes of a self-Britpicking list, with participants from both sides of the pond and beyond and frequent diversions into baiting and comedy from all sides, and apparently it has become a source of Flocked Drama.
Consider the argument very carefully: At least one American is very upset that British people prefer to be depicted in accurate ways.
And if you can't see why that's a bit dodgy, replace the word British with any other nationality.
I don't want to overstate the case, because really, it doesn't culturally oppress us the way that some other cultures have been oppressed by this sort of thing, since we don't deeply care and we had an Empire first. And while the original source of the complaint is a preference, it's certainly not a sine qua non, and we read heaps of stuff that gets us wrong, and some of it is good and some is crap, and really, at the end of the day we still pronounce and spell aluminium in ways that are scientifically logical, which in itself is enough. But, honestly ...
Interestingly, one of my points of difference was a tendency to soap-opera-like over-reactions in fiction. Clearly I drew the line too narrowly.
AND I left off the fact that it the entire United States has been the subject of mass-brainwashing to accept caffeinated flavoured beverages as coffee. Though I see Starbucks has dropped the word from their logo, truth in advertising at last!
Consider the argument very carefully: At least one American is very upset that British people prefer to be depicted in accurate ways.
And if you can't see why that's a bit dodgy, replace the word British with any other nationality.
I don't want to overstate the case, because really, it doesn't culturally oppress us the way that some other cultures have been oppressed by this sort of thing, since we don't deeply care and we had an Empire first. And while the original source of the complaint is a preference, it's certainly not a sine qua non, and we read heaps of stuff that gets us wrong, and some of it is good and some is crap, and really, at the end of the day we still pronounce and spell aluminium in ways that are scientifically logical, which in itself is enough. But, honestly ...
Interestingly, one of my points of difference was a tendency to soap-opera-like over-reactions in fiction. Clearly I drew the line too narrowly.
AND I left off the fact that it the entire United States has been the subject of mass-brainwashing to accept caffeinated flavoured beverages as coffee. Though I see Starbucks has dropped the word from their logo, truth in advertising at last!
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France and Portugal may be tiny, but they too have cultural variance between regions. Shit, there is cultural variance in Japan, and one would think that was strange, as small and isolated as it's been from outside influence for centuries. The presence of regional differences (and the presence of immigrant populations, which are certainly not unique to the USA) doesn't mean there is no overarching culture in those places. The claim that "the USA is multicultural" is certainly accurate, but the presence of outside or regional cultural influences doesn't by itself preclude uniform cultural influences.
When I hang out with my Canada born-and-raised friends, I tune them out when they start going on about Paddington Bear and Degrassi and Ashley Macisaac and hockey. I've lived and worked here for well over a decade and speak one of the national languages with a barely noticeable accent, but I could never "pass for Canadian" if I'm put in a room of born-and-raised Canucks and forced to speak with them, because when they start talking about their shared experience growing up, I have nothing to bring to the table.
That shared experience is certainly not uniform in that not every single born-and-raised Canadian will have watched ALL the same shows and read ALL the same books and listened to ALL the same music, but there's enough cross-hatch for at least passing familiarity (and thus an ability to relate that just doesn't exist for most outsiders). These kinds of things that no outsider can ever fully identify with are what makes up Canadian culture, and by all accounts it's no different in the US. (I call this the "not everyone grew up with Sesame Street" effect.) As much as I might watch Paddington Bear now, I will never have the experience of being a Canadian child [who goes to a Canadian school and has Canadian friends] who watches it.
There are plenty of cultural influences that are uniquely American, and they exist independently of "home-country" cultural influences in immigrant or post-immigrant communities. One doesn't have to travel extensively in America to see these influences, one just has to be an outsider and turn their TV to CNN.
The soap opera-watching McDonald's eating coffee-guzzling housewife who drives a minivan is a stupid stereotype, but it's not stupid because there's no such thing as American culture.
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I have found that the popular culture, art, and media in the three countries I've lived in as a card-carrying local have tended to provide fairly accurate representations of expected/common beliefs and behaviours.
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I don't understand this statement.
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What I said was that stereotypes aren't stupid because there's no such thing as American culture (that is, they're stupid for other reasons). Because there IS such a thing as American culture. That was kind of the whole point of the comment preceding the last sentence...