Today I was looking at the personal website of somebody who took pictures of their baby swathed in red white and blue in the cheesiest manner ever as a rememberence of 9/11. That got me thinking about crying eagles, and the general plethora of cheesiness that surrounds a lot of American patriotic memoribilia.
Now I know that cheesy religious arts spans the world, but does cheesy patriotic art? Do they have the equivelent of crying eagles (sculpted in fine resin and adorn with real fiber optics) in other countries? Any examples?
Here in Saudi Arabia they go in for paintings of their past kings, we call them The Three Tenors. On the train they seem to have hallows painted around thier smiing faces. Seems quite odd to me.
I would like to find some Socialist Realism stuff for use as my computer wallpaper.
China has plenty of this, (though less than in the past) and I have to admit a lot of it is actually pretty cool. Here’s a link, sans fancy coding: http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/
Actually, I’m not so sure I should say there’s so much less of it now as that you have to actually be able to read it now to get it, as, like American propoganda, it is at least somewhat less cheesy and blatant than it used to be.
Hm, I guess I never considered actual propaganda (which I’m a bit of a Connaisseur of) as on par with the non-government produced stuff. I’m thinking more along the lines of stuff you’d buy on the private market to put in your homes- stuff like American Eagle blankets and Christmas ornaments that feature Santa waving an American flag. But I guess in a country where the government controls the means of production, all cheesy patriotic stuff would come from the government.
I think England puts out some pretty atroucious stuff for the Queen’s jubilees, right? Is that stuff for tourists, or is it for people to buy and display? I’ve seen plenty of immigrants with overdone memoribilia from their country, but that might not be the norm in the country itself. What I’m thinking of is…well in America, if you decided to decorate your guest bedroom in red white and blue, put a couple of country looking paintings of eagles on the walls and maybe use some star-spangled curtains, nobody would blink an eye. And you’d probably have no problem finding plenty of stuff from mail-order catalogues and gift stores to complete the theme. Do Germans relax in their red yellow and black themed rooms? Do the Irish keep resin statues of harps on their knick-knack shelves?
In my travels in Southern Ontario, I noticed that there was definitely far more flag-waving found NORTH of the border than south. It was as if areas in Canada close to the American border had to somehow justify their “Canadianness,” and thus display the Canadian flag just about everywhere to reassure themselves that they were just as Canadian as someone in … oh, Sudbury or Moose Jaw.
In the US, I’ve noticed that there were far more tacky patriotic displays in blue collar neighborhoods than in middle class areas. Maybe the tacky patriotic displays aren’t so much an American thing as they are a working class thing. As a corollary of sorts, I often see huge displays dedicaed to Mexico, Mexican states, or the Virgen de Guadalupe on vehicles driven by working class Hispanics, but never on cars driven by middle class Mexican-Americans.
yeah, I cant imagine many Irish filling their living rooms with statuettes of dancing leprechauns or tri-coloured harps. The piss-taking they’d get would be unbearable.
Having said that though, I think a good portion of the population still have things in their house that identify with ‘Irishness’ but on a more subtle level eg Waterford Crystal, or maybe wool clothing. The tacky ‘Oirish’ stuff tends to be on sale for tourists only.
I’ve gotta agree with elmwood. Back when I spent a lot of time in Ontario, the public displays of patriotism felt eerily out of place. In the USA it takes an attack or a war to bring out the same type of mass patriotism, it seems. For example, we were at a large club called “Lulu’s” (billed as the largest bar in the world or something). Not a tourist town (Cambridge government region or something encompassing several towns [what’s that and how’s it work?]), but the DJ’s and the crowd were going on trying to raise self-esteem it seemed. “Who’s Canadian!” and “Aren’t we proud to be Canadian” and so forth. I guess they’re trying to protect their identity in our shadow?
Down in Mexico, I don’t see public displays of patriotism as much, unless it’s the middle of September (independence day), or unless Fox starts talking about foreign investment (“you’re selling out the county to the Americans!”).
This probably depends on where you see it. In London, for instance, the tourist business is obviously massive and everyone wants a piece of the action - that’s why every shop sells plastic Horseguards and red telephone boxes (which are virtually extinct everywhere else in the country). On the other hand, tourists from abroad and other parts of the UK go to London precisely because the Queen lives there. Those from the UK tend to be very patriotic in their belief in the monarchy. I guess these ARE the people in the UK that would put a mug with the Queen’s face on it on the wall.
Very few Brits (I guess) would have images of British Bulldogs or any other British imagery around. The only exception perhaps are football (soccer) fans where the carrying of a St George’s Cross flag has really taken off in the past few years.
I dunno, Australia sometimes does litter itself with the Aussie and/or Boxing Kangaroo flags, but that’s just about the top of it. Aussie’s tend to litter their living rooms with items from anywhere but Australia. I think the sad thing that over here in the US people buy all this tourist crap for themselves. I find that funny.
If you want to go somewhere with almost no patriotic stuff, go to Denmark, or every Scandinavian country I suppose. The most I found there was a kitsch shop which sold Pan-Scandinavian flags, which no one was buying anyway.
I also found that Brits are very patriotic when it comes to their national heroes, Nelson and the sort. Most houses I went to had some sort of historical hero book on their shelf.
I live in Ontario and I agree with comments about the false patriotism. It just seems so akward and forced when people try to play up the “hey, we’re Canadian!” theme. I can’t stand those Molson (?) “I Am Canadian” commercials.
I live in Ontario and I agree with comments about the false patriotism. It just seems so akward and forced when people try to play up the “hey, we’re Canadian!” theme. I can’t stand those Molson (?) “I Am Canadian” commercials.
I think there’s a lot of patriotic cheese in most countries- the difference is, most countries don’t have all that much military firepower at their disposal, so nobody worries too much about silly patriotic excesses of their citizens.
I mean… if, at World Cup time, everyone in Sweden painted his face blue with a yellow cross and sang the Swedish anthem at the top of his lungs, would people around the world get nervous? Of course not! Sweden is seen as a pretty innocuous, neutral nation, so that kind of patriotic silliness seems harmless to outsiders.
But the U.S. has a lot of firepower at its disposal. So, when Americans engage in the same kind of patriotic excess, other people around the world probably DO get nervous.
I think it has more to do with who buys it. People in the US seem to LIKE buying all that cheap patriotic shlock they offer up in stores. In other countries, the only people who buy it are tourists, in the touristy areas.