Stereotypes, if anything they’re my source of amusement.
Italians - Hairy, expressive with their hands
French - Condescending
English - “Ay Gubna! Pip Pip, I’ll clean your sweep for a pence I will!”. Bad teeth, bad food.
Russian - Drunks.
Alright, so what do foreigners think of America? I was always curious what America’s stereotype is. Is it a fat lazy cowboy/businessman with a texas belt buckle and – well I’m interested in what you’ll come up with.
All in fun
The stereotype for Americans often includes
Lemme see:
Based on the questions I got when I started teaching in Japan:
overweight
lots of guns
lots of drugs
lots of racism (I arrived during the OJ trial, which managed to seep into the news here)
big penises (the South Park episode wasn’t just making that one up)
Hmmm, attractive, friendly, industrious, confident and entertaining but parochial, arrogant, domineering and self absorbed .
From a Canadian who constantly sees Americans, most of these hold true when Americans come up here. I’d say about 2/3 to 3/4 apply at any given time, except for the exceptional ones, which can have all of the below, or none of the below.
Drives an SUV.
Constantly on a cell phone.
Bad driver. (Due to the two above reasons)
Loud. (“The American way of negotiation is to just be loud and obnoxious and not let the other guy get a word in”)
Obnoxious.
Overweight.
Overeaters. (Or at least eats far too much processed food)
Fast food lovers (You can always pick out a Yank in a fast food restaurant… And they’re always there)
Over friendly (Trying too hard to appear friendly… It shows, and the people here see through you as well as the people at home)
Over patriotic (So you love your country, great. Stay there or shut up about it when you’re here… We don’t care, we like it better here.)
Overly willing to share personal experiences.
Undereducated in certain areas (Geography is a big one, same with world history)
Tries not to act American (Please don’t attempt to adopt our accents or colloquialisms, you’ll get them wrong, or you won’t understand the situation and use the wrong one)
I can think of more, but I tire of this, it frustrates me.
You generalized all the other nationalities in to one or two words, so I’ll sum up what I see as an average American stereotype (which as much as I’m sure some people will call me an asshat for saying so):
Homer Simpson.
From what I’ve heard, I find that very ironic.
I think most countries that are so convinced that they don’t have any racism are actually so accepting of their own assumptions that they can’t see that they even have them.
Like most threads of this sort, (one of which I started, so I’m hardly innocentt) this is quickly going to lead into hurt feelings instead of amusement and might possibly spawn a Pit thread or two.
True, stereotypes often have a bit of truth to them but to try to encapsulate three hundred million people into a handful of sentences isn’t going to do anything but upset a large percentage of those same people.
I did not expect to see that one.
I hope people here are wise enough to know that steriotypes do not contain much truth. And this thread is a good indication of this. It is also an opportunity to work against steriotypes you don’t like. It is no use to say ‘Bah, not fair, boo’ but instead to try and educate those who hold wrong steriotypes, and also to avoid falling into steriotypical behaviour.
As a Brit I take some exception to the idea that British food is bad, I have witnessed a huge change in the character and quality of British food since the late 70’s to the late 90’s. I don’t think people are bad or foolish having a belief in British food being bad, but I dot think it is up to me and people like me to try and render this steriotype obsolete.
If as an American you find some or all of these steriotypes unfair, that is because steriotypes are always unfair, it is up to you to help educate people of this unfairness through not acting according to the steriotypes you don’y like, and by showing such steriotypes are false.
Naw, not really.
FAT or where you can find a lot of indecently obese (true too)
Drink Soda all day
Workaholics due to Greed
Ignorant of anything outside their work and city
Ultra conservative and over religious
One we hear a lot is how americans are all about money and business. Offer to help someone and they will ask how much you will charge them. How they treat their children and family coldly. They won’t help out family members since everyone should be able to carry their own weight.
Funny enough the gun toting stereotype is not so common with regular brazilians, though Bush has started the War mongering stereotype.
A slight nitpick here (not imply the other notions are correct).
Most, if not all, workaholics are not workaholics out of greed. There are only so many hours in the week. For the most part, they either love what they’re doing and think it’s more fun than anything else they could be doing, or they have their identity wrapped up in their career and are trying to use it to prove their worth to the world.
An interesting stereotypical situation happened to me today.
I just received the proofs and order forms for pictures taken at my university convocation (in Canada). The company who handled the photography is American. The order form shows that all addresses and phone numbers etc to order/contact the company are in the states. There is a list on the back of the form indicating which states need to add sales tax, but there is not a single word mentioning Canada on this form. It was ridiculously unclear whether or not the form prices were intended to be in canadian funds or if an exchange rate applied. No exchange rate was on the form. Basically, this is a US form, sent to canadians.
So I went to the website, and checked prices there. The fact that the price list didn’t change once I told the website that I was from Canada confused me - the price appeared to be 10$ for one package regardless of country. Now, we all know that 10$ CDN is a lot less than 10$ US!
I ended up having to call customer service, since big bold letters on the website and forms stated that a non-sufficient funds cheque would result in 20$ penalty (CDN or US??). I was treated rudely, although the details of the form were clarified.
To me, this was a classic stereotype of an american company dealing with canadians but not taking the time to respect the fact that there ARE differences between the two countries (such as the two units of currency). So basically, the stereotype that Americans don’t care about other countries and people was shown by this company.
And to make me dislike them more, I cut my tongue on the return envelope…americans and their weapons! 
I was just making sure I was labelling the stereotype as the “want more money” workaholic… not the I live to work type.
stupid, uneducated, loud, and boorish.
bright-eyed, quick-witted, articulate, polite, and highly educated.
Take your pick.
Though they all seem to wear loud shirts.
In the <i>bandes dessinees</i> (French comic books) I read as a kid, your Stock American was a cigar-chompin’ millionaire in a cowboy hat.
Almost forgot very religious. It even came as a surprise to me how often my explanations for expressions or cultural practices involved Christianity in some way.
I think of this one. I always imagine that the typical American would have a pop with anything. Or that if they were an adult male they would have beer.
I also think of Americans as racially segregated based on Detroit and the fact that TV that comes out of the states seems to be very segregated (there are black shows and white shows.)
The thing I always notice when I go to the states is the whole thing where nothing has French on it. So when I look at a bottle of shampoo, it seems fake, like a prop on a TV show.
The other one is that I think of Americans as having HUGE wardrobes and that they can do it because everything is dirt cheap. I have only known a few American women but they ones I knew had TONS of clothes even though they weren’t rich. And everything I would pull out and admire, they’d say, “What that was only ten bucks.” This also adds to the feeling like Americans are all stars in a big TV show because I think they have different outfits for every occasion and can buy a new outfit at the drop of a hat because they have these huge malls and superstores where you can get a whole outfit for under 100 dollars.
Most of it comes from American TV and not Americans. I have not spent much time in the States at all and when I have it has only been to Detroit and New York.
posted by js_africanus
Me neither.
“Loud, fat and uneducated”…
The Americans I’ve met are soft-spoken, slim and highly intelligent people.
They are also warm-hearted [an underestimated quality nowadays] and are concerned about the rest of the world. And I love their sense of humor.
Don’t give me stereotypes. They’re wrong most of the time.