I saw a really obnoxious television commercial this a.m. which depicted people of various countries as ridiculous stereotypes. The woman from Holland had long braided hair, a pointy hat, and wooden shoes…the guy from France was wearing a black-and-white striped shirt, a black beret, and red neckerchief…Australia was a ‘Crocodile Dundee’ type character…the guy from Italy was straight off the pizza box…etc.
These were all obviously the typically American caricature of what ‘we’ think people from other countries look like.
So, what do folks from other countries believe to be the stereotypical American?
I recently participated in some meetings between the vicepresident for marketing of an American corporation and some European clients. Later, over lunch, the European (British) rep for the company asked one of the clients with whom he has a long business relationship what he thought of the American VP who had come to visit. There as a split second of silence and looks converged on the client to see what he would say because everybody knew it was a tough one to answer. After a brief pause, which seemed like an eternity, the client said: “Well, he is very. . . . American.” There were smiles all around. The response was perfect. Extremely polite and yet quite clear to all who were there (no Americans left). Everybody understood what it meant. It meant the guy is loud, unsophisticated, rude and obnoxious. It may be an unfair generalization, just as they all are, but there you have it.
I think the classic visual stereotype would be a Roy Rogers & Dale Evans cowboy couple. The American version of “long braided hair, a pointy hat, and wooden shoes.”
If you’re talking personality stereotypes, that’s another kettle of fish altogether.
Go to a typical middle-class neighborhood in a United States city or suburb, and you’l find that people realy don’t look too different than middle class Europeans, South Africans or Australians. There may be more fat people, but as far as dress and general appearance goes, there aren’t that many differences.
I think that to find a stereotypical American, you have to go to a place where the folks look, act and dress much differently than the norm, in a way that you wouldn’t really find outside of the US. In my experience, those places are:
The exurban and rural South (stereotypical US rednecks)
West Texas, eastern New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana (western/cowboy)
Dominantly Italian-American communities in the Northeast (guidos and guidettes)
Retirement communities in Florida and Arizona (senior citizen/Blair type wear)
Ya know, I think I woulda been okay if you hadn’t actually mentioned the earworm potential. I thought, “Earworm?” and immediately, the Earworm Americanus Femininus infested my brain.
You’re no good for me/I’m no good for you/Look you right straight in the eye/Tell you what I’m gonna do!
I think Americans are seen as more casual than most other people (except perhaps Canadians and Australians). When I was in Europe, several years ago, any adult over thirty wearing shorts. a baseball cap, or tennis shoes with white socks would be taken for American. Younger people were more ambiguous, but still distinguishable by dress. Americans generally fell into two camps, those with a pronounced 'hip-hop" fashion influence, and those who appeared to come straight out of a Sears catalog. Both sets stood out as American.
Americans also tend to be on the loud side. I can remember several times in restaurants or on trains, hearing over a hushed din of French or Italian, something like “Gladys and the kids are over from Tampa” at 80 decibels. Also, most Western Europeans rarely hoot and snort with laughter in public the way Americans tend to do.
I am perplexed by the idea that a typical American would be seen as ‘white’ (and a particular sort of ‘white’) by default. I think its pretty well established that we can look like anything. Maybe its because “minorities” seem to be unlikely to travel, aside from military personel. I am half-Mexican, but not really ‘Hispanic looking’ (that’s a whole other set of issues). In Europe I was usually asked if I were Italian (outside of Italy), and Serbian, Croatian, or Greek when I was in Italy. However, no one took me for a native of a Muslim country unlike some of my Hispanic friends, who were seen as Turks or Moroccans outside of Spain and Portugal. It seemed that people believed, aside from African Americans, the United States was entirely settled by Britons.
My own stereotypes were torn asunder. I found French people to be very polite and charming in nearly any case. Their lack of a forced ‘have a nice day’ cheeriness is refreshing in my book. I was also surprised by how physical Germans could be waiting in ‘lines’ or bumping into you or talking right in your face on the street.
I’d guess it’s either a tossup between the loud, brash, gun-totin’ cowboy wearing chaps and spurs, or the loud, brash, camera-totin’ tourist wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
Either way, loud, brash, and oddly-dressed seem to be the common-denominators.
That’s pretty close to the opposite of what a stereotype is – “an idea, trait, convention etc., that has grown stale through fixed usage; a standardized image or conception shared by all members of a social group” according to my dictionary.
Stereotypes don’t necessarily represent real people at all (the other characters in the OP certainly don’t). They’re just images that are generally supposed to represent a nationality or whatever.
The cowboy would be one example, another would be a guy looking like John Goodman in a large-checked shirt and baseball hat, and a camera round his neck. It doesn’t matter whether Americans really are like that in real life any more than Englishmen really all wear bowler hats or Scotsmen kilts. Those are the stereotypes.
The key word for the american stereotype is definitely loud, which more or less applies too all of representatives of the american demographic chart, despite sex or ethnicity. Speaking as a young european, I’ve grown up with american teleivison, but I haven’t actually met a lot of real life americans - the picture of you being loud and proud stands clear in the back of my head, even though it’s not appliable on most (like how I suppose many americans think of the french as being snotty, even though you know it’s a generalization - stereotypes seem to be hard to rub off).
Words like kitsch, popular culture, fast food, patriotism, cars, barbecues, online-shopping and flamboyance also come to mind.
T-shirt with a collar, beige slacks, white socks and shoes, baseball hat and a bewildered expression. Cameras, chewing gum and a badge that says “Hi, I’m Billy Bob” are optional extras.
