AMERICA: the world’s greatest superpower, or greatest scapegoat?
Criticise the folk of most nations on the globe and you’ll be labeled a racist or a bigot. But take potshots at Americans and you’ve nothing to worry about. As far as
the ‘‘Yanks’’ are concerned, it’s open season.
From my experience, the people of the United States seem good natured enough to cop the criticism. Many Americans — thankfully, from my point of view — are unaware of the condescending attitude others, including Australians, have towards them.
But just because it’s fashionable and easy to blame Americans for just about everything that ails this world does not make it fair.
Speaking, as I did during a recent round the world trip, with folk from — among other places — Nashville, Kansas City and even Buckner (yes, the Missouri village of Beverly Hillbillies fame), I found the average American more aware of what’s going on in the world than the ‘‘dumb Yank’’ stereotype gives them credit for.
Sometimes there is a certain naivity about detail (‘‘It sure must be dangerous down there with all those deadly snakes and spiders’’), but it’s not necessarily
due to a lack of interest in other parts of the world. Until you go to a place, there’s always going to be a certain level of ignorance about it.
OK, Americans may be less inclined to travel overseas than others. But the reason is less to do with not wanting to experience anything outside the US border
and more to do with practicalities.
Australians wondering why more Americans don’t travel
internationally may not be aware that most get only two weeks annual leave.
As for those who do travel, Americans are far from the
obnoxious tourists some like to paint them as. A recent survey of tourist offices by online travel service Expedia ranked Americans as the most polite and second
highest overall in behaviour. The British and Canadians,
meanwhile, were rated among the rudest. We were somewhere in the middle.
Aussie comedians love to head to the US to make fun of Godfearing Yanks. Apparently it’s impolite to mock Muslims or Jews, but not Southern Baptists. Still, if
those comedians really wanted to make a point about religious intolerance, they might try the same stunt in Tehran.
If there is an area the US lags, it is in over-consumption, but it is wrong to assume the average American is doing nothing about it. There are recycle bins in places like Tennessee and Arkansas. And yes, even some Republican voters use them. As for the United States’
obesity problems, I don’t think Australians can really cast the first stone on that one either.
I think much of the blame for this unrealistic view of America probably rests with the American media. Hollywood and daytime television, for example, loves to
give us images of backward, uneducated rednecks, because it is great sport to poke fun at them.
But think about it, when Sam Newman does Street Talk on The Footy Show doesn’t he often drag up the same sort of people? If those images were broadcast
overseas, wouldn’t that present a pretty distorted view of us?
You know I’m right about this.
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