Sunday,
June 18, 2006
Another "Ugly American" in
The ANNOTICO Report
Doug MacEachern writes for the
And over 100 years ago, Percival Lowell established an
Observatory in
Doug, being culturally deprived, is obviously way out of his
element when as a "desert rat" he travels to
Aside from a comment on "
He concerns himself with which European Countries hate
Americans more, Shopping Choices, Getting his picture taken with a
"faux" Gladiator, Anglo-American liberation of Italy in World War II,
Irrational "fundamentalist" anti-Americanism exemplified by
anti-McDonald's-ism (oblivious to the symbol of Globalism),
U.S. cultural exports, like graffiti, baggy jeans, and wearing baseball caps
sideways, hip hop, message T-shirts, (while complaining that
Italy doesn't imitate the US exactly:)
It is almost as if Doug shot an arrow into the air....and
missed!!!!!!!!
His worst episode was one where Doug was at a soda pop vending
machine. A cute, curly-haired little Italian girl,
5 years old, came up and indicated she would like him to
buy her a Coke.
Instead of being "touched" by a cute little girl,
recognizing that she undoubtedly was not "well off", and seizing the
opportunity to open his heart, AND make a dent in the "Ugly
American" image, he declined.
What a hard hearted, penny pinching, dumb, cheap skate
bastard!!!!!!
As he reports: "So the little Euro-snot popped us the finger
and ran off"
I would like to find that little girl, compliment her on her
communication skills with "Stupid Americans", buy her a CASE of Coke, and
become her pen pal. !!!!!! :) :) :)
TO
ITALIANS, AMERICANS ARE USA-OK
Except
for one kid, they buck the trend
Doug
MacEachern
The
June. 18, 2006
Yes,
like so many other Americans traveling abroad these days, I too had the
international symbol for contempt and hatred - the one-finger salute - flung my
way while in Italy a couple of weeks ago.
I don't think, though, that the incident does much to support the findings of
the
My wife and I were visiting the medieval walled city of
We were in a coin laundry, trying to discern how to extract soap from a vending
machine. It's not as easy as you might think.
Attached to the soap machine was a soda pop vending machine. (But
of course!) A cute, curly-haired little Italian girl,
maybe 5 years old, came up beside us and indicated she would like us to buy her
a Coke.
We smiled but declined. So the little Euro-snot popped us the finger and ran
off.
Aside from that, two weeks of research into Italian attitudes toward Americans
plumbed scarce evidence of smoldering hostility.
Not that I spent a lot of time plumbing Italian judgments of the American
president or the war in
Perhaps the locals in
But we were in
I met two Italians who actually brought up the Anglo-American liberation of
These were not older Italians, either. One young man pointed out the
There was just one incident I can recall in which an adult Italian acted the
least bit threatening or hostile, in fact.
It was in
Outside the amphitheater, actors dress up like Roman soldiers and gladiators
and pose, for a modest fee, for tourist photos. One young woman was dressed as Xena, the Warrior Princess. I picked Xena.
As my dubious wife raised the camera, Xena lifted her
swor! d to my throat.
"Would you like me to slay you?" she asked. I thought that was a
great idea: "Yes! You must slay me!" I said.
Not that Americans haven't exported reasons for Europeans to
dislike us, even apart from the liberation of
Johnson discusses the distinction between "pragmatic" and essentially
irrational "fundamentalist" anti-Americanism, and he uses the
decades-old example of anti-McDonald's-ism to illustrate both.
But although McDonald's restaurants may be a grating symbol of American
cultural hegemony to many Euros, I can't imagine they compare with two other
There just are not many visuals more discouraging to an American abroad than
seeing American-punk-inspired graffiti defacing the medieval storefronts of
No . . . wait. There is one other almost-as-discouraging visual image: that of
young Italian men wearing baseball caps sideways.
It is one thing for silly, young American suburbanites to go galumphing around
wearing a ballcap sideways, mimicking the
"street cred" of hip-hop artists, most of
whom are themselves mimicking truly mendacious gangsters.
It is quite another matter to witness young Euros attempting the same fashion
statements, but . . . not . . . quite . . . getting it.
This is "fashion" gone quite mad. Sort of like the young Italian
woman in Cinqueterra who I saw wearing a T-shirt
emblazoned with the words "
As Americans, we've got a lot to answer for regarding some of our cultural
exports. But the spiritually generous Italians really don't seem to hold much
of it against us.
Reach the author at doug
.maceachern@arizonarepublic .com or (602) 444-8883.
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