Sunday, June 18, 2006

Another "Ugly American" in Italy: Needs an Attitude Adjustment

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Doug MacEachern writes for the Arizona Republic, which is in a state whose greatest claim to fame are a Canyon and Rock Formations. 

 

And over 100 years ago, Percival Lowell established an Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona to investigate the possibility of intelligent life on Mars, since he found none in Arizona.

 

Doug, being culturally deprived, is obviously way out of his element when as a "desert rat" he travels to Italy, a country with a heritage going back 3,000 years, and experiencing Three Epochs (Magna Grecia, Rome, The Renaissance).

 

Aside from a comment on "Siena. Lovely place. Improbable horse race every year" in referring to "The Palio", the world’s most unique horse race, first held in the early 1300s, Doug's observations are Lacking of ANY Culture while being immersed in a  Treasure Trove of Culture, and are SO Superficial that "Stupid American" doesn't quite seem to do him Justice.

 

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 Arizona Republic
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 Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, which Daniel Johnson writes about elsewhere on these pages. I don't know. You decide.

My wife and I were visiting the medieval walled city of Siena. Lovely place. Improbable horse race every year, right in the middle of town.

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 Iraq. Mostly I inquired about the local industries: "Would this American like that chianti?" Or whether the gnocchi with pesto was a good choice for lunch. I engaged in a lot of frank discussions along these lines.

Perhaps the locals in France cannot contain their antipathy toward Americans. Or in Germany. In its exhaustive, 16-nation survey, the Pew research certainly found plenty of evidence in those countries that the American profile there is swirling down the WC.

But we were in Italy, where by law every Italian citizen has a cousin in Chicago or New Jersey, whom they visit often. Pew did not even include Italy in its 16-country survey, and - snotty 5-year-olds notwithstand! ing - I think I know why.

I met two Italians who actually brought up the Anglo-American liberation of Italy in World War II.

These were not older Italians, either. One young man pointed out the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial on the Via Cassia, where 4,402 GIs from the U.S. 5th Army lie. The other reflected her parents' admiration for their American liberators . . . as well as the fact that she has cousins in Chicago she would like to visit.

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 Verona, at the amphitheater there, which at the time was being set up for a big production of Aida.

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 Iraq.

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 U.S. cultural exports: graffiti and the practice of young gentlemen wearing their baggy jeans halfway down their butts.

There just are not many visuals more discouraging to an American abroad than seeing American-punk-inspired graffiti defacing the medieval storefronts of Florence.

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 "Dearborn Heights." What?

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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