Thursday,
August 21, 2008
The Italians Have a Word For It: "Americanata
"
The
ANNOTICO Report
Americanata (AMERICAN-OTTA), an
Italian term describing anything that is exaggerated, overdone, garish,
pompous, boorish or just in plain bad taste -- in a uniquely American way.
Below
is a Top Ten
Thanks to: Angelica Di Chiara-Hardin
The Italians Have a Word For It
My wife and I
were watching the last 15 minutes of The
Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic
Park in which a T. rex rampages
through San Diego, tearing up a gas station mini-mart and stomping cars,
Godzilla style.
"This is
really an Americanata!"
she said.
An American-what?
"An Americanata,"
my wife, who is Italian, repeated. She was fine with the movie about reanimated
dino DNA until that point. But when it turned into a
comic book, a cinematic cartoon of itself, that, she explained, is an Americanata
(AMERICAN-OTTA), an Italian term describing anything that is exaggerated,
overdone, garish, pompous, boorish or just in plain bad taste -- in a uniquely American
way, whether it's a 60-ounce Big Gulp, patriotic underwear or a fully
loaded Hummer.
"But that
was cool!" I protested. She rolled her eyes.
Since that
moment, I've come to understand the concept of an Americanata, aided by
the pointed observations of my wife, our Italian expatriate friends here in
Americanate
(
the
plural of Americanata ) are as plentiful as McMansions here, so we decided to compile a list of them,
based on an informal survey of Italians.
Now presenting
... The Top 10 Americanate:
10. THE
QUANTUM SLEEPER
-- A post-9/11 throwback to the 1950s nuclear bomb scare, this
panic-room-in-a-bed promises to protect you from bullets, biochemical attacks
AND stalkers. And it comes with a reading light and a DVD! This Americanata,
courtesy of an Italian web site, could be quickly dismissed as mere tackiness
if just five years ago, amid fears of an al-Qaeda WMD attack, Americans hadn't
been rushing out to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape in what would have
proved to be a futile attempt to protect themselves from bioterrorists. The
tendency to find answers and salvation in technology led to bomb shelters 50
years ago; it's still producing them, albeit more upscale ones. And if a
bioterrorism attack does occur, the Quantum Sleeper makes a great, low-cost
double caske
9. EATING
IN PUBLIC
-- A college student brings a piece of pizza to class and sits there eating it,
oblivious, while the professor lectures. "In
8. RECORD
MANIA --
Hot dog-eating contests, amassing the biggest ball of twine in the world,
flying around the world in a balloon -- the lure of setting a world record
drives many Americans to extremes of accomplishment -- and bad taste. That
summertime tradition, the pie-eating contest, may win Bubba a
bask in the spotlight at the county fair. But when Italians see boys
burying their faces in blueberry pies and scarfing
them down come porci -- like pigs -- using food as a toy --
they add another Americanata
to the list.
7.
FESTIVAL OF COSMAS & DAMIAN -- The cherished annual "Italian
Festival" found in many
Now processions
of the saints are common in
6. MISUSED ITALIAN FOOD NAMES/FOODS --
My wife and I stared at the colorful poster advertizing Pizza Hut's latest
delicacy, "Tuscani Pastas."
"Delicious
pasta dinners in Meaty Marinara or Creamy Chicken Alfredo. Finally, restaurant
quality pasta delivered right to your door!" She wrinkled her face in
distaste. "Oh. My. God!" Then she asked the
question millions of Italians who come to the
"Tuscani Pastas" ... never mind that neither
word exists in English (pastas?) or Italian (it would be paste Toscane).
Creating a lasagna-like dish out of rotini and
chicken, then covering that with a glutinous blanket of cheese and cream sauce
and baking it into a hot, oily mush, well ... any native Italians seeing the
ads will likely be retching. A third-degree -- or make that a 350-degree -- Americanata.
Misused Italian
food names are a rich source of Americanate, one that will never run out as
long as there exists a single food company executive
somewhere in the
Pizza Hut is only
the latest offender in the misuse of Italian terms. My wife and I used to walk
past an Italian restaurant -- it has since closed -- in my former home state of
Then there's
Dunkin Donuts' warm-weather drink, the "Coolatta."
In Italian, culatta -- pronounced COO-LOTT-UH, just
like the drink -- is a buttock. So if you see Italians giggling and pointing at
the menu in DD, now you know why.
Of course, the
misused words are just the surface covering the real horror - the food itself.
Most Italian-American dishes sold here are cheesy, oily, caricatures of
Southern Italian cuisine, whether it's Tuscani Pastas
or that big plate of spongy pasta topped with a brownish, tannic-tasting red
sauce and mealy meatballs you get at your local Mama Whatever's ("serving
fine Italian food since 1957"). Often these are the creations of food
company marketers, like the horrendous "stuffed crust pizza" now
being touted by several pizza chains. Olive Garden's website currently boasts
its latest specials, "Five Cheese-stuffed Rigatoni with Shrimp" and
"Five Cheese-stuffed Rigatoni with Sausage." But ... the essence of
real Italian food is simplicity and quality. Filled pasta like cappelletti is made with either ricotta or mortadella and served in a simple but delicious chicken
broth. Period. And regular pasta is typically served
with a few herbs, vegetables and olive oil, or with a simple red sauce or bichamel. There are Italian rigatoni dishes that include
ricotta, bits of sausage and a sprinkling of pecorino, but the star of the dish
is still the pasta; they don't stuff the rigatoni with five cheeses, drown it
in oil and then bury the resulting mess under sausage and shrimp.
5. YOU
WILL OBEY
-- I was on a chair drying off after a swim at the public pool in Georgetown
when a teenage life guard approached the young women listening to her iPod just
in front of me and waved to get her attention. "Excuse me, Miss." Then louder, "EXCUSE ME, MISS." She removed the
ear buds and looked up at him. "I'm sorry but no listening devices are
allowed here." She looked puzzled. "Huh?" He went on to explain
that it's an official pool regulation because someone might not hear an
emergency announcement. She turned off her iPod. Probably not realizing she may
have just saved her life because she'll be able to flee the inevitable attack
by the Sept. 13 Martyrs of The Swimming Pool Jihad 1 second faster.
A pool I used to
go to in
The town of
Italians
witnessing the
4. LOOK
AT ME!
Whether it's appearing on American
Idol, Dance War,
or The Biggest Loser,
becoming a YouTube sensation or the star of your local karaoke night, the
desire for public attention, for that 15 minutes -- or even 15 seconds -- of
fame, is a top Americanata.
Or, as our friend Giampiero
e-mailed, via translation, "The mania to astonish people, at all costs,
and in all ways -- and on TV if at all possible." So we have brides
and grooms saying their vows while skydiving, or wearing scuba masks, fiancis pledging their love on billboards, or, as the
newswires recently reported, an "artist" in Orlando, Florida, marking
Feb. 29 (Leap Day) by devoting himself to leaping off a platform for the entire
24 hours "to get people to think how they spend their day."
3. SUPERSIZE NATION --
Italians like Americans but often joke about our love of living large, a love
that has spawned various Americanate.
Used to small cups of espresso quickly downed while standing at a bar, they
gape at workplace coffee cups the size of small buckets; accustomed to
ultra-compact Smart Cars, they are stunned by SUVs so large they are a threat
to anything that gets near them and actually require small-truck license tags.
Now Americans themselves have become the gag. After a generation of Whoppers,
Big Macs, and foot-long hoagies,
2. THESE
COLORS DON'T RUN
-- The presence of the flag at the football pre-game ritual -- and everywhere
else you look -- is a quintessential Americanata; no other
country in the world waves the flag quite so tirelessly as Americans, whether
it's in ads for patriotism-injected pick-ups, blue-collar beer, or power tools,
on T-shirts or underwear, a lapel pin -- lawmakers, don't get caught not
wearing one! -- or a house-size Old Glory looming
perilously over a car dealership parking lot. Italians marvel at this, the
pride and pomposity of it all. Maybe they're more jaded when it comes to
nationalism -- their last embrace of it didn't end so well. And national
identity in
1.
OVERKILL
-- And No. 1 ... An Italian web site that looks at Americanate past and
present includes this video of a vintage Americanata, one that
taps deep into the American soul. If ya can't figure
any other way to do something, just blow it up!
Click on the
hyperlink, and scroll to the bottom
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Top-10-Americanate
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