Pop Culture Versus Real America

POP CULTURE [ VERSUS\ REAL AMERICA “I know that the stereotypes of the United States are out there. And I know that many of them are informed not by direct exchange or dialogue, but by television shows and movies and misinformation.” — President Barack OBama POP CULTURE [ VERSUS\ REAL AMERICA contents Introduction by andrew Ferguson ........................................................................................ 2 Krusty Burger by chester Pach* ......................................................... 6 FOOd Farm to Table: Fresh for the Picking by karen Hofstein ........... 7 Baywatch ....................................................................................................... 12 LiFeGuards Saving Lives Takes More Than a Nice Tan by Valerie due ... 13 Unforgiven ................................................................................................... 18 Cowboy Modern-Day Cowboy by candy moulton .......................................... 19 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ................................................. 24 Police cHieF All’s Quiet on the Small-Town Front by Brian Heyman .......... 25 Pulp Fiction ............................................................................................... 30 Gun OWner Safety and Security: Twin Priorities by megan a. Wong ......... 31 Grey’s Anatomy ...................................................................................... 36 DoctOr A Passion to Serve by megan a. Wong ................................................. 37 Gossip Girl .................................................................................................. 42 teenaGer Helping Family, Friends, and Her Community ..................... 43 by megan a. Wong Boston Legal .............................................................................................. 48 LaWyer Ethical Advocate by karen Hofstein ....................................................... 49 Notorious ..................................................................................................... 54 musicians Perfecting Their Pitch by Brian Heyman ............................................ 55 immiGrant Desperate Housewives .................................................................... 60 FamiLy Their Own Support Network by Joshua k. Handell .................... 61 Montgomery Burns .............................................................................. 66 Wind Farmer Cutting Costs While Saving the Earth by Gail kalinoski ....... 67 Dr. Phil ............................................................................................................ 72 Psychologist Helping Youth, One Conversation at a Time ............................ 73 by sonya F. Weakley By the Numbers (Facts and Figures) ......................................................................... 78 *all television and cinema profiles are written by chester Pach. INTRODUCTION by Andrew Ferguson ur opening scene takes He’s a very large man, not that he might, when in Rome, be place in Rome, early fat, necessarily, but brawny and speaking a foreign language. omorning, late summer, in big boned. He has evidently tried “I’m from Minneapolis,” he the breakfast room of a moderately to pull himself together, though goes on. “My wife and I just got in. priced albergo (hotel), catering to without much success. His A long flight. I told her I’d grab her the tourist trade, a stone’s throw hair sprays off in all directions, a blueberry muffin. Haven’t slept in from the Pantheon. The waiters, defeating his every attempt to a day. We’re from Minneapolis.” Filipino natives, hover in their smooth it into shape with his The waiter points him to white waistcoats as the hotel guests, beefy hand. His shirttails are the buffet. families from the United Kingdom, busy untucking themselves from “Where are the blueberry France, Greece, and Spain mostly, his pants, which are hitched two muffins?” he booms, craning his graze over the croissants and inches too high. His socks are neck and scanning the breakfast sweets and pitchers of juice, white and they droop. breads and bowls of fruit. “She’s maintaining a polite indifference He approaches one of the really hungry. We just flew in. to one another in their respective waiters and vigorously shakes From Minneapolis.” zones of privacy. Everything is a his hand. And so he prattles on, hum of efficiency and competence, “I heard there was a free expressing astonishment, though executed in the hushed tones complimentary buffet breakfast no resentment, that there are appropriate to the hour. down here,” he says, redundantly. no blueberry muffins — “How Then the doors of the elevator And of course he says it in English, can you have breakfast without slide open, and there he is. with no thought to the possibility blueberry muffins?” he wonders 2 POP CULTURE VERSUS REAL AMERICA aloud — and then surprise at the Everyone from the United States Obama said, to see the United absence of bagels and veggie cream lives with the phrase “the ugly States through the icons its pop cheese. He mentions that he’s American,” taken from a best- culture has produced — this flown all night, from Minneapolis, selling book and popular movie means you, Homer — and the where he’s from; his wife too. from the early 1960s, but when icons and stereotypes can best be All eyes have turned to him I recall the muffin-seeker from rebutted by exposing them to that by now. Trying to disguise his Minneapolis, I wonder whether universal disinfectant, real life. dissatisfaction, he heaps two plastic the ugly American hasn’t been As you read along, threading plates with booty and cradles replaced by another caricature: your way between the pop icons them in his arms. Offering a final not sinister but hapless, not rude on the one hand and the real update, he announces, loudly, that but loud, unsophisticated, kind of Americans on the other, you’re he will take the food upstairs to his goofy, a buffoon. We’ve exchanged likely to glimpse several themes wife, who has flown, sleepless, all one stereotype for another — or emerging. One unavoidable fact night. From Minneapolis. for several, just as powerful, just is that many of these stereotypes “Have a nice day,” he calls out as mistaken. contain a kernel of truth. Our as the elevator door slides shut, “I know that the stereotypes gabby Minneapolitan in Rome did just in time to avoid hearing the of the United States are out there,” bear a punch-drunk resemblance snickers from the other guests. President Obama told a gathering to Marge Simpson’s husband. One of the children looks up from of university students in Istanbul If he’s anything like his fellow her buttered toast. in 2009. “And I know that many of countrymen, however, the “Americaine!” she says. “D’oh!” them are informed not by direct breakfasters would have missed a She’s doing a Homer Simpson, and exchange or dialogue, but by lot about him by settling for the the breakfast room rings out in television shows and movies and stereotype. laughter. misinformation.” What they didn’t see — to Since I watched it unfold This book is an effort to correct take a few examples — were the last summer, a week hasn’t gone some of the misimpressions. hours he likely devotes to the by that I haven’t thought of this The premise is simple and the Lion’s Club back home (Americans globalized tableau, sometimes technique is straightforward: The spent eight billion man-hours on amused, sometimes horrified. world is often misled, as President volunteer service in 2008) or the POP CULTURE VERSUS REAL AMERICA 3 Sunday school class he teaches at of hard training in a surprising a girl she won nine gold medals in church each week (more than half range of skills, from rowing to U.S. Figure Skating Association of all Americans regularly attend a rock climbing, with the end in competitions — but she settled on house of worship) or the money he view, always, of preserving human music because, she says, “Beautiful gives to keep the local soup kitchen life. The bouncing is optional. sounds please people.” A life of in operation (Americans donated The pride that ocean lifeguards serious musicianship is unlikely more than $300 billion to charity take in the less eventful aspects to offer the material rewards that in 2008 — that’s three hundred of their work points us towards Christopher Wallace reaped even billion in dough, not D’oh). another theme peeking from in the three years of his fame, as Or ponder the reality of beneath the icons. Americans place Quinnett well knows. “I wouldn’t Baywatch, as Valerie Due does a high value on craft, a job done really judge my success,” she says, here. It’s arguably one of the well. It’s unsettling to note that the “by how well known [I am] or how most popular television shows late rapper, Christopher Wallace, much money [I make].” in history, notable mainly for known as Notorious B.I.G., is That’s another theme echoing demonstrating the large variety deemed an icon of American through these pages: It’s not of romantic entanglements that musicianship around the world. about the money. To the students can befall mesomorphs as they Wallace directed his undoubted in Istanbul, President Obama bounce around in tiny swimsuits. talent to violence, misogyny, lamented how often pop culture There’s a glimmer of truth in the and explicit depictions of sex — depicts Americans as “selfish and caricature; anyone who visits an subjects that deaden craftsmanship crass.” Throw in a good deal of American beach can testify to far more decisively

Load more