Pop Culture vs Real America(1)

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POP CULTURE
REAL AMERICA
[
VERSUS
\
“
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
REAL AMERICA
CONTENTS
Introduction
by andrew Ferguson
........................................................................................ 2
FOOd
Krusty Burger
by chester Pach*
......................................................... 6
Farm to Table: Fresh for the Picking
by karen Hofstein
........... 7
LiFeGuards
Baywatch
....................................................................................................... 12
Saving Lives Takes More Than a Nice Tan
by Valerie due
... 13
cOWBOy
Unforgiven
................................................................................................... 18
Modern-Day Cowboy
by candy moulton
.......................................... 19
POLice cHieF
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
................................................. 24
All’s Quiet on the Small-Town Front
by Brian Heyman
.......... 25
Gun OWner
Pulp Fiction
............................................................................................... 30
Safety and Security: Twin Priorities
by megan a. Wong
......... 31
dOctOr
Grey’s Anatomy
...................................................................................... 36
A Passion to Serve
by megan a. Wong
................................................. 37
teenaGer
Gossip Girl
.................................................................................................. 42
Helping Family, Friends, and Her Community
..................... 43
by megan a. Wong
LaWyer
Boston Legal
.............................................................................................. 48
Ethical Advocate
by karen Hofstein
....................................................... 49
musicians
Notorious
..................................................................................................... 54
Perfecting Their Pitch
by Brian Heyman
............................................ 55
immiGrant
FamiLy
Desperate Housewives
.................................................................... 60
Their Own Support Network
by Joshua k. Handell
.................... 61
Wind Farmer
Montgomery Burns
.............................................................................. 66
Cutting Costs While Saving the Earth
by Gail kalinoski
....... 67
PsycHOLOGist
Dr. Phil
............................................................................................................ 72
Helping Youth, One Conversation at a Time
............................ 73
by sonya F. Weakley
By the Numbers
(Facts and Figures) ......................................................................... 78
*all television and cinema proiles are written by chester Pach.
[
VERSUS
\
IntroductIon
by
Andrew Ferguson
place in Rome, early
morning, late summer, in
the breakfast room of a moderately
priced
albergo
(hotel), catering to
the tourist trade, a stone’s throw
from the Pantheon. he waiters,
Filipino natives, hover in their
white waistcoats as the hotel guests,
families from the United Kingdom,
France, Greece, and Spain mostly,
graze over the croissants and
sweets and pitchers of juice,
maintaining a polite indiference
to one another in their respective
zones of privacy. Everything is a
hum of eiciency and competence,
executed in the hushed tones
appropriate to the hour.
hen the doors of the elevator
slide open, and there he is.
He’s a very large man, not
fat, necessarily, but brawny and
big boned. He has evidently tried
to pull himself together, though
without much success. His
hair sprays of in all directions,
defeating his every attempt to
smooth it into shape with his
beefy hand. His shirttails are
busy untucking themselves from
his pants, which are hitched two
inches too high. His socks are
white and they droop.
He approaches one of the
waiters and vigorously shakes
his hand.
“I heard there was a free
complimentary bufet breakfast
down here,” he says, redundantly.
And of course he says it in English,
with no thought to the possibility
that he might, when in Rome, be
speaking a foreign language.
“I’m from Minneapolis,” he
goes on. “My wife and I just got in.
A long light. I told her I’d grab her
a blueberry muin. Haven’t slept in
a day. We’re from Minneapolis.”
he waiter points him to
the bufet.
“Where are the blueberry
muins?” he booms, craning his
neck and scanning the breakfast
breads and bowls of fruit. “She’s
really hungry. We just lew in.
From Minneapolis.”
And so he prattles on,
expressing astonishment, though
no resentment, that there are
no blueberry muins — “How
can you have breakfast without
blueberry muins?” he wonders
2
 
POP CULTURE VERSUS REAL AMERICA
O
ur opening scene takes
aloud — and then surprise at the
absence of bagels and veggie cream
cheese. He mentions that he’s
lown all night, from Minneapolis,
where he’s from; his wife too.
All eyes have turned to him
by now. Trying to disguise his
dissatisfaction, he heaps two plastic
plates with booty and cradles
them in his arms. Ofering a inal
update, he announces, loudly, that
he will take the food upstairs to his
wife, who has lown, sleepless, all
night. From Minneapolis.
“Have a nice day,” he calls out
as the elevator door slides shut,
just in time to avoid hearing the
snickers from the other guests.
One of the children looks up from
her buttered toast.
“Americaine!” she says. “D’oh!”
She’s doing a Homer Simpson, and
the breakfast room rings out in
laughter.
Since I watched it unfold
last summer, a week hasn’t gone
by that I haven’t thought of this
globalized tableau, sometimes
amused, sometimes horriied.
Everyone from the United States
lives with the phrase “the ugly
American,” taken from a best-
selling book and popular movie
from the early 1960s, but when
I recall the muin-seeker from
Minneapolis, I wonder whether
the ugly American hasn’t been
replaced by another caricature:
not sinister but hapless, not rude
but loud, unsophisticated, kind of
goofy, a bufoon. We’ve exchanged
one stereotype for another — or
for several, just as powerful, just
as mistaken.
“I know that the stereotypes
of the United States are out there,”
President Obama told a gathering
of university students in Istanbul
in 2009. “And I know that many of
them are informed not by direct
exchange or dialogue, but by
television shows and movies and
misinformation.”
his book is an efort to correct
some of the misimpressions.
he premise is simple and the
technique is straightforward: he
world is oten misled, as President
Obama said, to see the United
States through the icons its pop
culture has produced — this
means you, Homer — and the
icons and stereotypes can best be
rebutted by exposing them to that
universal disinfectant, real life.
As you read along, threading
your way between the pop icons
on the one hand and the real
Americans on the other, you’re
likely to glimpse several themes
emerging. One unavoidable fact
is that many of these stereotypes
contain a kernel of truth. Our
gabby Minneapolitan in Rome did
bear a punch-drunk resemblance
to Marge Simpson’s husband.
If he’s anything like his fellow
countrymen, however, the
breakfasters would have missed a
lot about him by settling for the
stereotype.
What they didn’t see — to
take a few examples — were the
hours he likely devotes to the
Lion’s Club back home (Americans
spent eight billion man-hours on
volunteer service in 2008) or the
POP CULTURE VERSUS REAL AMERICA
 
3
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