Culture Shock?

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fudpeX

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I came across this video, and I don't know if this is allowed to be on the forums, but its almost offensive to me to a certain degree. Fry comes to america to sum up our culture over a "simple football game" when Auburn and Alabama are the biggest rivalries in College Football, always being covered on CBS and ESPN for days. It's a major contributor to the colleges, which contributes to the students, for higher education. and Fry is sitting here saying its preposterous, ridiculous, and laughable?

sorry, I had to get that off my chest.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuPeGPwGKe8[/ame]
 
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okay, the college football part being ridiculous can be true for most. but basing our entire culture around it? and picking the most popular college football game? Its rarely like this and hes pretty much saying Americans are idiots, not college football (alongside college students). It's a stab at our nation over a game.

you say "as someone not from Alabama and zero interest in college football" but his conundrums are direct toward you as well.

see, I'm in college but i could care less about football. or any sport actually. so for him to say "I" as a person being an american is ridiculous because of what you saw in that stadium, bothers me.

That's like me going over to london during the riots, and saying "sigh, silly British."

It's just another stereotype being misjudged because of television.
 
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He also said impressive, charming and wonderful. He's not really making fun of America, he was merely using college football as a proxy for the grandiose nature of American culture.
 
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Shadow19 said:
As someone not from Alabama and with zero interest in college football, I agree with these adjectives.

MERICA
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I'm Canadian, and watch less than a handful of football (NFL or CFL) a year. However I have no issues with a team (whomever) building a huge building, and packing it to the roof if they can afford it, and can fill it. And if they're going to fill it for one the biggest games of the year, why not make a huge production out of it?

But then I'm the same way about hockey. I'd love to be in Pittsburgh or Philly for a Pens/Flyers game, and if I was there, I'd love them to go all out. I doubt it's any different for a Manchester/Arsenal game in the UK.
 
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That clip is part of a mini-series documentary called "Stephen Fry in America" in which he travels through all 50 states, mostly in a London cab. I've seen most of this series and I find him to be very complimentary of the Unites States and its people for the most part. Though I remember he really didn't like Miami.
 
Captain Canuck said:
That clip is part of a mini-series documentary called "Stephen Fry in America" in which he travels through all 50 states, mostly in a London cab. I've seen most of this series and I find him to be very complimentary of the Unites States and its people for the most part. Though I remember he really didn't like Miami.
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That's good to know. Because I never took Fry to be an easily judgmental person.
 
I think he maybe went over the top by saying the event was ridiculous. But at the same time being half Chinese and half English and having lived in Hong Kong. I've been lucky to have parents who love travelling. As such I've traveled to many places, US being one. I definitely have to say you guys are the most patriotic and in some ways most passionate people I've ever met.

I guess he uses the big game to sum it up. Because although for example even though the UK has the most watched football (soccer) league in the world. Their college or even university games don't come CLOSE in size with supporter turn out. I doubt there are other countries that have games that big that aren't professional tounaments either.

Believe me there are things that people would find absolutely ridiculous about Chinese culture. You should see how fast iodine ran out of stock when there were "radiation scares" from the Japanese nuclear power plant meltdowns. Someone remind me how far Japan is away from Hong Kong? *sigh*

In parts of China, people still eat dogs. I'd say that's pretty disgusting and backwards.

Every country has something like this it's not just the US. Don't take what he says personally it's simply his opinion and it may not be correct. I think he was just overwhelmed.
 
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Sexy Beast said:
He also said impressive, charming and wonderful. He's not really making fun of America, he was merely using college football as a proxy for the grandiose nature of American culture.
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I agree...

I think you are getting too emotional about what he said... if you were so proud then why do you care what he says anyway?

I could say the exact same thing about another topic which I would probably get in trouble if I discussed here but its no different.
 
It's not that hard to point out differences of another country, and people tend to notice difference more than similarity. A good similarity is the popularity of football in the US compared to the popularity of football in Europe.

A good possible idea of stereotypes coming from a person who took 2 classes of ethics: They can be hurtful to other culture, but they are usually just a light comment. It's more like 2 friends making fun of each other. However, when stereotyping becomes discrimination, it definitely stops being funny. Sure the comments he made were a bit of a bad idea to compare to the entire country, but nothing crossed the line i think
 
idk_lobsters said:
It's not that hard to point out differences of another country, and people tend to notice difference more than similarity. A good similarity is the popularity of football in the US compared to the popularity of football in Europe.

A good possible idea of stereotypes coming from a person who took 2 classes of ethics: They can be hurtful to other culture, but they are usually just a light comment. It's more like 2 friends making fun of each other. However, when stereotyping becomes discrimination, it definitely stops being funny. Sure the comments he made were a bit of a bad idea to compare to the entire country, but nothing crossed the line i think
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great points. I pretty much got over the video 30 min after watching it. It was an impulse post. I first saw this video on THEDAILYWH.AT and noticed it was Fry. I was expecting something completely different so I was thrown a little of guard. I've been in relationships with Bosnians, Canadians, and Serbians. and they all managed to pick fun at Americans from time to time So i guess I'm just getting sick of it and it has grown prone to being a touchy subject for me...
 
It just goes to show that if America could be described, a foreigner isn't one to do it.
 
If you step back a analyze how over extravagant our sports and sporting events are, hes kind of got a point. Although he could of been a little less of a jerk about it. Thats just our culture, when we do it, we do it big. :]
 
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