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Originally Posted by Texan
What caught my attention is that most people in Western Europe, but especially in Britain, is that the American people are often judged by the shows produced by Hollywood about the American people. Not actual interaction with American people.
I have known many British people over the years, but most British people have not known Ameircan people.
All the British people have to judge American people by is those products that are much like Bridget Jones Diary.
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Well there are a lot of people (myself included) who think that a culture can be judged largely on the art it produces. Judging America by American TV/movies is fairly reasonable because ultimately the popular American shows/films are the ones which appeal to a lot of Americans, and hence give a basic snapshot of the cultural zeitgeist. The same applies to the cultural output of other countries too. Obviously not all Americans are going to have the same attitudes/intelligence/whatever that you see on American TV shows, but judging the cultura of a nation doesnt imply a judgement about every person that lives in the nation - look at how (eg) the culture of the ancient Greeks/Romans is assessed based on the work of a handful of intellectuals without anyone implying that actual Greek shopkeepers had much in common with the characters in Sophocles plays. Similarly you can probably make a good judgement about the British mentality based on the content/form of popular British cultural products; Bridget Jones may not be the best example, but download some episodes of Eastenders/Big Brother or an average popular newspaper.