European Stereotype

The European Stereotype by Hillfighter

The stereotype is a very nuanced tool. It is the means by which large groups of people are categorized quickly. It can be either positive or negative. The most effective ones are easily understood and funny, the worst lead to confusion and audiences scratching their heads.

In a sense the national stereotype is a matter of national pride. A well-developed stereotype means that your county matters, whereas an obscure stereotype means that your country is too obscure. To that end, I will now speak about the five major countries of Europe, the main stereotyped countries of England, France, Germany, Russia and Italy. Why these five? Because these nations are the movers and shakers of Europe and the World, they comprise its most economically productive and militarily powerful countries. These countries are also the movers and shakers of America, the principal maker of stereotypes.

Most stereotypes come straight out of Hollywood. They represent the accumulated media of what an American audience believes to be true. Things like ‘it always rains in London’, ‘the French like to eat bread and drink wine’, ‘German automobiles are well made’, ‘Russians are tall’ or ‘Italians love to sing’. Yet some of these stereotypes also predate Hollywood; Americans have known how dreary London is since the colonial days. But Hollywood gave these ideas new life though better media, through the medium of the movie American stereotypes have been transmitted worldwide and preserved forever in celluloid film.

I have used several images courtesy of Fotosearch in order to better illustrate my points. I choose these images because they are non-offensive, generic and generally accepted. These images work because we could all identify the German quickly and it’s always funny that he’s wearing lederhosen.

One last point I want to make before I begin is that stereotypes are often not so much about countries as a whole as they are about specific urban populations within those countries. These urban populations usually (but not always) reside in the national capital.

-The English-

So, lets begin with the earliest stereotype in the American pantheon, the Englishman. Looking at the image above we see that he’s wearing a bowler hat, a fine suit and carrying either a cane or an umbrella. The Englishman looks to be a refined and civilized gentleman. But he is also more a Londoner than anything else. Frankly, when most Americans go to England they never leave London; thus creating stereotypes for Manchester or Birmingham is fairly pointless (the exception here is Liverpool, land of the Beatles). So the English stereotype has to match limited tourist experience in order to be effective.

The Englishman is also complicated by the fact that he is the most American of all Europeans (this might seem like backward logic considering that England created America, but it should be noted that Rapprochement was and is a two way street). As a more famous person has said, America and England are two countries divided by a common language. But it’s not so much what you say as how you say it; the English accent is often the butt of many jokes. Other jokes revolve around the English love for monarchy, tea and scones. There is a subtle form of mockery in portraying the English as tea drinkers. Why? Because it’s India tea and we all know damn well how they got it. In that sense then the English appear as bastard Imperialists, Americas reflection in the historical mirror. Perhaps the subtlety reflects America’s ambivalence towards its own modern empire.

Because of America is so close to England (in a cultural sense), much attention is given to those other peoples in the British Isles: the Irish and the Scots. The Irish are big based on numbers alone, at this point more people of Irish descent live in the US than Ireland itself. Most came to America during the great potato famine. Because there were so many of them they produced perhaps the richest wealth of stereotype jokes of any people on earth. Bottom line: being perpetually drunk will provide the most lulz, which is the grist of stereotypes. The Scots are well known for more simple reasons: the movie Braveheart and golf. Americans can distinguish between the English, the Scots and the Irish because their division reflects one of the oldest American cultural divisions, namely that between the WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) and the Hillbillies of Appalachia. Many WASPs are the descendents of English colonists who came to New England back in the 1700s. By contrast the Hillbillies are the descendents of the Scots-Irish, Protestant settlers from the Scotland England border settled by Oliver Cromwell in Ireland to fight the Catholic Irish. Many eventually left for America but were pushed by the established colonists to Appalachia, the edge of the colonies to fight the Indians. They have remained there unto this day.

-The French-

France is a moody place and the French are a moody people; or to be more precise, Paris is a moody place and the Parisians are a moody people. To most Americans France is Paris and the rest of the country might as well not exist. Not that the rest of France is bad, it’s just that we never go there, we’re constantly saying ‘I hear the south of France is nice this time of year’ because all we have is hearsay.

So let’s examine the Frenchman. He’s not as well dressed as the Englishman, which reflects the fact that his per capita income is lower. He’s playing an accordion, an obvious reference to Musette. His cap marks him out as a painter, a reference to the great painters Cézanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Matisse, Degas, Van Gogh, Monet and Manet as well as to the Louvre, a museum containing all the artwork Napoleon plundered from across Europe in addition to the holy grail. The barstool the Frenchman is standing on is a reference to the bistro, the sort of rustic restaurant establishment the Parisians love to eat at.

The French are known for their food, which is both praised and derided at the same time. The French can turn a ham sandwich into a culinary work of art, but they also eat frog’s legs. Beyond this is the nutritional mystery of the French Paradox: that the French eat more butter, more pork, more saturated fat than Americans and still have a statistically lower heart attack rate. This paradox exists in the minds of Americans because we’re busy examining our own diet with mathematical precision in order to try to discover the root cause of obesity (while science isn’t the best way to determine what to eat, at least science along with immigration allows the American culinary arts to consistently outdo those of the English).

France has a special place in the American heart. It is was and is our oldest ally. It’s our twin, conceived in Liberty and birthed by Revolution. And though there are disagreements, it must be said that both American and French government is propelled by an idealism that’s just not seen in other countries.

There is a popular misconception that the French hate America and that they are ungrateful for American military help in World Wars One and Two. But that’s a rerendering of facts. Parisians seem to hate Americans because they hate what we all hate: mobs of tourists. Specifically, mobs of tourists who don’t speak your language, but rather speak the language of that country that yours has despised for the past eight centuries. Most Americans take it for granted that they can travel halfway around the world and encounter English speaking peoples (courtesy of the British Empire and Co). But though American tourists act pretentiously wherever they go, they really don’t act much worse than the British tourists did during the days of Empire. Perhaps this is what the French really hate, that nothing ever changes and one English speaking Imperialist has simply been replaced by another.

The nation of France also carries sexual connotations (after all the Marquis de Sade was a Frenchman). This can be seen clearly in the costume of the French Maid, an English invention that Americans simply accept as French. Due to the country's shaky military record (WW2) France is sometimes portrayed as an effeminate country (as opposed to more industrious, militarily strong countries like England, America and Germany which epitomize the masculine principle, or more gender balanced national characters like Russia or Italy which epitomize neither). The Moulin Rouge and the Cancan provide much better stereotype material because these events were actually made by Parisians for Parisians. But after all, Paris is the city of love.

-The Germans-

To the American, there are at least two Germanys. One is Naziland, the other is Beerland. Naziland is the country that either you or your father or your grandfather defeated in World War Two. It is the D-Day landing fought and refought again and again movie by movie. It is a terrible place of inhuman cruelty and brutal efficiency made all the more horrible by the fact that it actually existed. If ever there was a time when America fought an honorable war, this was it.

Luckily however, there is another Germany, Beerland. Ok, it’s actually called Bavaria and its most important city is Munich. Looking at the image above we see the German dressed for either Oktoberfest, to retell the story of Hansel and Gretel or to yodel. Either way, it’s the sort of ridiculous clothing that only a drunken man would walk around in. But this fits perfectly because Munich is known for its beer as well as its beer halls and beer gardens (yes my friends, in Germany, one gardens with beer). German cuisine is essentially beer food; endless varieties of sausage and the most kickass vegetable of all, sauerkraut.

The Beerland image harkens to old as well as new. It’s the stereotype of the German immigrant community in America perhaps best exemplified by Adolf Coors. It’s also the Germany that America occupied during the Cold War. This Germany is also especially loved because of BMW (Bavarian Motor Works) and their amazingly fast cars that go so well with the Autobahn, a freeway with no speed limits.

The mental division of Germany into good Germany/ bad Germany allows Americans to understand how the same country that pioneered space flight also planned the Holocaust. Thus it allows Americans to both love Germany and hate Germany at the same time. The mental picture is even more complicated because the Naziland Germans can be divided into Hitlers and Rommels, essentially dividing between truly evil Nazis and regular men who fought the war for their country, right or wrong. This is again a reflection of America, Rommel is typecast in the same role as Robert E. Lee, a great man fighting for his country regardless of its evils, an enemy that we can respect.

-The Russians-

Just as England is London and France is Paris, Russia is Moscow. So, above we see the Muscovite, wearing a fur cap and a fur coat. The fur is a reference to Siberia which traditionally made most of its income off the fur trade. It also illustrates that ironclad rule ‘Russia is a cold country’. That coldness seems to soak into the bones, giving even Russian Americans in Florida a cold attitude about life.

Almost the entire American knowledge of Russia comes from the Cold War via James Bond. But that British agent has more than a pen-laser up his sleeve. When it comes to Russia, the British have always had an axe to grind. Even back in the time of Catherine the Great, there were rumors that the Russians Tzars were planning to take over the whole world. The main cause of anxiety for the English was the Great Game, a series espionage missions and military adventures the British undertook in Central Asia to prevent a possible Russian invasion of India. The Russian Revolution added the new ideological element of Communism to British fears of Russian world conquest (the irony is palpable). This fear eventually got passed on to America via Winston Churchill in his Iron Curtain speech.

Russia completes the image of the Cold War as a chess game played across the world with the lesser countries as pawns to the grander schemes of Russia and America. They are the cold calculating opponent, the clever enemy. Their best gadgets evidence this genius, the T-34 tank and the AK-47 assault rifle, now famous worldwide, as well as their mildly successful space program. But there’s also a element of duplicity in their game as evidenced by their spy network which successfully stole the plans for the Hydrogen bomb.

There’s also certain uneasiness in playing against the Russians generated by the fact that they seem too foreign even by European standards. Napoleon had said that ‘if you scratch a Russian, you will wound a Tatar’ which seems to say that Russians are prideful and quick to anger. The truth is that Russia has always been different; the largest Orthodox Christian nation, the strongest Slavic country and the belief in the Tzars that Russia would be the third Rome. These are beliefs which weren't (and still aren’t) understood by many Americans back in the 50’s who were mostly Protestant and of an Anglo-Saxon mindset. It brings up the fundamental question, how can we fight an enemy we don’t understand? It’s easy to hate what we can’t understand, but we can’t defeat an enemy with hate alone. Consequently there is an element of mystery in the Russian character, somewhere past the vodka and the cold, that makes the Russian the worthy adversary that they are.

-The Italians-

This is probably one of the more complicated stereotypes because of the sources involved. Americans know the Italians the same way they know the Irish, by immigration. The Italian stereotype was handcrafted on the streets of Little Italy in New York City. Although Neapolitans did not represent the majority of Italian immigrants to America, they did do the most to create what Americans know today as Italian food. Pizza, it’s Neapolitan. Same with spaghetti and meatballs, though they aren’t combined until they get to America. All that red marinara sauce, Neapolitan. That Neapolitan ice cream sandwich you ordered, guess where it comes from? And the influence of Naples on American sensibilities doesn’t end with food. The songs Funicili, Funicula and O Solo Mio are featured in many American movies (O Solo Mio was even used as the Italian national anthem at the 1920 Olympics).

But, there are other Italies to consider. The gondolier in the image above represents Venice. But few Americans can tell you what the Venetians eat (Risotto) or anything about their city beyond the canals (Carnival).

Without a doubt the best-known city in Italy is Rome. The American obsession with Rome exists because in its cultural imagination America sees itself as the modern day Roman Empire. But Americans are more ambivalent about the other Romes, namely Papal Rome. Historically there has been a great Protestant American fear of Irish and Italian immigrants destroying American democracy through Catholic Papal influence. And while American tourists love to stare at the wonderful artwork in the Vatican, we still tend to feel sick about the excesses of gold on the walls. The current Rome, modern Rome, is completely ignored by American tourists.

Another city Americans love to visit is Florence, home of the Renaissance. Here they can see the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael (before they became Ninja Turtles). The city was also the home of writers Dante Alighieri (who told us what hell would be like) and Machiavelli (who told us what to do to get to hell).

The other great achievement Americans recognize is Italian automobiles. The main manufactures are Alfa Romeo in Milan, Ferrari in Maranello and Fiat in Turin. Milan is also one of the four international centers of fashion (the other are New York, London and Paris).

One of the biggest influences on the Italian stereotype is the Mafia, a series of organized crime families. Although crime organizations exist across the south of Italy (like the Camorra in Naples and the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria) the Cosa Nostra is the most important because the Sicilian immigrants replicated in America those same organizations. They even went so far as to travel back and forth between America and Sicily, organizing elaborate international smuggling routes as they went.

Italy is a regional place and as more American tourists go there the impressions they bring back to America will undoubtedly change the stereotype. But I firmly believe that Americans think and vote with their stomach, and the food Americans and the World now recognizes as Italian is undoubtedly Neapolitan in origin. For that reason, I say that Naples (not Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan or Palermo) is at the center of the Italian stereotype.

Like I said before, the stereotype is a tool to quickly categorize large groups of people. Ultimately its propose is to build up a shared set of assumptions and feelings so that when I say ‘a German, an Englishman, a Frenchman, an Italian and a Russian walked into a bar’ you can all try to guess what’s coming next. Because that’s what the stereotype is all about: good comedy.