On the prevalence of US tropes in storytelling

[Fung Koo]

But do you feel that the lone hero who saves the world purely by violence has completely taken over as the dominant factor in SFFH literature, FK?

No I don't -- nor does the blogger that prompted this thread. That's an oversimplification of what she said. She had several points about heroes, mentioning different kinds of hero stories.

In particular to SFFH, her comment was:

I’m tired of how genre(s) put(s) a disproportionate value on heroes who are active and not passive

There's a world of difference between "active" and "violent." She doesn't flatly equate them, nor do I. She means heroes who claim their destiny, or who seek out a problem then set out purposefully to deal with it, rather than heroes who emerge from being unwittingly thrust into a situation where they must cope with what life throws at them. Not the same as "violent" -- but they do tend to occur together.

Her comments regarding violence were:

I’m tired of the casual acceptance of violence as a valid answer to anything, ... dispatching them while stubbornly refusing to think about the ethics of killing, and the fact that the world seldom comes in black-and-white. I want violence to have consequences, both for those who have recourse to it, and for its victims; not to be something you can shrug off in the morning as if it never happened.

So, your example of Priest, where the warrior takes a moral stance and becomes the hero as he sets out on his quest -- that's an active hero. He puts himself in harm's way on purpose, on principle; violence is inevitable and accepted remorselessly.

While I understand her sentiments, I do think its all a bit much of a generalization. There are plenty of deeply nuanced stories out there that feature good amounts of violence. But she did acknowledge that she was generalizing at the outset, so I take it with a grain of salt. I mainly take her point as being about the volume of exported material from America that overshadows domestic product, and the absurd extent to which America remakes foreign material in its own image.

And it's not just Vanilla Sky or the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movies, which are at least semi-understandable for the language (if other countries had half the available funds and audience as the American film/tv industry, they would do a lot more remakes of foreign language films, too. In fact, in the early cinema, there would be two or more sets of actors to make different language versions on a story. But I digress....). But America even remakes English-language shows. Completely unnecessary.

The Office is a prime example, or the new Elijah Wood show Wilfred (Australian). OK, maybe America is a bit culturally unaware of the UK and Australia (which in itself is something deserving of some criticism). But there is currently an American remake of a Canadian SF show, Being Erica, being produced. The show has pretty much nothing nationally-oriented in it at all. I mean, c'mon -- Canadian culture is barely different from American culture as is. Do you really, truly require a remake to reflect yourself back at you? Seriously?

In Canada we had to put laws in place to protect and support our own entertainment media and limit Americas. That's how dominant a force American media is. The blogger's concerns aren't baseless.

 

[KatG]

I didn't say her concern was baseless. I agreed with her view of American juggernautism. I just don't think her thematic assertions of various ideas as being American tropes particularly work.

For instance, the active versus passive -- that I would say is actually not a common Americanism. America loves stories where the hero is pulled into the situation against his will, often ineptly prepared for it, and has to deal with it, rather than seeks it out. Even in action movies, this is a favorite idea. America doesn't do knights very often; they do Han Solo, they do John McClane.

And it is evident in the deep love of fantasy orphans that everyone complains about. The orphans are young, unskilled, dragged into the situation by prophecy or circumstance or both, are horribly upset about it and not certain they want to claim their destiny at all, especially as it seems to lead to pain, death and sacrifice, often make horrible mistakes, and then somehow pull it off, frequently swearing and complaining the whole way. And this is also in our YA, where the protagonist may have parents, but is dragged into a situation, etc., and may not be solving it with violence. And in the SFF with the dark and tortured anti-heroes. In our slasher horror films. And our thrillers, in which a protagonist often finds himself in the soup, or many American comedies in which the hapless protagonist is in a mess and must rise to the occasion. I think it's probably true that there's not a lot of existentialism in American stories, though there is some, but active is a relative term.

And her characterization of violence in "American" stories seems to me again to be centered on American action films -- and European action films believed presumably to be modeled on American ones. In films, there's limited time to have a protagonist despair over violence or killing and his or her part in it unless the story is specifically about that. So it may be glossed over in favor of action speed. (My husband and I were watching "Hanna" and talking about how European action thrillers favor odd camera angles and visual image tricks while American action thrillers go for the quick jump cuts.) Or it may not be sacrificed -- the hero may be tortured about it but that angst is often dismissed by critics because the explosions are large.

In any case, it's a rather different matter when it comes to written material, or even t.v. There are killing machines in SFF, but the majority of SFF main characters don't shrug off killing as if it were nothing. Some of the most famous, most successful stories are firmly rooted in the exact opposite. Noir is not about nihilism, for instance, but about despair over corruption and loss.

The rewriting thing that happens in the American market for t.v. and film is again partly in place to make more money by doing a new version, and it's partly there because of anecdotal and institutionalized perception of a bigoted audience. There are millions of Americans who love British and Canadian t.v., Asian films and anime, French comedies, and Latino soaps, and because there is that market there, it seems like a good idea to bring those things into America with a ready audience for it. But they don't trust those Americans, especially for t.v.. It's the same sort of impetus we get that causes the whitewashing of book covers and the lack of actors of color in main roles. It's the same impetus we get that causes the continual claim that science fiction is dying -- the perception that "those people" who you are trying to sell to are ninety percent awful but must be catered to.

And it's certainly frustrating, but Americans are much more exposed to international art than they've ever been before, and not just in urban centers like New York anymore. There is a world of difference between the 1980's and 2000 when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for instance, sailed wide in the American market, and a world of difference between then and now. In books, particularly, the number of foreign authors in the US SFFH market was way lower. But the number of American SFFH authors coming over to foreign countries was also lower than it is now, and that, combined with the film situation, does indeed make an American juggernaut. But the juggernaut may not be having as large an impact as believed because of the equally institutionalized perception that foreign audiences, like Canadians, can't be trusted either and have to be protected from the U.S. juggernaut to think of anything of their own.

And behind all of that is the idea that art can't exist on a spectrum, that if one thing does well -- American big budget pics, female authors, Goth, whatever -- it destroys the existence of other forms, is a threat. So for me, this essay is another threat-based approach, where it's dog eat dog and the American dog this time is the thing characterized as particularly nasty. Prevalence is a tricky term.

 

[Dawnstorm]

Well, I finally clicked the link and read the article, and it was quite a surpise to see the name Aliette de Bodard on top of the page. So it's her blog we're talking about here? Heh.

I just want to say that Ms de Bodard has been on my authors-to-look-for list for quite some time now. Her stories are good reads.

I’m tired of how genre(s) put(s) a disproportionate value on heroes who are active and not passive (and, by extension, belittles and dismisses every use of passive voice, and always asks for sentences to be frenetically punchy)

Can I roll my eyes and heave a sigh now?

The entire rant doesn't seem to be so much on what's actually out there, and more about certain stereotyped perceptions that flourish everywhere on the web and have their origin in American rhetoric, if not concepts. Looky there - a reference to "passive voice". Seen like that, it's more a riff on all those silly rules out there, and it's tying them up with a perceived American mono-culture.

Well, yes, the way we're talking about the passive voice online in writing contexts does sort of fit with the tropes mentioned. More active language. More active characters. The good online folk take up arms against a plea for diplomacy in "Mistakes were made," (against the great diplomat Ronald Reagan, heh). I myself have often wondered whether the only reason we're supposed to hate the passive voice is some old grammarians unfortunate naming decision... [And, yes, I know: the second most potent shield against the evils of the passive voice is British in Origin: "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell.]

Rants like this one come about in a familiar way: A combination of noticing the same plot/character/setting element in popular culture again and again; then noticing it in things you like a lot (and it starts taking away some of the enjoyment). All the while, you're noticing certain tends in online debates (if somebody doesn't believe that I wouldn't want a gun even if I'd be facing one aimed at me, the chances are very good that I'm talking to an American, for example - been there, done that, hope not to do it again, as it's tedious). And finally you reach a breaking point and it just spills out.

And because you know it's unfair, you add lots of disclaimers (look for them in the beginning of the rant, and again and again in Aliette's replies in the comments section). But if you keep it all in, you explode. So you indulge yourself and hope some points push through the overwrought rhetoric that represent a predictable set of frustrations you face in your day to day life.

The point of my post here? This rant appears to garner agreement among people who already follow her (Jeff Vandermeer posted, too, btw - why am I not surprised?), but I doubt it's going to draw in too many new folk. Reads like a blog post as public diary to me, and there's a danger it turns people off Aliette de Bodard's fiction. Which would be a pity, as it's a good read.

 

[KatG]

their origin in American rhetoric

That makes more sense to me. American writers constantly use passive voice -- both the actual grammatical definition of it and the alternate concept that it is a lack of action verbs and use of long flowery sentences full of exposition. But the rhetoric about how Americans should write frequently claims that all good writers don't use it, show don't tell, etc., and people parrot this and use it to critique stuff they don't like in the first place while ignoring discrepancies in stuff that they do. The rhetoric is so ingrained that no matter how many examples -- bestselling, award winning, etc., -- that show the rhetoric is about one sort of style only sometimes employed, there is still the perception that this must be so. It's not American but it is common in writing books sold to Americans, and in American critique groups and sometimes American writers who sort of write that way and mouth the credo. Americans have a larger pool of people trying to write fiction and U.S. SFF has a very vocal fanbase for any side.

 

[Laer Carroll]

Concerned about Violence in SFF

Thanks, Fung Koo, for your link to Lauren Zalaznick's presentation. Imagine, ideas (some surprising) backed up by thoughtful study and actual data! What is the world coming to?!

http://www.ted.com/talks/lauren_zalaznick.html

Here is how Aliette de Bodard describes herself.

"Aliette de Bodard is a half-French, half-Vietnamese computer and history geek who lives in Paris. In her spare time, she writes speculative fiction. Her short stories has appeared in many venues, including Asimov's, Interzone and the Year's Best Science Fiction. She has a special interest in non-Western civilisations, particularly Ancient China and Ancient Mesoamerica. Her novel Servant of the Underworld is the first in a trilogy of Aztec fantasy noir: the sequel Harbinger of the Storm will be published in 2011."

Here are a couple of links to info about Aliette de Bodard. The first is her blog, the second her Amazon author page.

http://aliettedebodard.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Aliette-de-Bodard/e/B003VMUM3O/

After re-reading her blog post I have to agree with some of it, overwrought and oversimplified as it is. In particular, I'm a bit concerned about how so much of sci-fi and fantasy is about violence.

And this despite the fact that most of my writing has a lot of violence! See in particular the first half of my online novel The Super Olympian, about a woman described in a tabloid as "The Deadliest Woman on the Planet."

http://shapechangertales.com/shapechanger-stories/super-olympian/chapter-one/

 

[Fung Koo]

The entire rant doesn't seem to be so much on what's actually out there, and more about certain stereotyped perceptions that flourish everywhere on the web and have their origin in American rhetoric

Bingo.

When it gets down to it, America has a PR problem. Americans know they are a varied people. But to the other five-and-a-half billion people on the planet, America presents this bizarre monoculture loosely stemming from the "land of opportunity" mythology. It's no seen longer as a place where a hardworking person can go to make it -- it's now seen more as a place where a person who wants to get famous can go and get hoodwinked by some zealous ideologue, who, for a percentage, will package them into a tight little press-packet bundle and strip out all artistic value in favour of being easy-to-swallow and titillating (aka -- The Britney).

The entertainment media "support" industry that claims to have the The Secret to "Make It In The Biz!" is the background of what she is ranting about. The American media does produce a healthy amount of music/books/movies/etc that conform to those pre-packaged-answer processes, though, and that only serves to further support an internationally popular conception of America as... well, I guess the words are exploitative, abusive, maybe devious, perhaps charlatan.

We all know that isn't the whole picture, but American popular media, and most notably the American News Media industry, do a piss-poor job of presenting America as anything else. And honestly, a lot of people in the rest of the world (but especially the English speaking world) wonder if it isn't the case that every American is forced to parse the world through a set of simplified ideological filters and corresponding super-stereotyped modes of being -- Republican a-hole. Democrat wanker. Tea Party retard. Populist idiot. Arty elitist. Mormon/Amish inbred recluse. Fundamentalist nutbag. Gansta-ass thug. Redneck moron. Neurotic urbanite. Gossipy suburban bee-otch. All of them opinionated. All of them on the brink of total war. All of them steeling themselves against total social collapse should one win out over another. The American quest for Dominance Over America.

All of those oversimplified soundbyte sensationalist summations of Americans are produced by American media -- they inform the perception of which kind of loud tourist is ordering coffee for the rest of the world that consumes American media.

It's just a big PR problem.

 

[A. Lynn]

The American quest for Dominance Over America.

Epic summary for an epic pandemic.

I applaud you Fung Koo!

There is a part of me that wants to blame the television, yes. I know so many teenagers, and even people my age (in their mid-20's) who think that if you do not watch Jersey Shore, you evidently cannot keep up with "real life." I've tried to break it to a few adolescences that "reality" shows are anything BUT reality.

This was also a topic of discussion on Thomas J. Stanley's blog (he studies millionaires and their behaviors) and has a post here about how young men watch the Kardashians on television, and as a result, portions of our culture cannot come to grips as to how a real house wife lives. (Hint: not everybody gets paid to sit in a spa all day).

http://www.thomasjstanley.com/blog-articles/322/Millionaire_Mind_Factor_4_A_Supportive_Spouse.html

But on the other hand, I've grown up watching television and playing video games, and I am making it my career to go into the animation-entertainment industry. Yet in my adult-life I now hardly ever turn on the television and seemed to have figured out that hard work and study are more important than what's happening on Dancing with the Stars. Hmm... maybe it's really commercials that are to blame? (I'm just grasping at straws here now though)

 

[KatG]

So she's writing a series about an Aztec priest who deals in blood sacrifice who has to solve murder mysteries to save his land, and she's decrying the tendency to write about people in violent jobs dealing with murders and that's America taking over? Um, maybe she's mad at herself. Either that, or she's doing the marketing thing where you decry the lack of substance of other people's novels in general, presenting yourself as a writer of substance.

In any case, her series sounds quite interesting. About one of the most violent cultures on Earth.

All of those oversimplified soundbyte sensationalist summations of Americans are produced by American media -- they inform the perception of which kind of loud tourist is ordering coffee for the rest of the world that consumes American media.

It's very difficult when we have a population of citizens who can range from a guy who drives a truck and thinks the President might be an alien to a Vietnamese born dry cleaner in Ohio to a six foot, Harvard educated black man who teaches poetry in Seattle to a Latina housewife with five kids also in Seattle, and so on and so forth. We are 300 million people who share virtually nothing in common. That's why Disney, McDonald's and Toys R Us are useful -- they're kind of like way stations of connection, ways to communicate. But they aren't particularly American -- they're just advertised as symbols of American commercial might and are ubiquitous. But they don't wipe out the thousands of crafters, small restaurants and cookstands from gourmet to ethnic to burgers, and avant garde theater. We have sub-cultures -- New England, Southern, Western, etc., but they don't match to form a coherent American ideology.

But I'm not sure you can say that there is a coherent French or German or Kenyan ideology either. Other than that, on average, Americans are loud and they don't like to be told what to do, there's just not a lot of set American traits. Even on guns -- we have a lot of guns, more than most, but the majority of Americans still don't own any guns. That a lot of us play video games designed by the Japanese and Koreans, especially when we're younger and have more free time, I don't think forms a coherent trait, as a lot of other young people in countries where they can afford them play video games designed by the Japanese and Koreans -- and Quebec, and France -- are this way too.

The U.S. is the biggest market for entertainment in English. Sort of. For now. And so it's seen as dominating and shaping world culture because it is catered to. But as I'm often reminded, there are thousands of artists who are barely known in America who are very big globally and not necessarily catering to the U.S. at all. And these artists are becoming more known to America on average.

 

[A. Lynn]

So she's writing a series about an Aztec priest who deals in blood sacrifice who has to solve murder mysteries to save his land, and she's decrying the tendency to write about people in violent jobs dealing with murders and that's America taking over? Um, maybe she's mad at herself. Either that, or she's doing the marketing thing where you decry the lack of substance of other people's novels in general, presenting yourself as a writer of substance.

In any case, her series sounds quite interesting. About one of the most violent cultures on Earth.



It's very difficult when we have a population of citizens who can range from a guy who drives a truck and thinks the President might be an alien to a Vietnamese born dry cleaner in Ohio to a six foot, Harvard educated black man who teaches poetry in Seattle to a Latina housewife with five kids also in Seattle, and so on and so forth. We are 300 million people who share virtually nothing in common. That's why Disney, McDonald's and Toys R Us are useful -- they're kind of like way stations of connection, ways to communicate. But they aren't particularly American -- they're just advertised as symbols of American commercial might and are ubiquitous. But they don't wipe out the thousands of crafters, small restaurants and cookstands from gourmet to ethnic to burgers, and avant garde theater. We have sub-cultures -- New England, Southern, Western, etc., but they don't match to form a coherent American ideology.

But I'm not sure you can say that there is a coherent French or German or Kenyan ideology either. Other than that, on average, Americans are loud and they don't like to be told what to do, there's just not a lot of set American traits. Even on guns -- we have a lot of guns, more than most, but the majority of Americans still don't own any guns. That a lot of us play video games designed by the Japanese and Koreans, especially when we're younger and have more free time, I don't think forms a coherent trait, as a lot of other young people in countries where they can afford them play video games designed by the Japanese and Koreans -- and Quebec, and France -- are this way too.

The U.S. is the biggest market for entertainment in English. Sort of. For now. And so it's seen as dominating and shaping world culture because it is catered to. But as I'm often reminded, there are thousands of artists who are barely known in America who are very big globally and not necessarily catering to the U.S. at all. And these artists are becoming more known to America on average.

I'm certain that America will always be in a constant state of flux over what they find entertaining. It will not be the same five years from now.

However, that being said America does seem to be the nation that's a little obsessive with the "entertain me, and entertain me now!" mentality. I meet and greet with many people during the day, and this seems to be what I experience the most. Therefore, I'd say Kat is right in that it is the "culture" that the world tries to adhere too.

 

[Dawnstorm]

...and she's decrying the tendency to write about people in violent jobs dealing with murders and that's America taking over?

Um, no, she's not. She's decrying an uncritical treatment of violence as a problem solving mechanism that works. It's most obvious in light entertainment; I'm thinking of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where that guy clad in black shows off his sword skill and Indy simply shoots him (anit-climax for humorous effect). A well done scene, and I think it's actually funny. But since then I've seen the same thing a lot, often not so well done (which is why I forget them). And you do get a sense of trivialisation of violence, by bracketing the nasty aspects. This is slapstick, not black comedy.

It's sort of difficult to put the difference into words, sometimes. And the attribution is problematic, too: if I notice the same thing in Europe (for example) it's a sign of corruption through American influence. (Is it?)

But there is something deeply alien about violence in American culture, to me. It's hard to put the finger on it. After the recent execution of a man who might have been innocent, discussions about the death penalty flare up again. There is something in the way these discussions run (and it's in both pro and contra postitions) that suggests Americans deal with violence differently than anything I'm used to where I live (e.g. the way the justice vs. vengeance debate usually plays out).

It's not as simple as "no violence". In fact, it's not simple at all. And even if we manage to express the position in understandable ways, there's still the question to what extent it's justified. So:

Um, maybe she's mad at herself.

That's quite possibly part of it. It might be a bad habit she wants to kick; like smoking.

Either that, or she's doing the marketing thing where you decry the lack of substance of other people's novels in general, presenting yourself as a writer of substance.

I doubt that. I recognise this rant; it's not unique to her. I mean, if I had indulged myself I could have produced something that wouldn't have read all that different. (Maybe I actually have. I don't remember, but it's not impossible.) It's a European cliché. I'm pretty sure she just had to get it off her chest. This stuff accumulates with exposure. Few Europeans are immune. And nobody thinks of LeGuin, when they rant.

In any case, her series sounds quite interesting. About one of the most violent cultures on Earth.

Aside: Alternate history where the dominant cultures are Aztec and Chinese. Interestingly, Chris Roberson has a series of short stories with the exact same set up. I wondered: Coincidence? Cultural trigger I missed (I get China being currently topical; but the Aztec - Chinese connection?)? Co-operation? [Chris Roberson is... can you guess it? .... American.]

We are 300 million people who share virtually nothing in common. That's why Disney, McDonald's and Toys R Us are useful -- they're kind of like way stations of connection, ways to communicate. But they aren't particularly American -- they're just advertised as symbols of American commercial might and are ubiquitous. But they don't wipe out the thousands of crafters, small restaurants and cookstands from gourmet to ethnic to burgers, and avant garde theater. We have sub-cultures -- New England, Southern, Western, etc., but they don't match to form a coherent American ideology.

That's sort of the point. There's a mismatch between what's going on, and the symbols you gather around. Communion misconstrued as ideology.

But I'm not sure you can say that there is a coherent French or German or Kenyan ideology either.

Well, here's the problem. I'm not sure that - culturally speaking - France or Germany are equivalent to the USA. At one time I noticed that some online Americans expressed surprise at the lack of political authority the European parliament has. But it made sense: the people expressing surprise were comparing the USA with the European Union. There's America (which isn't all of America but just the US) and there's Europe (which isn't all of Europe, but just the EU). It actually makes sense; try cutting across political divisions, and compare individual US states to European states: Germany vs. Texas rather than Germany vs. USA. Or maybe Spain vs. California? The UK vs. New York?

Maybe the mismatch is on that level? Despite there being a EU, Europe doesn't create a compound identity the way the USA do. Maybe that's what Europeans find disturbing? (Especially after the threat of unification that World War II posed - winner or loser, we're still licking our wounds from that one in a way that the USA - through geographical distance - doesn't.)

Even on guns -- we have a lot of guns, more than most, but the majority of Americans still don't own any guns.

I recently checked and was surprised how easy it is to get guns in Austria. It was even easier before we joined the EU. Gun ownership seems to be a pretty important topic in the USA. I grew up to be around 40 before I even thought of checking what the situation is in Austria (where I live). And I did so because of an American-dominated online discussion. It's not surprising that I would note the prominence of guns in American movies. (A perspective: as a kid the most important thing about Cowboys was that they shot people. Yeah, there were cattle in the background, but...)

The U.S. is the biggest market for entertainment in English. Sort of. For now. And so it's seen as dominating and shaping world culture because it is catered to.

I'm not sure it's catered to. The growing influence of American culture, at least in Austria (which - along with Germany - may be a special case) seems to be a post-World-War-2 thing, with all the rebuild aid, and the accompanying good will. A lot of exiled Europeans in Holliwood, too, at that time. The decline in American influence might have started around Reagan's time, but I'm not sure - I was a kid back then and not too interested. I know the Cold War (and the nuclear scare) was quite a force of attrition.

The pop cultural influence remained largely untouched, as entertainment habits aren't easily abandoned, and the stuff's a bit sneaky in its apparent levity. It's simply en vogue (<--- deliberatly French) among European intellectuals to decry that perceived situation. It's sort of careless, I think, to post that sort of stuff on an author blog, but then again, why not?

Again, do check out her fiction, which, btw, is a pretty good fit in Gardner Dozois' best of collection (forgot which year).

 

[JT Billow]

I stepped away from this conversation, but had to come back to chime in on a couple of things.

It's sort of difficult to put the difference into words, sometimes. And the attribution is problematic, too: if I notice the same thing in Europe (for example) it's a sign of corruption through American influence. (Is it?)

This is a big fat no. Aside from the U.S., I have traveled and had extended stays in 7 different countries within Europe and the Middle East. What I have seen is forms of corruption in areas with zero American influence. The bottom line: corruption is corruption, capable by any human being. You don't need American for that. Attributing all of the world's corruption to the U.S. is just a manner of what I call the 'scapegoat' disorder.

Gun ownership seems to be a pretty important topic in the USA. I grew up to be around 40 before I even thought of checking what the situation is in Austria (where I live). And I did so because of an American-dominated online discussion.

There is a reason why gun ownership debates may be dominated by Americans. We are the only country in the world that offers a guaranteed civil right to own said guns. In other countries, the government or parliament can pass legislation to simply remove guns from its citizens. In American, a constitutional amendment is required with the involvement of all states ratifying the amendment (pretty much impossible today). So comparing gun ownership in American to that in other countries is an apple to oranges argument.

Josh

 

[Dawnstorm]

This is a big fat no. Aside from the U.S., I have traveled and had extended stays in 7 different countries within Europe and the Middle East. What I have seen is forms of corruption in areas with zero American influence. The bottom line: corruption is corruption, capable by any human being. You don't need American for that. Attributing all of the world's corruption to the U.S. is just a manner of what I call the 'scapegoat' disorder.

While I was most definitely suggesting that scapegoating is part of the greater picture, I think you may have been misreading me. I wasn't talking about "corruption" as such, but about a particular stereotypical set of perceptions that Europeans have when they think of American culture outside of specific contexts (and sometimes within specific contexts).

Once such traits (Ms deBodard mentioned quite a few of them, so I don't need to repeat them) get identified Europeans often respond in two ways: (a) they label them undesirable, and (b) they attach the label "American". If they then notice that America treats these things - on balance - more desirable than Europe generally does (yet another overgeneralisation), and they then spot European elements that treat these elements also as more desirable than the European average ("public opinion"), it's easy to interpret that correlation as a corrupting influence from America. This is even easier if said European elements borrow American rhetorics (maybe because these are the only postive terms associated with their positions they know).

So, this sort of talk doesn't single out America as the source of all corruption. Instead, the theory is that these particular types of tropes, when spotted in Europe, are thoughtless imitations of American pop culture, and in that way American culture is corrupting Europe's culture. There are a lot critique-points besides scape-goating. Others are slective perceptions, a false self-other dichotomy, and so on.

I do not buy this, but if I'm honest I have to admit that - when reading blog posts such as the one that started the thread - I do feel the seductive force of it. Piling on "America" that way is sort of fun, and that's nothing I'm proud of.

There is a reason why gun ownership debates may be dominated by Americans. We are the only country in the world that offers a guaranteed civil right to own said guns. In other countries, the government or parliament can pass legislation to simply remove guns from its citizens. In American, a constitutional amendment is required with the involvement of all states ratifying the amendment (pretty much impossible today). So comparing gun ownership in American to that in other countries is an apple to oranges argument.

Actually, that's a pretty good illustration of the difference in attitude. "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns," won't have the same meaning over here. Some of the pro-gun arguments (particularly about home safety, e.g. this youtube video) can come across as: "if you don't know how to kill, you deserve to be killed," even though that's not the point at all.

Notice how often I said "American" and "European"? You can't construct your fronts like that; this isn't war. (<-- martial metaphor alert) And yet: how do you talk about such things?

Sorry to drag you back into this. I'd like to escape myself.

 

[Fung Koo]

But there is something deeply alien about violence in American culture, to me. It's hard to put the finger on it.

Ditto.

Well, here's the problem. I'm not sure that - culturally speaking - France or Germany are equivalent to the USA.... try cutting across political divisions, and compare individual US states to European states: Germany vs. Texas rather than Germany vs. USA. Or maybe Spain vs. California? The UK vs. New York?

A good point. I'll have to go hunting for it, but I read an article about emerging separatist groups in southern California (and southern states in general) where the Latino population is highest, discussing the importance of the common language on American cultural hegemony.

The idea of the individual states being closer to individual countries works on one level, but I think the language issue precludes that comparison from being too direct. Certainly states like Louisianna and California, where there are large enough populations of different language-speaking groups, have a larger degree of difference from the others. The most multi-cultural states, likewise, appear to be the most "moderate" when it comes to the force of American Cultural Hegemony.

But the US is fairly unique in how it is constructed. It's a federation, but it doesn't ever seem like one. I'll be curious to see how the USA is affected by the currently-heating-up debates about sovereignty in Puerto Rico -- if the rest of the states even notice.

Despite there being a EU, Europe doesn't create a compound identity the way the USA do.

Give it time.

If the EU works toward creating a "Common Tongue" (which is probably going to be English, the way things work in the various European education systems, at the moment), I suspect the walls around national identities will begin to be chipped away. Media becomes increasingly universal when translation isn't a significant factor, and I would expect the EU to go through a similar process of cultural unification.

Which isn't to say there isn't already some of that going on -- there is a common culture, historically, but its not as well articulated as you see in the US. The Turkish EU bid, for example, demonstrates the historical cultural alignment of the Kingdoms of Christendom. The EU has bucked against Turkey largely for being a Muslim culture -- which is different form being an Islamic State -- for years. And there are old, deep wounds there.

It's an interesting thing.

 

[A. Lynn]

Amor por Juarez - Hegemony

Ditto.

A good point. I'll have to go hunting for it, but I read an article about emerging separatist groups in southern California (and southern states in general) where the Latino population is highest, discussing the importance of the common language on American cultural hegemony.

The idea of the individual states being closer to individual countries works on one level, but I think the language issue precludes that comparison from being too direct. Certainly states like Louisianna and California, where there are large enough populations of different language-speaking groups, have a larger degree of difference from the others. The most multi-cultural states, likewise, appear to be the most "moderate" when it comes to the force of American Cultural Hegemony.

Fung Koo, please elaborate in a PM to me about what you mean in regards to the American Cultural Hegemony. I want to make sure I understand it completely, but I can see that this thread is going places that has nothing to do with writing anymore. It is time to let this thing die, but I'm still curious about your opinion on the hegemony (especially since I'm reading Iain M. Banks right now, and that's a buzzword in my Sci-Fi Lit class). PM when (and if) you get the time

As for the rest of the cultural speaking points, , you've hit a funny bone on me as I live on the largest border community in the U.S. and next-door to the world's most dangerous city, which is Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. It apparently racks up more deaths than the war in the Middle East. I'm not kidding, because I get a pile of Tweets every week that totals on average eight deaths or more a day from our poor sister city.

That being said, if anybody is ever curious about the border city point of view, or you want to hear more about Juarez in terms of writing, story-telling, or just political intrigue, please do PM me as I am always happy to help someone engage in storytelling. I'll fact find for you if it helps.

So, I'll simply wrap everything up with this: the American-Mexican border culture is a "complex situation." All of American culture is a "complex situation."

So, let's get back to the good stuff here... writing!

See you on the other side of creativity.

 

[KatG]

Um, no, she's not. She's decrying an uncritical treatment of violence as a problem solving mechanism that works.

Which is quite seldom what's happening in written SFF, as she should know as a writer of SFF. It is quite often what is happening in action movies, and that seems to me to be pretty much what she's basing everything on. And a lot of people do this, as all of us have been noting. American intellectuals do this too. Canadian intellectuals do it, right Koo?

But there is something deeply alien about violence in American culture, to me. It's hard to put the finger on it. After the recent execution of a man who might have been innocent, discussions about the death penalty flare up again. There is something in the way these discussions run (and it's in both pro and contra postitions) that suggests Americans deal with violence differently than anything I'm used to where I live (e.g. the way the justice vs. vengeance debate usually plays out).

That's because you guys continually ignore your thousands of years of history of bloody war and genocide, thousands of years colonizing other countries and wiping out their indigenous populations -- as Europeans did in America -- two world wars that had some of the nastiest violence ever and changed the nature of warfare, the Holocaust, the Stalin genocide, the Soviet Union and Berlin War, the Romanian orphans, etc. In the post World War II era, Europe became less violent for the sake of survival in most places and shifted from imperialism to social democracy, and that's great, but I don't think it makes Americans alien in how they talk about violence. Of course, I'm American, so I would.

America is 350 years old and made up mostly of Europeans and their recent descendents, although that's now finally changing. It still has backwoods enclaves of sub-cultures that make the Ural Mountains seem progressive. And it milks its frontier history for tourism and entertainment product, and the threat of gun loss is used by factions as a political device similar to Iran talking about how America is going to invade them any second. It has a much bigger racial divide issue playing out than any European country and though the world wars cost it quite a bit, they didn't happen on U.S. soil. And we had therefore the goods and the resources -- the chocolate, guns, stockings, movies, money to finance art, etc. So yeah, we seem dominating. I totally agree with American goods and arts creeping into other cultures more than they've crept into ours up until the last ten years or so. English became the global trade language, and that clearly had a lot to do --though not all -- with America.

But it's partly a matter of focus. I know from some general stories about corruption in India, child brides, honor killings, acid throwing, Slum Dog Millionaire however inaccurate or accurate it might have been, etc., -- which is probably more than a lot of Americans bother knowing -- but I don't know about some specific guy being executed or tortured or dragged in India, the way that you over in Austria know all about Troy Davis. Our media is a mess -- we don't cover stuff in other countries unless it's very big, but you hear us because we're always broadcasting and because we effect the global economy still. And a lot of what we broadcast is a lot more monoculture than we actually are. The U.S. is much more brown than its art that gets broadcasted. Its cities are far less violent than portrayed in film and t.v. It has a black president for the first time, a collapse of industry and infrastructure thanks to thirty years of dismantling both, and shrinking majorities and less organized religion, and about twenty percent of the population is very freaked out by that and they have their own media empires. So it's very easy to talk about American culture being violent. We have four hundred cop and forensic shows because they sell well globally while the murder rate steadily declines and the shows have to hustle to find new story ideas. Any megachurch can have its own cable channel and say whatever it wants.

And nobody thinks of LeGuin, when they rant.

Or they think LeGuin is some form of weird, mutated aberration who doesn't count. It's like non-SF SF arguments.

Aside: Alternate history where the dominant cultures are Aztec and Chinese.

I think the Brits have the most fun with alt history of other cultures dominating these days.

That's sort of the point. There's a mismatch between what's going on, and the symbols you gather around. Communion misconstrued as ideology.

The symbols are more often assigned to us. One of the reasons that Hollywood makes a ton of really violent special effects action movies with little dialogue about how awful the violence is, is so that they can get global audiences and make money, for instance. So are we exporting U.S. culture or are we just using the fact that explosions don't need translation and international audiences are therefore more willing to go see those films? Plus, we have more money than Europe to make explosions.

It actually makes sense; try cutting across political divisions, and compare individual US states to European states: Germany vs. Texas rather than Germany vs. USA. Or maybe Spain vs. California? The UK vs. New York?

That doesn't work for me at all. The individual countries are much more varied and larger states are very varied as well. I'd be more likely to compare Spain to Mexico than a U.S. state. (With their very violent cultures. ) But I don't like comparing whole countries as one unit in the first place. Mexico has widely different sub-cultures.

I think the mismatch is just because it's easy. It's easy to lump everyone together, all types of entertainment and storytelling together, to make a simplified point, to say that one artist or film represents what's going on everywhere, then to deal with the diversity of people's interests, French or American. That we have the communal blending that Fung Koo is talking about that comes from communication and interaction -- that's there and it allows products from major countries like the U.S. to promulgate -- and Japanese and Asian manga to be a big craze in the U.S. But the idea, the argument, that one kind, one concept takes over from that blending and wipes out the rest is an expression of the nativist fear of the Other that is bent into our psyches. Americans have it, Canadians have it, Europeans have it, etc. That's why we have the continual meme that SF is dead, that women authors are wiping out the men and making the men's writing girly, that violent action stories never win literary awards that are attempting to save literature, etc.

It's not surprising that I would note the prominence of guns in American movies. (A perspective: as a kid the most important thing about Cowboys was that they shot people. Yeah, there were cattle in the background, but...)

Exactly -- we milked it. We didn't even do it correctly. Cowboy was a word for outlaw. They did steal and shoot people, though not as many as get portrayed in Westerns. What we think of as cowboys now were actually called ranch-hands. (Emma Bull's Territory has great fun with this.) We had Davy Crockett. Australians have Crocodile Dundee, which I'm sure millions of them hate. France has Asterix, which is probably perplexing, and Marie Antoinette.

What's going to be interesting in the next few decades is the effect of Latino cultures on America, and Europe will actually be a part of that. But I doubt America is going to stop exporting violent special effects action films any time soon -- they make too much money. If we look in the thousands of titles of SFF, however, and all the stuff going on in book publishing, that's a much more complex picture.

 

[Dawnstorm]

That's because you guys continually ignore your thousands of years of history of bloody war and genocide, thousands of years colonizing other countries and wiping out their indigenous populations -- as Europeans did in America -- two world wars that had some of the nastiest violence ever and changed the nature of warfare, the Holocaust, the Stalin genocide, the Soviet Union and Berlin War, the Romanian orphans, etc. In the post World War II era, Europe became less violent for the sake of survival in most places and shifted from imperialism to social democracy, and that's great, but I don't think it makes Americans alien in how they talk about violence. Of course, I'm American, so I would.

Well, it's gotta be something, but I doubt it's that I'm ignoring my own background. I mean, that would be the familiar treatment of violence, what I'm using as a basis of comparison. It's not violence itself that feels alien to me. It's not American violence that feels alien to me (I have zero experience with that). It's the rhetoric treatment of violence as encountered primarily in American news media, entertainment media, and online discussions (about gunownership, the justice system, deathpenalty, etc.). I'm sorry I keep slipping into formulations like "violence in American culture", which are pretty ambiguous when it comes to that.

I realise it's up to me to make myself understood (or to realise that I'm not actually misunderstood but have trouble to face that), but I don't really know how without evoking the great wall of text and go even more off topic than I already do. So, in all likelihood, I'm just going to drop the subject.

So it's very easy to talk about American culture being violent. We have four hundred cop and forensic shows because they sell well globally while the murder rate steadily declines and the shows have to hustle to find new story ideas.

Pretty good summary, there. Over here, we do know more about Troy Davis than anyone in India.

Or they think LeGuin is some form of weird, mutated aberration who doesn't count. It's like non-SF SF arguments.

Quite possible. DeBodard goes that route, somewhat. It's the pointing-to-the-disclaimer strategy. When I talk to people around here, though, the most frequent reaction appears to be. "Oh, right. She's American. I forgot." Rants are frequent, but not that serious. Not generally. Unless they're topical (-> Troy Davis), in which case I prefer to hide from discussions.

The symbols are more often assigned to us. One of the reasons that Hollywood makes a ton of really violent special effects action movies with little dialogue about how awful the violence is, is so that they can get global audiences and make money, for instance. So are we exporting U.S. culture or are we just using the fact that explosions don't need translation and international audiences are therefore more willing to go see those films? Plus, we have more money than Europe to make explosions.

Well, I think my half-understood and hard-to-express hunch is that explosion do need translations, but you have to actually get used to them to realise something is off and explosions are not universal. But I really don't want to write a treatise on the social meaning of explosions. That's not stuff I write; that's stuff I parody. (What am I coming to?)

That doesn't work for me at all. The individual countries are much more varied and larger states are very varied as well. I'd be more likely to compare Spain to Mexico than a U.S. state. (With their very violent cultures. ) But I don't like comparing whole countries as one unit in the first place. Mexico has widely different sub-cultures.

Well, you can step up and down levels of abstraction. The more abstract, the more likely it's to be true. But also: the more abstract, the less likely it's actually useful. (Do I sense an epistemological uncertainty principle? You can know whether a statement is true, or you can know what it means, but never both at once...)

(I'm rambling.)

But the idea, the argument, that one kind, one concept takes over from that blending and wipes out the rest is an expression of the nativist fear of the Other that is bent into our psyches. Americans have it, Canadians have it, Europeans have it, etc. That's why we have the continual meme that SF is dead, that women authors are wiping out the men and making the men's writing girly, that violent action stories never win literary awards that are attempting to save literature, etc.

See, I buy that part much more (about my own reactions) than the ignoring-my-own-violent-history part. I'm probably not as immune to the fear of the other as I'd like to be. Although my fear that it's taking over isn't all that great, in the end. I'm more worried that - when we do try to use American tropes (if American they be) - we'll come up the equivalent of slow fast food.

 

[KatG]

The implication of what DeBodard is saying -- not you -- is that mindless violence is an American ideology. It ignores Europe's bloody past and historical literature to focus on Americans as aggressive, uncaring bores and that this comes into their storytelling. The notion that one race or social class is more violent and aggressive in outlook than another is a cornerstone of Otherness argument. In America's case, it's a young ex-colony of immigrants whose most famous cultural style offerings are 1) the wild west and 2) Prohibition gangsters. As such it has the reputation of being poorly educated, violent plebian rabble to its older, former European masters, and it's really easy to view it through that lens and get frustrated thereby.

It's the rhetoric treatment of violence as encountered primarily in American news media, entertainment media, and online discussions (about gunownership, the justice system, deathpenalty, etc.).

Half of our news media is owned and run by an Australian -- Rupert Murdoch, who mixes a political agenda with money-making efforts, and the other half has to chase after him and employ similar methods even if it's not using the same twisty ideology. Our entertainment media has developed into utter tabloidism to feed a 24/7 cable/web content need as marketing, but our print tabloids are arguably not as bad as the Brits -- one of which owned and run by Murdoch's minions to do pretty foul things.

What leads is what bleeds -- they've found people only give their eyeballs if you scare them about things you claim they need to worry about. So that's where the rhetoric about violence comes from -- it's salesmanship. You would never know from American news media that violent crime, homicide, various kinds of theft, rape, etc., have been steadily dropping in the U.S. for decades. And it's reinforced by groups and politicians with the integrity of stoats (which is again not unique to the U.S.) We had the governor of Arizona claiming there were headless bodies in the desert thanks to illegal immigrant drug running. There were no headless bodies and the governor knew it too. Arizona crime rates have dropped. She got caught on it and simply retracted the lie. But there is a good chunk of senior retirees in Arizona who firmly believe that there are headless bodies in that desert, by gum. And that's sort of what we're facing now -- the group that most watches t.v. news are the older people -- who are in the majority white -- and the money comes from scaring the older people. And Murdoch likes to also scare people who worry that someone will take their guns away, especially now that there's a scary black man in the White House.

I'm not trying to make light of Americans' storytelling love affair with violence. Americans, in terms of entertainment, are more comfortable with violent stories than sex and I don't think you can ignore that. But American writers spend a lot of time exploring the devastating effects of violence in their use of violence. Even something as simple as Star Wars is a warning of this -- the Dark Side -- but gets dismissed as just being about light saber battles and model starships and ushering in the era of spectacle movies.

Well, I think my half-understood and hard-to-express hunch is that explosion do need translations, but you have to actually get used to them to realise something is off and explosions are not universal.

LOL, they're not dialogue, is what I mean. And the reality is that Hollywood makes movies with lots of explosions mostly because people in Japan like them -- and because they're much easier to do now with computer effects. The market is completely international now, and our domestic theater industry is shrinking, held aloft only by high ticket prices that cause further shrinkage, requiring even bigger effects and spectacle to get domestic and international audiences. And this again is very different from what is going on in thousands of written titles, but it serves DeBodard better to ignore that and use action movies as the summation of American writers. And she is decrying that the people in Japan like the violent American action movies, have adopted American mores, been corrupted by the American viewpoint. But Japan or France or other countries have plenty of the same sort of thing in their history, culturally.

Additionally, the pulp fiction market was always biggest in America and came to be seen, with noir and Prohibition, with early comics, with lurid magazines and the Cold War bombast of 1950's alien invasion SF, as symbolic of America with its dimestores and soda fountains and cap guns. So mindless violence is just assumed to be mainly what American SFF writers are offering and what American SFF readers mostly want -- and also sadly what the pulp fiction was mainly about, which wasn't true either. It's the giant squids in space view that DeBodard is simply assigning as American.

I'm more worried that - when we do try to use American tropes (if American they be) - we'll come up the equivalent of slow fast food.

The meaning of the term fast food is not one of empty calories -- it's social class. Fast food physically is just taking the street cart food found in any culture and putting it in a building or drive-through window -- it's no more American than anything else. But fast food is associated with the idea of America -- as an empty, poorly-educated, tasteless, rude rabble who debase anything artistic and mainly like crass stuff. This is again how you often argue the threat of the Other -- the Other is often the peasant -- vast numbers but no discernment or refinement. That's why they "forget" that LeGuin is American. That's why supposedly SF is just about giant squids in space and ray guns to many. And the peasants may overrun and make everything about what they like and make everyone else peasants and you'll have to eat fast food.

And it's really not meant to be snobby most of the time; it's really not. It's an honest fear that what we love, not enough others will too. It's just built on inaccurate and condensed data. You can't realistically assign as basic a notion to storytelling as violence or coldhearted characters to one country as a "trope", country being an entity randomly assigned to geography and subject to change. And styles, word choices, are too varied. You can kind of say, well American writers now go in for short sentences or minimal exposition, etc., but there are too many titles for that to hold up. At best, those are movements or trends within American writing styles, one of several.

Right now, Europe is seeing and is closer to a lot more violence than America is, while having collapsing economics at levels it hasn't seen since post WWII. You've always had to deal more with terrorism than we, and you are getting the brunt of refugees from the Middle East and Africa. And European writers are going to react to that and they're going to have those issues in their stories. They are getting more interested in tackling SF. It's not an adoptation of American mores. It's a cross flow -- one of the biggest things in American culture of the last decade is British Harry Potter.

While I understand the need to rant -- I've certainly got a lot of rants about America at the moment -- it saddens me that DeBodard might not be having some real conversations with her fellow American SFF writers, might not be willing to really look at what they're doing, and might be giving her fellow French writers entirely too little credit for their own achievements. But the good news is -- we get to read DeBodard's translated works in America. That might not have happened fifteen years ago.

I also am very curious to know what hippokrene, who brought this essay up, thinks about it all.

 

[goldhawk]

There was also a spike in gun violence in the US from the late 80s to late 90s. It is this that people remember when they say America is more violent than the rest of the world.

 

[Dawnstorm]

But the good news is -- we get to read DeBodard's translated works in America.

She writes in English. Sorry I forgot to mention that; it's sort of important context, considering the rant. Her publisher is Angry Robot, a British publisher, if I'm not mistaken. (I'm not on top of the industry.)

 

[Laer Carroll]

Her blog is also in English. It is clear and colloquial. She is obviously completely and flexibly bilingual.

http://aliettedebodard.com/blog/

I wonder a bit about the psychology behind that, and how she could go into such an over-simplified rant about a country she seems to know as well as her own.