re: "Although, There Was That Genghis Khan Role."

Robert at Expat Yank ("one American Living in the South of England") deconstructs common stereotypes about Americans held by people who mistakenly think they know a lot about America.

Money quote(s):

"(A)s an American (speaking only for himself) one could well respond that whether bombing Canada would have been appropriate would rather have depended on certain factors, really.

Especially this: did investigators uncover clear evidence pointing conclusively to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Canadian government in Ottawa being functionally intertwined with, and ideologically aligned totally with, “extremists” who bankrolled and trained those geese at camps in Newfoundland to attack U.S. aircraft suicidally in order to kill hundreds of American travellers? Sadly, worldly observant London-based Canadian Ms Kafno doesn’t address that rather important caveat. But in being so blasé and dismissive over the very real brutal and horrific murders of thousands a scant few miles away in that same NYC in 2001, suicidal attacks that were hatched and organized from just that sort of Taliban/Al Qaeda Afghanistan, it would have undoubtedly been the apex of unreasonability to have expected her to have made that small effort."

Ha. Ha. The geese that downed the USAir flight were from Canadian, so of course the trigger-happy Americans will bomb Canada.

I get it.

Clever.

Not.

Robert will school this knucklehead.

"one might also think we have already for some years had quite a few examples of “extremists in the open” — particularly when they are rather “openly” blowing themselves up to try to blow us up, just blowing us up, or shouting about how they desperately crave to blow us up"

That last sort of thing should be viewed as falling under the "shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-theater" exception to free speech, particularly in wartime, and the utterers taken at their word. With appropriate consequences, including notification of their next-of-kin.

"(E)veryone else, including those who follow a particular religious faith, are all non-essentialist individuals. All people are heartily different from one another with no shared “traits” whatsoever. Except Americans, of course: they are cartoons."

That's one of the drawbacks of Hollywood being the 500 lbs. gorilla of the global entertainment industry. Everyone's seen an American movie so they think they know about America and Americans. And lots of Europeans have visited New York City and Los Angeles and Miami so of course they're experts on American culture and folkways. Naturally.

"“Big John,” yes, at times played some morally questionable American characters, which is hardly surprising given that he was portraying characters on screen (films aren’t “real” remember), so they had to be somewhat “interesting.” However, yours truly also cannot recall a major film in which “the Duke” starred as an American in a “shoot ‘em up, g-damnit, slaughter all of ‘em, women and children, too, just for the sake a killin’, and because I feel like it and it makes me feel good, pilgrim” role?"

I too must have missed those ones.

"(H)ollow accusations cannot easily demolish how Mr Wayne’s stereotypical character that has come down to us was clearly almost never “the provoker” so much as the man who didn’t fight until unduly provoked and United Nations mediation was definitely unavailable. Mostly, he fought when he felt his back was against the wall, in order to save the women and the children, the farmers, the town, the country.

That unwillingness to fight lightly does seem very much an American trait that John Wayne on screen came to epitomize, which is probably why so many identified with his characters: because they saw themselves in his outlook. Remember, before he became a truly huge star, it had taken a direct assault on the major U.S. Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor to get Americans into the fight against Japan. It had also required Hitler’s declaration of war on the U.S. to push Americans into the war against Nazi Germany.

All after much of the rest of the world was already in a titanic life or death struggle for over two years. Yet not having been directly confronted themselves, Americans as late as December 6, 1941 for some reason didn’t relish the chance to jump in a-shootin’? Remarkable that reticence from a nation of “unrestrained” military tendencies that is populated by “born flagwavers.”

More recently, to prompt major U.S. military action abroad? That required a series of surprise suicide attacks that attempted to flatten lower Manhattan and destroy parts of Washington, aiming to kill tens of thousands with a few carefully pinpointed blows. Amazing: talk about a bully people with fingers perpetually on triggers, seeking a fight over the most insignificant of provocations?

True, that horrific violence unleashed at them in 2001 subsequently moved many Americans to reflect upon a hatred that had been directed at their country from a disturbingly large number of people generally embracing a certain religious faith. Which as we know had been almost entirely Bush’s fault."

I really like Robert.