Probably like many, I'm quite surprised at the turn this thread has taken; I wanted to post a slight clarification about my earlier post last night, but didn't have time, so I'm back today - with a few responses to the issues that are being discussed.
Laura, no need to apologise for voicing your opinion!! I should hope that everyone here knows that opinions are welcome no matter whether they're in favour of an author's choice or not. It's the basis of any constructive debate.
Now, on to the issue at hand... well, I'm not entirely sure I can fully understand the offence as I'm not American myself. So apologies if I'm completely misinterpreting Annie's reaction to the couple of lines in question.
What I know for sure is that the point of Wendy's fanfic was to mock a few stereotypes about Ireland *through* Lois's vision of it at that very moment, in fact at a time when she is grumpy and growly about being forced to investigate something there (something which looks to her like it's more National Whisper front page material than Daily Planet serious sort of investigation). It's also obvious that it was never Wendy's intention to make Americans sound stupid or lack culture. All of us are aware that there are stupid people in every country of the world, and that nationality plays no part in it.
On the other hand, the point that Annie and Laura raised is that Lois and Clark are clever and cultured people - they are indeed. They're very open about the world around them - it's a requirement to do a serious reporting job. But this is precisely why I can't interpret Lois's line about kilometres as something serious (and from Wendy's post on the subject, it seems my interpretation is what she was getting at when she wrote that very line). Like I said in my previous post, I read it as a grumpy overreaction about a country where she has no wish to be.
I didn't take personal examples, but maybe if I do it will clarify what I meant. Imagine me in a maths class trying to solve equations (El, don't laugh). Here's what, after a moment of growly and unsuccessful thinking, I would say: "What's this stupid xy² doing here anyway?!?" or "2x = 3y²? What's *that* supposed to mean?" Or even on irc, when FoLCs start mentioning numbers, I go "Eeeeeek! Numbers. /me runs away" as if it were something that was completely foreign and frightening to me. Yet I'm not stupid (at least I hope not [g]), and I *know* what numbers, equations, Xs and Ys mean (El, don't faint); I'm just not in the mood to do maths and so I exaggerate my lack of understanding just to make a point about my non-enthusiasm as far as maths are concerned (El, stop laughing [g]). I know I do this sort of thing very regularly, which is why I immediately interpreted Lois's line as being the same sort of reaction.
So Lois has been forced to go to Ireland, a country where directions are marked in miles in cities and kilometres in the country, where cars drive on the left side of the road (though Wendy didn't use this difference in her fic, but she could have made Lois grumpy about it as well imho), where culture, customs, and even language (since many signs are in Irish) are different from what she's used to. And since she's in a very bad mood, she decides to be stubborn and purposefully play ignorant. She doesn't want to make the effort to adapt to her environment - she normally would, but at *that* instant it's her way to exteriorise her resentment at being there.
Annie, you seemed to be more offended by Clark's response and his description of a few American eccentricities. While Wendy asked on irc and got answers from American people, I can certainly understand that humour is so subjective that some people are offended by things that make others laugh.
), I have never worn a beret nor do I want to. I don't know anyone who wears a beret either. Some old people, especially in the countryside, wear some sort of cap, but it's getting very obsolete these days.
4. Camembert, accordion and the Eiffel tower. The image of the Eiffel Tower when Clark flies over to France to get camembert for Lois in Ordinary People, with a background sound of accordion, drives me nuts. I dislike accordion, the Eiffel Tower is all right, but it's certainly not the only thing there is in France, and Paris is certainly not the right place to get the best Camembert. [g]
5. Cooking. That chef who is supposed to give cooking lessons to Lois in S4 is French. Though it's a positive stereotype, it's still one that bothers my (admittedly very European) conscience: French cooking is certainly not the only good cooking in the world, so I'm not sure why it's so often taken as a frame of reference; in fact, French cooking can be pretty disgusting - trust me, I eat a lot better in England (take that, stereotypes!
).
These are just examples, but I'm trying to illustrate a point. Someone mentioned that it's quite possible that the lines in question were taken more or less badly because the author isn't American. I think it's very true. I don't believe that Sara, for example, was offended by Wendy's depicture of Ireland, even though the fic makes much more fun of Ireland than it does of the US (the whole story vs. a few lines). However, the fact that Wendy is Irish might have something to do with it. What I mean is that I'm a lot more likely to get offended by a stereotyped depicture of France written by an American or a Canadian or an Italian than by a French.
What I think is that most of the occidental countries (it's in fact true of all countries, but I believe that it's truer with occidental ones) develop an image of themselves that is idealised. While it emphasises differences between our cultures and probably helps in keeping them alive, it also gives us all a common point: we are all, more or less, attached to an identity that directly derives from our country. I was born and bred in France, and although I don't feel patriotic and I often call myself a European before calling myself a French, I *am* attached to my French identity, my language, my culture, and everything that goes with it. Our education, right from the moment we first learn to talk (and it gets worse when we go to school) encourages us to love our country - take history or geography: it tends to concentrate on what happened to make our own country what it is now. I assume (maybe wrongly - feel free to correct me) that Shakespeare is the most studied author in British high schools; here we focus on Stendhal, Zola, Balzac, Hugo and all the French classics.
So I believe that we're extremely centred on ourselves, despite our best efforts to open up to other cultures and to the way those other cultures view our country (with its qualities and its flaws). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that what Wendy made Clark say about a few American weirdness is what Wendy herself thinks about the US - the point of view would be quite narrow if the US could be summed up by what Clark described in that couple of lines, and I can't imagine that anyone would read it that way - he was just making a point to Lois and her grumpy comment about Ireland by retaliating with the same sort of argument (so beware that what follows is a digression and not very related to the fic itself).
What I mean is that this education of ours can lead to difficulties in accepting that our country has not only great qualities, but also flaws, and strange customs/laws/food/whatever, which are perceived as amusing from a foreign point of view. It's hard to accept that something about our country can be mocked, and it's even harder when it comes from foreign people. I know I don't accept it easily when I see something said about France that puts it under a light that is less appreciative than I would like it to be (not always - I completely agree for example with people who say that eating snails is absolutely disgusting). The thing is, one little detail picked up here or there doesn't mean that the person who voices it considers that it's enough to define our country.
Also, and because of geographical/language/culture differences, we don't communicate enough between countries. True, what we do here in this fandom is a small step. I sure know a heck of a lot more about life in the US or in Italy or in the UK after having had conversations with people who live there and experience it as their every day life. But every country carries a bunch of stereotypes about its neighbours (in the US, French guys are wonderful lovers; in France, Italian guys are wonderful lovers; in the US, French girls are easy to bed; in France, Swedish girls are easy to bed - all big stereotypes which could easily be proven wrong). All right, I took the most obvious and outrageous examples, but there are other examples where I'm sure many people would be surprised that their representation is completely wrong.
Examples? I'm no expert, but let's take Ireland. I believe that in the US, many people wear green for St Patrick's day - Sara or Wendy might confirm this, but I don't think that people wear green in Ireland on that day. Not any more than they would on any other day, anyway. Or let's take England (not a country, I know, but it's what the French refer to in the following stereotype): almost everyone in France is convinced that eating good food in England is impossible... and yet I've never eaten as many wonderful things as I did in England, some of them being typically English and extremely delicious. There could be many more examples, and most of the time we're not aware at all that the representations we have of a country are stereotyped.
I realised I've truly digressed, though. [g] To clarify, my last couple of paragraphs doesn't refer to Wendy's story but to my own analysis of a reaction we probably all have at one point or another. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's nonsense to be offended by something you read - *not at all*! But I'm only trying to explain why I believe we react in that way at times, why some subjects are controversial among ourselves. And it's of course entirely just my humble opinion.
Kaethel
(who truly hopes she hasn't offended anyone)
