By Peter Celauro
Staff Writer
Standing in the Louvre during my trip to France this summer, I was quietly appreciating the Van Gogh in front of me when a voice to my right broke the silence and changed the way I look at the United States forever.
“It just looks so … fake! They all do. This is lame, can we go soon?”
Now, I’m by no means an art critic. But the volume, tone and general closed-minded ignorance of this Southern girl’s comment were enough to irritate me as well as the four French people standing nearby, who apparently also spoke English.
This encounter with one of the “good ol’ girls from back home” was only one of the many I experienced that day at the Louvre. By the time I left the museum, I had a whole new understanding of why the French feel the way they do about us.
The French view Americans similar to the way much of Europe does. They don’t necessarily dislike people who happen to be American. In fact, everyone I dealt with in France was more than polite. The French showed me hospitality beyond what I expected.
However, I couldn’t help but notice that their view of the American people as a whole wasn’t as bright as one would hope. When I told people I was from the good ol’ U.S. of A., more than once I got a response something to the tune of, “you guys are having some real mix-ups with your presidents, eh?” or “try not to talk too loud in the museum.” Thanks to the goofy antics our countrymen have performed on our own soil and across the Pacific, the term American lends itself to interesting images. Perhaps one of a happy-go-lucky Gomer Pyle who can’t talk below 110 decibels or get his election ballot in without at least one chad hanging off.
When I first discovered this phenomenon, I was offended.
“What do these people know?” I thought. “Haven’t they noticed that we’re the best thing going? Haven’t they heard the term ‘Leader of the Free World?’ ”
However, as time passed, I discovered two of the reasons why the French often think of Americans as uncultured buffoons.
The first reason is the slightest bit of jealousy. The French do realize that the States are on top of their game right now. As a very influential factor in the world marketplace as well as a key player in the world’s politics, America is more or less in the place that France was about 200 years ago.
The second reason for the European view of Americans was illustrated quite well by our art-critic friend back at the Louvre.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we are as a whole a loud, authoritative culture. Where many European cultures are a bit more reserved and more considerate of what they don’t understand, we are sometimes too quick to make ourselves an authority about everyone else’s business and too loud in letting everyone know about it.
So what’s to be done? We’re an isolated nation, separated from much of the world by the Atlantic Ocean, which isn’t going to change anytime soon. But we can broaden our perspective. We can look at ourselves not through the eyes of an American but through the eyes of a human being. We can accept the fact that although we’re “on top of the world,” we don’t know everything.
Though we may not think about it everyday, there’s a whole world of people who are not proud to be American, but rather, proud of their own nationality. Perhaps with an open mind and some cognizance of our place in the world, they’ll see us more clearly and understand why we’re proud to be us.
October 03, 2002