Week Three Blog Entry: Understanding how American Culture Looks to Outsiders

After watching the BBC comedy sketch where Hugh Laurie sang the “America” song, I gathered the British audience seemed to feel American culture looks self-centered and arrogant. Hugh Laurie belted out, in a perfect American accent, lyrics consisting only of “America” and “The States” as the British audience roared with laughter all the way to the end where another famous British actor came and punched Laurie (playing the American singer) in the gut. I confirmed my interpretation of the skit by reading the YouTube comments below. Comments like “all these pretentious patriotic songs from the US sound like that to me,” were rampant, and it seemed the consensus was Americans were a bunch of self-righteous jerks.

Although the sketch may have pointed out a truth – yes, we Americans do have many patriotic songs, all sounding similar enough – I feel there is a strong reason for those patriotic songs, and it has nothing to do with being self-centered or pretentious. The sketch did a good job of poking fun, just as Americans poke fun at the British from time to time, however, the YouTube comments took the suggestion of American culture one step further and exposed a larger truth of how America is perceived unfavorably by outsiders.