Thursday, October 9, 2008

Creedence Clearwater Revival and Stereotyping

So far, I have been fascinated by how Australian culture is stereotyped in America. Just seeing how these have been proven/refuted has been truly entertaining. One of the easiest ways to stereotype a large nation is assume that there is a unified culture with only one set of traits throughout. Australia is not like this, from what I've heard, people are very different from region to region. Finally though, I began to see this type of stereotyping reversed.
I was partying with a group of local boys, chugging stubbies (that is definitely something that sounds dirty, but isn't) and they put on some Creedence Clearwater Revival. I love CCR; this was a quick bonding point for us, singing along, yelling phrases like "I love this f'ing song, mate." Then suddenly, something scary and unexpected happened: they locked arms and started line dancing.
Line dancing and Creedence, do not, can not, and should not go together. CCR is definitely a country twinged rock, but it is way to rockin', way to bluesy for line dancing. I wanted to explain the subtleties of the various regions of the United States, the differences between country and western, and which types of music necessitate, and most importantly, allow line dancing. I started explaining the history of CCR, how they are a bunch of boys from San Francisco, who, tiring of the hippy culture, pined for a simpler life of busking and sipping bootleg whiskey in the subtropical swamps and bayous of Louisiana. I think I was boring them though (as often happens when I get philosophical after a few beers). Instead, I just had to accept that they probably get the same muddled views of American culture as we do of Australian culture.

You just take a list of traits, lump them together into a prototypical example of something. I could spend much more time going over this psychological process and how it works, but I'll probably just bore you though (as often happens when I get philosophical after a few college courses). Instead I'll just leave you with the image of what I think the prototypical American is here.

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