Who’s reality is it anyway? – The Case of the Missing America (and the damn lies)

So, this could be long, and it might actually even be a two parter, as I want to get back to Brighton soon. Unfortunately I want to start writing now. I had a wonderful new year…including Ska and Mountains and really enjoying being stranded in the middle of Wales with a bunch of people I barely knew. They were lovely and gave me potatoes and much inspiration. Even the massive amounts of drugs didn’t destabilise me too much. I remained cheery and harmonised. Wunderbar!

But that’s not the point.

So what is?

Shhh…I’m saving that for later.

So…I’ve been watching a lot of films lately, and having a lot of discussions with people about ‘the way America is’. In Britain a favourite phrase of most people is ‘only in America’. Every single person in Britain…just like everyone in the rest of the world, thinks that Americans are stupid, litigious and fat. There’s just no getting past it. It’s probably some kind of way of looking at America as being the naughty kid brother who doesn’t quite know how things work. Or something.

It’s perhaps worth noting that generally speaking, every American we ever meet, doesn’t live up to the stereotype so we think of them as being the only exception to the rule. People do this with all their stereotypes…we love stereotypes a lot. They help us understand the world….schema and all that jazz.

Anyway, there is this weird perception of America. A lot of it stemming from the fact that we feel like we know the place. This is because of films. We’ve all been to Hollywood a thousand times, we’ve all walked the streets of New York, plenty of us have even been to Seattle (I have actually been to Seattle, but I was a bit too young to appreciate it) and we’ve all been to ’small town America’, wherever that actually is, about a thousand times.

The problem is that we went to Hollywood with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, we went to New York with Johnny Five, or Bobby De Niro (who’s a lovely person). And we’ve never been to ‘Small town America’, because it’s probably a myth. There are small towns in America, but they have names and are specific not generic.

And this is (in record time) part of the point. You see, we haven’t been to any of these places. We’ve seen them in film a thousand and one times. In fact, we quite often haven’t seen them, as a lot of American city scenes are shot in Vancouver and Toronto because it’s cheaper (or something). But we believe the lies. We think we know everything there is to know about America from the actions of its (either idiotic or horny) leaders, the few scraps of ‘and finally’ news we get about men with giant asses or burgers or selling their livers to buy diamond encrusted bikinis for their overweight cats or something.

So, I made that up, but that and cinema (and of course the TV that comes over) are how we build up our world view.

The World’s view of America is mostly a media construct. Sure, sometimes it hits the button, but mostly I reckon America ain’t like it is on Friends. I just don’t reckon you lot could actually be that tediously ‘witty’ all the fucking time.

Not the point though. Let us get back to what initially sparked this thought. Well, there’s two things, but lets go to point number one…which has been festering in my brain for a looong time.

The American High School.

Now, I regularly have discussions with people about how the British Educational system, for all its faults, is much better than the American one. Now, in terms of levels of education achieved, this may or may not be true. I am however thinking of the social structure of the school. The internal dynamic.

In my experience, British schools, as you’d expect, have different groups of friends always trying to have their own fun in their own way. There’s bullying and mean-ness, of course…these are kids after all, but overall its just people trying to have fun in a place they don’t enjoy being in, and then there’s a few people trying to learn (politely called losers..or boffs….I was in this group right until the end when I discovered weed and joined the….lets sneak out and go get high crowd). Anyway, none of these groups were in any way clearly defined. I actually (by the end of my career) got on with most people in my year, and even a few people in other years. Weed bought me out of my shell a bit and I started on the road to being the friendly (and insane) person that I am today.

Most people will be your friend if you just have a nice chat with them. Listen and smile.

Not the point.

The point is…that American high school seems to have this deeply codified set of rituals. Spring Flings (and Spring Break), Prom, a whole load of dances like that, the Hallowe’en rituals, the Prom Queen and Class President Campaigns, Yearbook, Glee Club, Debate team and whole loads of bullshit like that.

Also, the groups seem to be much more defined and identifiable. From the Jocks and the Cheerleaders to the Geeks and the Nerds. Then the little sub groups. There’s all of the socialised bulimia and the angsty kids who turn out to just have a rough home life (Viva Judd Nelson). There’s all of these things that seem to go on and have their rules. If they didn’t then how could they appear in so many films and TV shows. The whole thing seems to be built around a set of rules.

The problem with that analysis is of course that this is exactly how the media works. Stereotypes and rules are needed as a quick way of adding background and depth to narratives. If you say someone’s a Jock, then you don’t have to work hard to give that person a whole character (albeit a shallow one). He can instantly become either the mean jock or the sensitive underneath jock. It’s stuff we all understand. We recognise it and so the writer/producer/whatever can just add to that basic layer and not have to faff around too much. With the current lust for fast cutting and high paced films, this is even more important.

This is just how it works. I mean, lets be realistic we all know this is how it works. Very few of us believe that we know what American schools are like….only…that’s a lie. We all think that we do. We’ve seen enough, and it’s become ingrained in our heads. We can’t get these ideas out…they’re stuck in there. Quite deep as well. It’s what we know. Now, probably my readers can tell me better than I can how accurate these things are…but that only works to the extent of a few peoples examples of the differences. The media lies about everything all the time.

I have no doubt that most Americans think that England is somewhere in the Dickensian era. Or maybe just about the Sixties. These are the most stable images that can be had.

And that’s the think…its stability…like persistence of vision makes us see separate frames as just one moving image once they’re moving fast enough. A media lie has to be persistent in order to fool us. A stable coherent image is necessary.

Never forget that it is all lies though. Just as clearly as I’m getting things wrong whilst I write, so every other media source has an angle and a need. They want to present something to you. Genres have become so established that you just toy with a formula. Life isn’t formula. Think about it before you make assumptions.

It’s possible that nothing is real…but anything you see on the magical boxes that fill our lives with images and ‘information’ and noises and stuff….none of that can even pretend to be real.

Remember this when you’re watching stuff.

So…as always..any questions? Also, anyone want to tell me what America is ‘really’ like. Am I wrong and is America actually ‘just like the movies’. I’d really like to know. ANd I’ll also tell you about my time as a chimney sweep, singing and dancing my way along the roof tops of London and speaking in my cheeky and yet unidentifiable accent.

Or whatever.

More to follow in an article (probably on Wednesday, when I’ll be at work again) about some of the more dramatically worrying effects of media lies.

Also, at some point…I intended do draw comparisons between media presentation of today and how it relates to older times. Where all we have is the literature that has survived…and we still assume a kind of accuracy to it.

Interesting…but I need to get on a train soon, so I’ll see you all later.

Love