this just caused an incensed somewhat outraged discussion in our house, because glahhhhh. it just feels like an insult when we're already so steeped in american culture.

I grew up with american television.  at a guess i'd say that 80% of shows on australian commercial television are american, with about 10% each of british and australian making up the whole.  it is a rare occassion that a 'foreign film' - australian or british - makes it into the cinema.  rarer still that many people see it.  only since lotr have american studios been putting the costume dramas into british accents.

i might not know the exact locations of each of american states to the other, but i know and understand perfectly a whole range of american accents.  i was boggled when american visitors came here and couldn't understand my very low-key australian accent.  i grew up with sesame street and so adopted a bunch of americanisms from there - "zee" instead of "zed" is one.  my spellchecker on my computer doesn't have an english option other than 'american english', and so there are always little squiggly lines when i type 'realise' or 'colour'.

someone asked if people outside the US found american accents sexy.  the answer is: most definitely not.  most of the time i find them brash and offensive.  the american accent for me isn't exotic the same way my australian accent seems to be for a bunch of americans.  the american accent grates on my nerves and reminds me of the aggressiveness of the american culture and media into australia's culture, makes me bitter to think of how clingy and fawning australia seems to be towards american culture, reminds me of the attitudes of close-mindedness or superiority to other cultures, and the pseudo-sincerity and somewhat pitiful, disdainful air i get from the american media and american people i'm exposed to via the media.

and often by fic, which is a main part of the reason that drop_the_u makes me gnash my teeth so.  i get offended the way that american writers so frequently come across as unwilling to research into other cultures and mannerisms when they're writing characters from other cultures, with mannerisms other than american.  more than that, it's not so much that i'm offended by the decision of an american writer not to use, say, britishisms when writing a british character, but the fact that sometimes it doesn't even seem that the writer is aware that there's a culture other than their own.  i mean, i can understand that interpersonal relationships between characters of different cultures are often a difficult thing to perceive and grasp (for example, the disgusting, abject, ridiculous humour of the british vs. the cynicism of american sense of humour; or america's uber-sincerity vs. australia's heavy reliance on sarcasm), but when dom thinks back to when his mom gives him a quarter to go to the corner store?  that just really gets on my nerves.  because the author knows that part of dom's childhood was in germany, and dom's family is actually british.  do these american authors just not realise that there is an actual difference in both physical fact (eg. a quarter vs. a pound) and phrase and culture surrounding it?  mom is not mum.  the things from your childhood, the dialogue phrases you use every day, would not exist for people in other cultures. people who you are supposedly meant to be writing convincingly.  there's nothing that jerks me sickeningly out of a fic more than realising that an author has written this story while thinking of these british, scottish, or australian characters with an american accent, conjuring up american histories for them.

i guess i'm sick both of the way that in australian culture, anyway, american culture is elevated to the status that it's above australian culture, or all other culture, something which it perpetuates itself.  i'm not saying i hate america.  i just can't stand the way american culture portrays and considers itself superior to all other cultures, to the point where it considers all other cultures dismissable.


er... disclaimer: i'm not trying to attack any americans reading this; i know that not all americans are stupid and close-minded and i know there are stupid and close-minded people in australian society too.  none of this has been written deliberately to cause offense; the things i've stated above do have a basis in reality for both me and many of my non-american peers.  just calling it as i'm seeing it, folks.

also, i can't express how much joy this comment has given me.