Friday, 11 June 2010

Really? Fascinating, fascinating. Please tell me more.

Yesterday I spoke to a friend about prejudice and what a strange thing it really is. (We also spoke about voices and dialects and how weird it is that a person's voice really can ruin the whole appearance. I'm might've said that David Beckham sounds like "a faggot", a word I never ever use. Ever. Sorry about that mr. Beckham! You do look really good in person, but please - for the love of god - keep your mouth shut!)

I told my friend how the English are perceived by other nationalities - pale so they only get farmer's tans and they all have big ears (well done there, Prince Charles). Then he said that they used to be seen as aristocrats (you know, those people with a bad smell under their nose) and of course I had to tell him that those days are gone and added that now people also see football-hooligans when they think of England. Come to think of it, I don't even see the English royal family like aristocrats. Sure, their Queen is just "too good" for us commoners, but I'm willing to bet almost everything I have (it's not that much though) that she puts on a football-jersey and roots for England with a beer, just like everyone else. "Run Rooney, you red-headed beep of a beep! Move your beep mother-beep beep from the beep side and for beep sake - ruuuun!"

Swedes on the other hand are apparently still seen as blonde chicks with big breasts. So England goes from aristocrats with "tea and crumpets" to football-hooligans and we still look like a bunch of Playboymodels. I'm not sure which is worse to be honest... Maybe this means that Swedes are already perfect so people don't have to change their opinions, or maybe all those blonde chicks with big breasts (yeah, they exist alright) should be forced to stay within the Swedish border. Preferably in a root cellar - mostly because I've always wanted to put someone in one, but apparently it's not legal to move people and keep them in a cellar if they don't agree to it. Damn you legal system!

Somehow I wonder how the prejudice started. I guess it's some form of fear of the unknown and if you tell yourself what people are like then you don't really have to meet them because you already know. It's a win-win! You don't have to talk or smell them and uhm well, that's it. (I sort of went back to 18th Century French aristocracy there. No idea why.)
Mostly I just blame the movies for it (even though I still claim that Eurotrip is an amazing documentary of everyday life in Europe). The Dutch take drugs and have sex with hookers, Germans are named Hanzel and Gretel and make hardcoreporn in a gingerbreadhouse then round of the evening with bratwurst and saurkraut, the English mostly communicates with grunts and yells, the Swiss look down on anyone with less than €20000 in cash in the wallet, the Italians mostly give people the finger, say "mama mia" and serve pasta and pizza, the French think their awesome, put down their guns every time there's a war and eat frogs and snails, the eastern European countries all live in poverty and misery and everything is grey, cold and covered in snow... You know, at times like these I'm so glad that I know all this - it saves me so much trouble with having to visit and interact with people. I'm so glad I'm not prejudice!

My friend also had a go at me for saying that I sometimes speak "American English". "There is no such thing as American English - it's the Queen's English! America's not even a country!"
So, in the Queen's English: "Mother-beep son of a beep!"

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