Americans are so dramatic!

I had lunch with Loretta last week at a food court in town. On the wall of the dining area there was a television on with one of those awful afternoon talk shows, Dr. Phil, I believe it was. Loretta told me that she likes watching his show on the rare occasion that she gets to stay home on a workday.

As we are sitting there, some female guest of Dr. Phil was getting all emotional about something that was obviously very traumatic or important to her. There was no sound on, so we could only see the woman crying and getting all bent out of shape about something. Loretta watched this for a minute, then turned to me and stated "That is the problem with you Americans. You are so dramatic about everything."

"Huh?", I answered. "Where on earth did you get that idea?"
"Everything to you guys has to be dramatized. You can't every just sit down and talk rationally in a normal voice. You have to scream and yell and cry and try to talk over each other. Every little thing is made to be the biggest problem in the world. They are always having so-and-so sleeping with someone's wife or sister or mother. You guys are all insane."

So I'm sitting there looking at her. Here is an Italian woman telling me, Mr. 'raised as a Lutheran Norwegian', that we are emotional. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

"Um, Loretta. It is television. It is not real. They don't bother to film people to sit and talk normally because no one would watch it. Besides, I'm pretty sure that these guests make up half the crap, or are simply acting from script."

Loretta thought about it for a minute, and then agreed that I might be right. I asked her "I'm an American. Do you find that I act like those people?"

"No. You are different. I know you.", she answered.

"So what makes you think that we are all like that? Remember, there are 280 million of us."

"Well you all may not be like that. But that is the impression that world gets of you because of these shows."

I pointed out to Loretta that these shows are produced for American consumption. It is not our fault that an Australian TV network decided to buy and broadcast it for consumption here. If anything, the purchase of the show by overseas networks only serve to convince the producers that they are doing something right.

So there you have it. One the major causes of America's image problem throughout the world is Jerry Springer and other similar programs. When that is all they see, that is what they think we are really like. So next time an American gets ignored by a French waiter in Paris, they can thank Jerry Springer!