One of my favorite TV shows is The Office so I decided to watch that for a couple hours today. I have seen many of the episodes before so I needed to pay close attention. The Office is a fake reality TV show, at times the characters will speak directly to the audience. One episode that I really made a note of when watching was "The Business Trip." It is an episode where The Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in a suburb called Scranton goes on a business trip to Canada. Michael (the boss) starts the show by explaining to his co workers that a select few of them are going on an International business trip to Canada. He then starts to talk about the differences in cultures. Michael says that in some cultures women do not show their face, and in other cultures it is polite to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. The first is somewhat true in certain cultures but the second is a health risk.
When they leave for the trip to Canada Michael brings two suitcases, one for clothes, and one for souvenirs. All of the men on this trip leave wearing nice suits and long jackets with a scarf. Each man has short hair and two or the three are white, one is Latino. They are flying to Canada and Michael sits in first class, he expects people to wait on him and bring him food. The other two men (Andy and Oscar) are in coach. When they get to the hotel they find out that there is a concierge. Michael explains to the audience that a concierge is like a geisha. The three Americans went to a bar in Canada to try to pick up people. Oscar is gay and since Andy is engaged he spends his time at the bar trying to hook Oscar up. Michael meets up with the concierge and they spend the night together.
When Michael was talking to the concierge at the bar he was speaking to her like she was foreign and she wouldn't understand what he was saying. He kept saying, "How you say...." Obviously this women lives in a culture very similar to the American culture and spoke English so she was able to understand and communicate with Michael.
According to The Office to be American means partying, having a good time, and being carefree. Although these men were on a business trip, there wasn't much business. Americans (according to this show) don't know a lot about other cultures and make a fool of themselves when they are in a different country. American also means having friends that look out for one another, people around to have fun with. I don't think this show accurately portrays American life. I think people know that most people in Canada speak English and have a similar lifestyle to our own. I think when people go on business trips they do a lot more work than was portrayed on this show. I think this show is fun to watch but there could be things changed to make it more accurate.
Do you think most TV shows accurately portray the American lifestyle?
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I really don't think most shows accurately portray the American lifestyle. Too often, the American lifestyle is glamorized, or the American lifestyle is seen as some upper-middle class daydream, not the real struggles that face Americans on a daily basis. I think this is primarily because people don't want to watch TV to see the horrors of reality, but because they want to escape reality. Even "Reality" TV shows aren't reality, but mere glimpses at most of what we deal with on a daily basis. As for sitcoms, there is nothing real about them, unless you are upper-middle class and everything in your daily life is a joke.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Matthew. Most television shows that I have ever watched do not portray the American lifestyle correctly. Most shows tend to show things about the American lifestyle that are not real, such on Grey's Anatomy, where sex is the main story line. After watching that show, one can only think that the nurses and doctors that help us at hospitals are sex - crazed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comments above, that American television shows do not present the real American lifestyle. It isn't as glamourous or witty, and it sure doesn't have a happy ending every time. Like Matthew said, television is a form of escapism. We want to see ourselves portrayed much more positively on the screen.
ReplyDeleteI think most television shows today like to stereotype the American lifestyle. They make Americans out to be these certain type of people and make their lifestyles to be so interesting when, in reality, nobody's lives are really like that. I think it provides good entertainment, but it is not necessarily true, and you cannot watch a show without understanding this concept.
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