Politics Does this represent reality?

[cathjs47]

In Australia, we have a group of comedians who publish (or used to - now it's mainly web-based) a satirical newspaper called 'The Chaser' - it's pretty much the equivalent of 'The Onion' in the US. Anyway, these same guys also occassionally do TV specials which are similar to the paper they publish - they just take current events and present them in a satirical way. They're pretty funny.

They've been repeating one of their shows, 'CNNNN' recently on late night television. Anyway, I was watching it the other night and they presented a particularly funny segment, relating to Americans... I just need to know if Americans are actually like this, or if they just happened to chose a particularly daft group.

They wandered around the streets of some city in the US (I'm not sure which one), interviewing people about who they thought should be invaded next in the 'War on Terror'. People gave all sorts of responses, from perhaps reasonable (if you consider the War on Terror reasonable at all - for a different thread) answers like 'North Korea' and some Middle-Eastern countries, but some of the answers were ridiculous - like Italy, Jamaica and Cuba. So, some people obviously have no idea. But the funniest part is yet to come...

When one person responded 'North Korea', the Chaser guys presented them with a world map, and asked them to point to where North Korea was. So this guy studies this map for a long time, eventually finds North Korea and puts a pin in it. He then proceeds to exclaim just how much bigger North Korea is than South Korea, and also how far away the two are... The joke is that the Chaser guys have switched around the country names on the map, and what is labelled as 'North Korea' is actually Australia, and what is labelled as 'South Korea' is actually Tasmania (the small Australian State that sits off our south coast).

ARE AMERICAN'S REALLY THAT SILLY???

For anyone who is interested, you can watch the Chaser News Updates here (just go to the Chaser News Updates link - about half way down the page). Also: you might be able to access the clip I've (poorly) described above here. Hopefully it will work, but I can't be sure. They're both worth a watch - they're hysterically funny!

 

[Ophelia]

I saw this on another site, and saw the video. If this doesn't convince people of the need to deal squarely once and for all with the problems in the public schools in this country, I don't know what will. Positively embarrassing.

 

[Jamison]

While this might be exaggerated a bit for TV, there are DEFINITELY people like that in the US. Just watch "Jay Walking" on The Tonight Show and you'll see what I mean.

I have a friend who last summer who didn't know who the candidates in the election were (minus Bush...she's a Bush supporter). She thought that it was Sadaam who attacked us on September 11th and that we found a huge stockpile of weapons in Iraq (I can't even talk to her about anything current in the world). It's absolutely insane how clueless/out of touch some people can be.

 

[Moonlite Star]

I agree. While not everyone is that ignorant of the world, there are people who only know those around them and nothing else.

Some people rarely participate in politics and thus, they have no clue what's going on.

Public schools also can be a part of this...as some graduates graduate with misconceptions of things or don't even really learn anything...

Sad...

I once saw a clipping about these group of people who went to interview Harvard Graduates about why the earth has seasons and why the moon appeared in different stages at different times in the month.

A large percentage of the graduates were unable to provide the correct response.

They then went to interview middle school students--same results. Even the brightest kid had her own BIZARRE theory of the Earth's orbit.

Funny, but sad to watch.

 

[the_alliance]

it's quite sad really how out of touch many Americans are with what's going on. in the cities and the coast is generally where people are more fast-paced and ahead. inland, they tend to live simpler lives (simple not stupid) but they can seem at times out of the loop on certain issues. keep in mind, this is a gross generalization, but this is part of the reason why the nation remains torn between Democrats and Republicans, but that's another discussion for another thread.

i personally love The Onion. one of their articles was titled: White House Denies Existance of Karl Rove.

 

[cathjs47]

i personally love The Onion. one of their articles was titled: White House Denies Existance of Karl Rove.

The Onion is the best thing ever, and unfortunately the Chaser just doesn't compare. Although this might have something to do with the nature of American society - for example, Australian Idol is way less funny than American Idol, and Australian Survivor was the worst show ever, whereas I'm quite a fan of the American one... There's less going on in Australia, so there's less for them to make jokes about. I just think we take ourselves far less seriously than the US - there seems to be a huge culture of blind patriotism over there, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. It's good to respect your country of course, but not blindly. Given that, we certainly have our fair share of idiots and rednecks!!!

 

[Hibou]

Sad thing is, some of us are that bad =(

 

[Tuga]

I think that's the image they want us to have of the American people.
Yeah, I believe some Americans are like that... but I don't think that happens just in America, it's the same thing in Europe or Autralia... etc. There are people like that everywhere.
At least the make us laugh

The other day there was this guy saying that Peru was in Africa. It's just... you know... duhhh!