ARRIVEDERCI!

This week in my critical perspective communications class I learned of the negative European views on American culture and pop culture. I learned that the people at the famous Frankfurt School viewed culture and mass culture differently. Things such as real, imagination, active consumption, individual creation, and European fell under culture while false, distraction, passive consumption, mass production, and American fell under mass culture. I was able to relate this to the American film Inglorious Basterds during the climactic scene when Lt. Aldo Raine comes face to face with Col. Hans Landa. Raine is American and posing as an Italian film maker. He can't speak much Italian and is restricted to only the basic words such as gratzie and arrivederci. At this point you have already learned that Landa is German and very intelligent. He can speak many languages fluently and makes it obvious that Raine is not Italian through their conversation. I feel this scene makes the European look smart and dominant and the American as dumb and inferior. However, I feel that my point is summed up in the scene prior to this where the German actress Bridget von Hammersmark asks Raine, "Can you Americans speak any language other than English." Even though there are plenty of Americans that are highly intelligent and can speak many languages, it obvious there is a strong difference between the view of intelligence between American and European cultures.